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So this is Africa.
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Young girl travels alone on flight to Africa. Touches down in pitch black darkness. Experience two hours prior of toilets being emptied right next to her seat whilst stopping over in Lagos, an outpost of safety and humanity in itself.
Well maybe I should have been scared. Instead I was quite overcome with the friendliness of the country before I'd even arrived. On our half-empty flight I befriended the only other passenger on my row, a Ghananian gentleman now living and working in Paris (quite strongly resembling Patrick from Eastenders, might I add!), returning home to visit his family. Quite excited about it he was too... he spent several hours telling me stories of Ghana, how different it was to France, what his family do, and how I could come and stay with them in Accra if I had nowhere to go.
The conversation managed to distract me from my fears of crashing in the Sahara and being abandoned there anyway! Instead, I perched myself in window seats in first class while most other passengers were sleeping and just stared out of the window at pure sand that went on for miles.
Literally, the very first second in Africa was a complete shock. You look out the window and think, oh its dark, it'll be quite chilly... nope, roasting, and just sticky...
I was quite scared of what immigration would hold actually, but nothing out of the ordinary. My friend Patrick waited for me to claim my baggage and insisted on accompanying me outside of the airport and waiting until people came to meet me. As it was I saw the massive sign as soon as I stepped outside, like an idiot in my bright orange tshirt, and John, the guy that met me must have thought I was an absolute psycho as Patrick hugged me goodbye and told me to ring him if I had any problems. Actually, it went like this...
"Hiya, I'm Sian"
"Oh, I, er, thought you were a boy."
"Er, thanks?"
"Well, I only had a name, no photo."
*slaps forehead* (mistaken for a boy by my name for only the millionth time)
"So, whose your mate?"
"Random guy I met on the plane"
"Erm, why did he hug you?!"
"We bonded, man..."
...In true African style.
Annnnnnd we were off into a cab with a couple of other girls who'd arrived on a flight from Heathrow a few minutes earlier, back to the Mad house. Not that there were many street lights, but I was trying my best to discern what lay outside the cab, what the streets of Africa looked like. What I saw in the night, well, I couldn't even have imagined from that what it looked like in the day.
-The width of the roads varied in an unpatterned fashion, for no obvious reason.
-Counting potholes was a fruitless task. I ran out of fingers and toes within metres.
-Finding the least bumpy route through said potholes involved much swerving and zigzagging.
-There were no defined "sides of the road" as such.
-In fact, sides of the road are best avoided, given that they're fringed by open-sewers.
-Traffic lights are far too sensible.
-As are headlights.
-Seatbelts.
-Windscreens.
-Speedometers.
-Doors.
-Speed limits.
-Horns however, are the gods of the Ghananian roads. All hail the horn, the evident precursor to traffic lights, and any form of traffic control.
-No signs. I feel like thats an obvious one, but combined with the lack of distinguishing landmarks, the problem of trying to find anyway is somewhat compounded. Even when you've been there 20 times before, its still a complete wild goose chase.
-Petrol was about 30p a litre. Outrage!
-Cab fares about 10p. Yet you barter over every penny. Its the principle of the thing!
-There aren't really many cars on the roads other than taxis and "tro-tros".
Which brings me to the next day, and the tro-tro experience. I had no idea where we were in relation to the centre of Accra, and I'm not sure how anyone else did, but we were off there regardless. The plan involves:
-Navigating our way down dusty streets to the largest dusty street on the vicinity, characterised by the smell of rotting fish for sail, goats and stray dogs wandering the streets like traffic, and boomboxes blaring out Akon songs on repeat. I say songs, I mean, song...
-Once at the "bus stop", defined by nothing I might add, you make a certain symbol with your hand to denote where you want to go. A circular motion indicates you want the circle tro-tro, and another exceedingly similar motion indicates a different route.
-How we found out, who can say, but we all made the circle symbol when mini-van looking like tro-tro's appeared. Distinguishing "private" vehicles from public tro-tro's is somewhat impossible. Some stop anyway, some dialogue occurs, and they either say no without explanation and drive off, or open up their doors and you all pile in.
-So its going pretty well, nice seat in the back of a van, admiring the local life outside, when more stops are made. Until the bus is overflowing, and people are hanging out of doors.
-In what doesn't seem like a circular route at all, we miraculously arrive at a rather large, dual-carriageway-esque main street.
Tro-tro success! Now off to Champs for some food, and getting to know everyone as more people arrive. Times are fun, if somewhat bizarre :D
So the first two nights were in the mad house, overflowing with people. I did manage to grab a bed, and a mosquito net so I got off rather lightly. The next was in the Pink Hostel, a non-gay establishment that was actually rather good, with a spiffing brekkie of fresh fruit.
I majorly enjoyed my initial visit to Accra. Everytime you turn a corner in a dodgy cab or tro-tro you see something new, something so new you don't know what to make of it. And then someone smiles at you and its all good :)
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