SEED has a fleet of drivers and several very nice cars.  Since Accra traffic is rather difficult to negotiate, they have sternly requested that we not drive ourselves anywhere, especially on company business. I doubt I could do it here anyway.  Our drivers are masterful.  Negotiating an intersection is an artistic blend of forcefulness and courtesy that I will never understand.  Everyone bunches up in the intersection until someone yields or waves another in.  Someone has the right away, but I haven’t completely figured out who has it when.  Lane divisions are merely a suggestion, and the nicer your car is, the more you’ll get squeezed.  Tro-tros are the worst.  These battle-scarred vans move where they want to, and as their quarter panels will indicate, it often requires a bit of force.

Your average, every day tro-tro (public bus). Trading paint and sheet metal is all in a day’s work

Accra has all the standard  challenges of city streets, and a few more, like the gutters.  These are nicely tiled cement troughs about a foot wide by two feet deep.  If you trip into one, your tibia is toast.  If your car does this, an axle meets the same fate.  Pedestrians are also quite brave, although I cannot understand why.  They move in, out, and around obstructions, with apparent  trust that drivers will make allowance.  The hawkers are even more fearless, completing several negotiation and sales transactions within one cycle of a stoplight.

Some friends I made next to their car-eating gutter

Red light. Time to sell!

I am slowly appreciating what the workday is like for our drivers.  Hours of boredom (waiting for us) punctuated by minutes of anxiety (bringing us safely to our destinations on time).  Like any outdoor activity in Accra, it is a sweltering way to make a living.  Kicked back in your car with the engine running and A/C on is just not acceptable – not at these fuel prices.  Find a hunk of shade and settle in for the long haul.  Our meetings are not short.  They don’t often start on time and anything substantive like visioning or supply chain modeling will consume a whole day.  Our guys are stoic and cheerfully patient throughout.

These gentlemen are also my unofficial Twi language instructors.  I only wish they had a better student.  Months into this thing and I’m still fumbling with opening formalities.  I’m discovering that this is a difficult age to learn a language.  Those nice, pliable synapses have hardened to the point where neural rewiring is useless.  I have to plunge right in and blurt something out.  Whether it’s a perfectly intoned “how are your wife and children?” or “did I light your cat on fire?” I’d never know.  Ghanaians always chuckle when this obroni says anything in their native language.

Tony Aidoo – driver extraordinaire

Dodoo is my main Twi instructor. He’s very good. It’s not his fault I’m so bad

Annan always has a smile. Or he finds my Twi very humorous.