Tro-tro bourgeoisie

Trip Start Mar 27, 2008

Trip End Oct 01, 2008

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Flag of Ghana Cape Coast, Ghana
Monday, June 9, 2008

The new interns certainly arrived at the wrong time. All the management staff and the public education department at CHRAJ was away in Accra all week on a seminar, which extended into the next week albeit unexpectedly, and Sossah had a 3 day meeting he was also attending in Accra. So after almost a week of coming into the office, and looking to me to keep them busy I finally began to lose it. Since our marketing and distribution coordinator for Youth Alive! had decided to take a 1 month leave of absence, or quit, we had empty positions available on the team. While they are all university students with little or no experience, they do have a lot of energy and want to work. This energy is hard to come by, and not really present in the Ghanaian volunteers. So after consulting with Sossah and Isaac, we offered the three of them the opportunity to work on the marketing, advertising and distribution of Youth Alive!, respectively. But this now means that this team has joined with Production, so my team has gotten bigger as well as my workload

My sweet new shoes

.

Things were also changing in the house last week. Sammy, Bala, Erin and Tetteh finally moved out, and preparations began for the housing of 15 Americans from the University of South Carolina for the Youth Camp Week. So Alex has moved into my room, and I'm having to hide my shampoo and toothpaste, so it doesn't get ransacked by those who arrive unprepared. I'm not sure whether this week will be really fun or just a pain. I have a feeling it will be the latter as the trip is supposed to be dry, as all of the students are under 21. Marc has some friends in from Quebec visiting for the week, so I may tag along with him if the South Carolinians get too much.

This past weekend Marc and I went to Accra to unwind. After spending the entire week covering for my boss at CHRAJ for the nursing lectures, and for Sossah with the new interns, I decided I needed to get out of Cape Coast. We hopped on the Ford van midday Friday and made our way to Accra. All was going well until smoke started pouring out of the bus's air conditioning system and driver pulled over on the hard shoulder. A collective sigh was exhaled by the passengers, and the men jumped out of vehicle to relieve themselves by the roadside. While the driver poked around the bonnet, Marc and I passed the time by exchanging our celeb spotting stories. I do have the competitive edge being from NYC, but I have to say Marc had some pretty funny stories from his time in Montreal and Quebec City.

After about 20 mins it became apparent that the driver did not know what was wrong with the van, and he did not know how to fix it

Marc annoyed that our van broke down

. So we joined the Ghanaians who were lining up by the roadside, trying to flag down empty tro-tros. After 40 mins of unproductive handwaving, and no vehicles stopped, I looked at Marc and asked, 'So what do you want to do?'. He said there was one thing he had learned while living in Senegal- 'Don't think you're smarter than the locals'. I asked him what he meant and he said that if the Ghanaians didn't look worried, then we shouldn't be. We should stick with them because they would get to Accra one way or another, and probably faster than us on our own. And Marc was right. About 10 mins later a half empty tro-tro pulled up and all the Ford van passengers piled on. One of the fellow passangers told the mate that our driver would cover the fares for all of us, and that's exactly what happened. The Ford driver forked over the money to the mate and I shot a look of disbelief at Marc. He just shrugged, and off we went towards Accra.

As I looked around the bus, there seemed to be a marked difference in the passengers who had been on the tro-tro and those who had been on the Ford van. All of the latter group were well dressed, and had an air of superiority about them, while the former seemed to be of more humble means . A group of the young smartly dressed men then started into a heated discussion about the cost and effectiveness of the educational system in Ghana, and it was then that Marc started singing under his breath, 'J'aime le bourgeoisie'

Awesome sign

. And it fit the moment perfectly. We were surrounded by, and were ourselves what can be best described as 'tro-tro bourgeoisie'.

How do you know whether you are part of this group you may ask? Well you know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you debate about higher education while on a tro-tro. You know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you go to Koala supermarket in the expat district of Accra and spend $50 on groceries and then tro-tro home, and you know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you read the Daily Graphic the BBC Focus on Africa while in a tro-tro, etc. etc. etc. Marc and I felt this fit us perfectly. Here we were in Kaneshie market shouting into a crowd of tro-tro drivers for the right one that would take us to Canadian diplomat's house because we were too cheap to take a drop taxi. But we very happily went out for dinner that night and spent far more than what the cost of the taxi would have been.

Needless to say the weekend in Accra with Gislain was fab. We ate great food, and drank way too much red wine, and had a great time. I met another one of Marc's friends, Olivier, who is a freelance photographer, and that completed the triumvirate of French Canadians in my life. Ahh you can take the girl out of Quebec, but not Quebec out of the girl I suppose.