Osei Duro

Tro-Tros and Gifts

Each day in Ghana brings a new gift. Satuday’s was particularly enjoyable, and was witnessed vis a vis a tro-tro window amidst a traffic jam upon entering greater Accra. A tro-tro is a small minivan that has been converted into a sort of bus with extra seats and all kinds of decorations and words such as “still, my lord saves” printed on the back window. If you, my dear reader feel I am writing particularly flowery, full of excessive modifiers and fragments, it is becuase I am beginning to speak, and write like a Ghanaian, a mix of West African tribal languages such as Twi and Ga, so full of deep sounds and laughter, words stopping short of the final mouth movements we use to complete English, creating round mouths that bring forth sounds from the throat go beyond that the stomach, sounds I didn’t know I could make, language  blended with a version of old English that creates an ever melodious rhythm.

 

So Saturday afternoon on the tro-tro, about four o’clock, the sun begining to set in the West, creating shadows and and intensifying the effects of ocean breezes. But lest I sound romantic here, it was not, for traffic jams in Accra are common, as the infrastucture to suit the growing number of new vhicles on the roads is lacking. Traffic jams are hot and dusty affairs, often smelly and always sweaty, the dust sticking to the sweat on your arms and face, under your fingernails and toes. Though these tro-tro jams can be tedious if one is grumpy, in a hurry, or not fully adjusted to African time, they can also be a particularly good vantage point for shopping; there is always a good selection of plantain chips, frozen yoghurt, pure water sachets, and if you are lucky fruit such as imported apples and grapes from South Africa, meat pastries, giant fried doughnut-like balls, phone cards, boiled eggs, and sometimes, depending on the location: toilet paper, electrical cords, butter bread (a fancy word for wonderbread like bread) and any other sort of sundry one might desire well imobile and cranky.

 

Saturday’s gift came in the form of a giant flatbed truck, about six feet wide and twenty feet long, full of policemen. Before I saw the truck I could hear it, as sounds of loud singing and clapping could be heard over the engines and beep-beeps of the tro-tros. The police were singing loud and clear, dancing, and clapping along to the drum, which was hiding somewhere behind the canvas that coverd the truck. It was hilarious. Never in Canada would I see such a spectacle, and it made me happy to know that in Ghana, I will see something at least once a day that will make me laugh aloud and be so happy to be here.

 

The tro-tro is also an excellent place to people watch without the usual attention that is paid to foreigners with light skin.  Today a smile came to me as a watched a girl about 14 years old casually leaning against a rail with a jar of jawbreakers resting atop her head. As I smiled I noticed the dude next to her with a flashy single black and red Nike shoe perched atop his dome. In his hands he held many pairs of shoes, and the shoe on his head was a convienent was of advertising his wares. I have also seen students strolling down the streets with a single notebook balanced on their heads, but that is another story.