good thing i was born to walk...

hey there. so my computer troubles continue, but i think i may see a light at the end of the tunnel, because a man i interviewed this morning from the communist party just so happens to have an extra laptop he offered to lend me...fingers crossed it comes through. i always knew i was a commie somewhere deep inside of myself.

so the weekend travel consisted of a day trip to the botanical gardens in a quiet little mountain town, an arduous transportation adventure and a pretty lil water fall (although after iguazu falls i don't think any other water fall can quite win my approval). we left about 8am with a short stop at the botannical gardens and finally arrived at the falls around 4pm. there was a handmade sign on the path instructing us to call a certain o.b. something or other before entering. of course we did as instructed. he or some of his guys arrived about 5 minutes later charging us 10 cedi to walk us down a 10-minute path ridden with the largest scorpions i have seen in my life (i was grateful for o.b.'s protection in the end). our quick jaunt took us to the nice little trickly known as Asenema falls...we never quite figured out if o.b. and his guys were actually formally employed by the government or whomever "owns" the falls or if they are just some local entrepreneurs aware of how to make a quick dollar or two. either way, good for them.

the nature excursion was pleasant enough even with the 7 tro tros we ended up taking over the span of 6 hours or so in actual transport that it took us to get to the falls. the real butt of the joke was that we only had to take one tro-tro back into accra and it took less than 2 hours...we definitely didn't take the most direct route to arrive at the falls apparently, but no big deal - it was a lot of fun.

sunday night, i moved to my new house. i have my own room and some new roommates: an 18-year old canadian boy, 2 just-out-of high school girls from scotland, as well as several local kids that have been taken in. i like it so far. mostly, i am just grateful for running water and a flushing toilet. i could, however, do without the insane traffic to get into accra.

monday morning i was supposed to be out at the university by 9am. i woke at 5:30am to eat breakfast and get out the door and on the road by 6:30 am...everything went accordingly, but by 8am i had just gotten into a tro-tro and was sittng less than a mile from my house. i finally arrived at the university by 10:30am. the problem is that there is only one route to and around accra and this road has about a 15-ft patch of potholes as a result of the rain. this nice little piece of road has caused the worst traffic on a daily basis than i have ever, i seriously mean ever, seen in my life. time in transportation: 4 hours.

i finished up at the university in just over an hour, but because my phone was dying decided to run home quick to charge it and have a coffee before heading back into the city for an afternoon interview with the editor of a local newspaper. i got home to my charger to find out that the power was out. guess i probably would have been just as well off had i not gone home to charge it in the first place :( but i decided to have my coffee at a little place overlooking the ocean before heading into the office anyway.

about half way through my ride back into accra, my tummy started to grumble. it seemed i might finally be coming down with the infamous "travelers diarrhea" that i had somehow, up until this point, managed to avoid. i did all i could to ignore it and focus on the questions i was going to ask before arriving at the station. in the end, the total time in transportation home from the university and back into accra: 2 hours.

the interview went really well with the exception of the bathroom emergency in the middle, and i was excited about the idea of getting home early. however, it is really hard to get a tro to my part of the city (teshie/nungua) because the tro tros don't like sitting in traffic either and it is not economically sensical to go that way when there are alternative destinations people are trying to reach. and because i find it absolutely uncivilized the way that people push, grab, yell, and fight to get into the tros tros, i decided to take a tro to a station a little out of the way, because i know they form nice little neat lines to get people on the tro tro...this was probably my biggest mistake of the evening.

i arrived at "37" station to find a line that easily could have wrapped an entire city block had there been one. there didn't seem to be any vans coming in and those that did were quickly filled with passengers willing to bribe some big scary-looking man that seemed to be able to strong-arm people in and out of seats. (aside note: ghana just made the list of countries with high levels of petty bribary according to Transparency International's June 2009 report - and i saw it in action). well, i waited in line for about an hour before finally getting a tro. i kept thinking of the mosquitos biting my ankles and how my afternoon interview may not have been worth catching milaria...i guess it was just plain stupid to think a) that i could out-smart traffic more than the average ghanaian and b). that the traffic would be a little lighter by 7:30pm, because it proceeded to take another 2 hours to get from the station home. total from the time i left the city to the time i arrived home: 4 hours.

this means i spent 10 hours on and/or waiting for transportation yesterday. the actual travel in normal conditions with light traffic could not ahve been more than 2 hours. all of this delay seems to be the byproduct of one tiny spot in a gravel road that is in dire need of pavement...it is quite frustrating...and at one point on the way home, i thought i was going to have a panic attack. from now on, i am walking.

this morning, i was supposed to be in the city by 11am. i left around 9am, took the tro on the non-traffic parts of the route and walked about 45 minutes in the middle. i made it to the city in less than 2 hours...it seems i just might have found the loophole and this is what i shall be doing from now on. this of course and eating lots and lots of ghanaian chocolate bars as walking fuel :)