Public transportation and traffic.

Yes, public transportation exists here and I can even say it’s not that bad;). Being in capital of Ghana I have full picture how things look like when it comes to traveling. This note, hopefully, will bring you closer reality of passenger in Ghana.

I won’t mention in this note trains and planes. Trains I have only seen 2 while being here. They go to near towns, also from unchecked information I know that you can’t get to Kumasi or Tamala by train (1^st about 150km from Accra, second over 500km). Line is being built or repaired currently. Trains I saw are not electric I suppose these are oil fueled ones. They carried passengers only – haven’t seen cargo/goods ones. As about planes – what to write about them;) nothing interesting acctualy – maybe that you can get from Accra to Tamala by plane (about 40 minutes). Ok, let’s move to more interesting things: Tro-Tro and taxies.

Definition:

Taxi – any car with yellow plates and yellow marks (4 or more parts of car’s body are yellow) . Will often use horn at you asking if you need it, or make some strange gestures with one hand towards everyone looking for potential customer. Will use any possibility to pass you, including driving off road or making new short cuts while transporting passenger and will use turtle speed when looking for one.

Tro – Tro: small bus, usually made from any kind of mid – sized delivery car (like Mercedes Benz in example). Consist of driver and one more men who shouts directions where bus is going, collects money for tickets and fights for better place on the street (with similar gestures like taxi drivers). You can find Tro – Tro EVERYWHERE in Accra and Ghana.

Taxi/Bus stop: any place you are when you decide to ask taxi or tro-tro to stop.

Ok, being here almost three months I have learned a lot about traffic here in Ghana. I even started driving on my own recently (did it just couple on times, during weekends when traffic is not that heavy). Driving in Ghana requires, except driving license (which not every1 has), working horn and front lights. Horn you use to inform someone that you are overtaking him or when you are approaching turn on a road where you can see what’s behind it (this saved us couple of times from getting into nice car crash), also to make someone drive faster; to inform bikers that you are coming/passing and finally you horn on pedestrians walking on the street to prevent them from crossing or make them move to side (I bet this are not all ways of using horn but this I have learned from our driver Ben). Lights you use to tell someone you will let him go before you (so far that’s the only use I know of).

Driving here requires extreme caution since every moment you might have to press breaks when taxi or tro-tro or any other car decides he has enough space to get before you. Than someone might decide to stop right now and right there – believe me this happens here a lot. Also many cars here look really bad, I bet many, many of them should be in the junk yard for a long time. When seeing one of these you begin to think if it’s safe to approach it;/ Also drivers here tend to go as fast as they can whenever there is free road ahead. This all causes many accidents (I have seen quite a few personally).

So how about getting a taxi;) feel brave enough? Despite all I wrote above it’s not that bad, somehow ppl manage to get around Accra and other places in Ghana. Taxi drives and bus drivers are most experienced ones (taxis being safer in my opinion – buses take sometimes too many pplz which causes accidents too). Every moment while being on the street you have 95% of seeing taxi or bus or both. There are so many here! Feel interested – raise your hand – they will notice it and stop for sure. With taxi it’s simple – just say where you want to go, ask about price (always ask first, before deciding to go) – you can bargain about it too, and enjoy your ride. When it comes to tro-tro it’s more complicated. Each bus usually goes from one point to other – second person working on each bus will shout most of times direction where bus is going, so generally you will know if you can use this one, or just have to wait for another one. Mind that bus will sometimes stop and wait for more passengers on big junction and will stop any time there will be someone interested to get in or get out (yes you can ask driver to stop any moment and get out).

Is there anything else you might want to know, maybe prices? Bus is usually cheap – from 300-500 Cedis to maybe 5000 while talking about inside town distances (price depends on distance, getting to other town can be 20 000 or more), taxi costs more – be prepared for prices over 10 000 to maybe 30 000 Cedis (can be less I guess if you are trying to get somewhere close).

Side notes:

In Accra there is number of places where many busses end/start their routes, you can find there, I guess, hundreds of buses; same about taxi – they also park in several places while not going around, you can see many, many of them waiting for customers. During that time drivers eat, rest or fix their cars;) when there are enough clients they just go. Simple isn’t it?

Another interesting thing is that when car breaks it will stop whenever it is in that moment and stay there until fixed. Imagine how many traffic problem this can cause – and since like I wrote many cars here are old… such things happen really often.

Sometimes when you pay taxi driver first thing he will do is go to a gas station and get some fuel so he can take you where you wanted;)

Many buses or tro-tro have words of quotes on their back window – sometimes it’s just something like “respect”, other time it will be full quote from the Bible or Koran (when driver is Muslim).

New house search

Recently it turned out we will probably have to change house from February 2007. Because of that I started search of new house which we would be able to rent.

First of all I’m surprised how many houses “to let” are here in Accra. This not only means we will get something nice for good price, but also that we can choose from many possibilities.

What are we looking for? That was first question we had to answer. I think that 3 bedroom house on a big plot will be sufficient. Anyway being lazy person I started search for our new house in internet. First page I found was: www.businessghana.com Funny thing is I spotted address of this site on a sticker placed on a taxi’s bumper (actually I got several other useful addresses that way;) ).

After checking offers placed on this site it turned out that you can get nice house 3-bedroom house with big plot for somewhere between 300 – 400$ per month (it’s worth mentioning that in Ghana you have to pay in advance – usually for whole renting period, so whole 1, 2, 3 years or whatever long you feel you would like to rent particular house).

Houses come in different conditions. You can get just built one, with plain walls and no windows, normal – ready to move in home, or fully furniture manor;) Being curious person I checked also most expensive offers which go for lots of money!

Here are some links where you can check prices, read descriptions and watch photos (mind that 1$ = 9300 Cedi):

House 1

House 2

House 3

House 4

Hopefully this gives some picture of how things look like here:)

Here are some important things, to remember when renting house in Ghana:

1. Ask about water and electricity supply (remember well and water tank at our current place?)
2. Check condition of the road and sewers so you don’t get flooded by filth when rain will come.
3. If you are planning to get internet connection call first few providers asking for coverage in this area.

More or less that would be all – I will update you with pictures of houses we will check on our search for new house!

Ghana note 1

Since I’m busy with work and can’t spend enough time on writing nice new note, I decided to introduce “Ghana note”. What it will be? It’s simple, I will pick few facts, observations, opinions or anything other I find interesting and post it + I will add couple of pictures I took recently:)

So here it goes – Ghana note 1.

Last weekend we had time change – at least for most of countries in the world. Ghana does not have season time change. No matter what time of year sun rises around 6 am and goes down 6 pm. Why bother changing time? Anyway thanks to that there is now only 1 hour difference between Poland and Ghana!

Two weeks ago we did examination of our blood – it turned out we had malaria bacteria in our blood. Looks like it’s not a big deal here at all. We did not feel ill or something, also doc said it’s common for foreigners to get malaria from mosquitoes. He gave us pills which cleared our blood out of malaria bacteria in 4 days. Now we are again ready for new mosquito’s bites!

Third and last fact. Everywhere on the streets you can find ppl selling illegal dvd’s. They have latest movies as well as bigger collections (7 in 1 DVD) of classic movies – recently I have seen best of Al Pacino (just an example). What is interesting too, ppl here love martial arts action movies – Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan are most popular I guess;) You can buy movies with them almost from every movie seller!