traveling (and why i avoid it)

i'll just be honest.  i hate having to travel in ghana.  many volunteers love it, or at least endure it, to see all the things and people they want to see, but i have become a real homebody since i arrived here.  

traveling is complicated, dirty, uncomfortable, and exhausting.

for instance, i was just in kumasi this week for a meeting.  i traveled with my friend elyse.  

on our trip south, we were thrilled that we managed to get on a metro bus at 7am that left within minutes of our arrival.  this never happens.  let me repeat:  this NEVER happens.  usually, to travel on a metro bus (among the safest and most reliable bus lines, though last month a metro bus accident killed 19 people), you have to buy your ticket a day in advance.  then the day you are traveling, you show up at the reporting time or within an hour or so after it, and you sit a while.  then they start loading the goats and suitcases under the bus.  eventually you get on board, sit a while more in the insulated miserable heat of a parked bus, and eventually get going at some point.  

for us here in wa, the metro trip averages seven hours to kumasi.  metro buses are created to be efficient.  instead of american-style four seats across, they have five seats across, so the seats are narrow enough that not all passengers can sit back in their seats at the same time; they have to sort of alternate leaning forward and back.  and in ghana all of the seats are sold on all buses.  there's no stretching out across multiple seats.  in fact, on some journeys, they sell tickets for standing in the aisle, even for an 8 hour dirt road journey.  

anyway.  so our trip was so simple and smooth.  the only two minor complaints we had were that it was raining and started leaking in a window, but we managed with that.  and then there was the minor accident we were involved in.  i'm not sure whether we hit the taxi that was tipped into the gutter or whether we hit a curb trying to avoid that taxi, but we swerved and thudded a couple times.  when we stopped, we all stuck our heads out the windows to see the damage.  the driver got out, looked around, urinated off the side of the road, and got back on and started the bus again.  so it must not have been too bad.

now.  coming back, we tried the only other option available to those traveling from kumasi to wa.  other than the metro bus, you can go to a station called racecourse and test your luck there.  any connotations that "racecourse" might have, such as speed or efficiency, or even paved roads are WRONG.  racecourse is a muddy maze of old buses and vans.  i think we have now identified at least three separate wa "stations" within this one station.  none of them work together.  basically you walk up to one, some pushy men insist you buy their ticket, you weigh your other options (none), and buy.  today we got a fast car.  again, the term "fast car" was somewhat misleading.  don't get me wrong: the car (mini-bus) did drive FAST (frighteningly so at times), but that only started after we waited the four hours for all 14 tickets to sell.  because, again, you DO NOT ever leave a station with a seat unsold, even if it means a whole busload of people waiting an additional two hours to sell one ticket, you just don't.  

another point worth mentioning about travel in ghana is children's fares.  if your child can sit in your lap, you don't need a separate ticket.  so today, a ten year old girl sat on her dad's lap for the entire six hour trip.  on the way down, i was seated next to a lady with two big toddlers.  needless to say, there is no such thing as personal space.

on the wa-kumasi trip, we usually make several stops.  we of course stop every couple hours for people to urinate (just line up in the grass on the side of the bus), and there is one long rest stop halfway in a town called bomboi.  this is my favorite; it is our ghanaian equivalent of a truckstop.  all wa-kumasi buses stop here, so the entire town's economy seems to be built upon the eggs, bread, and pure water sold from women and children's heads.  we can also get many delicious ghanaian snack foods, such as fried yams, fanice, biscuits, egg sandwiches, bananas, or whatever else.  but after our snack and stretch break, its time to cram ourselves back into our bus for the next few hours.  

so for the return journey, we left for the station at 6am; i finally got home at 4:30pm.  

i immediately took a shower and crawled into bed.