As our 22-seater van pulled into the Kejetia lorry station, I asked the man sitting next to me if he knew Kumasi well.
“Yes, please, I am from Kumasi,” he said.
“Do you know how much a taxi from Kejetia station to the STC station should be?”
He pondered a few seconds and said it should cost me three cedis. I thanked him. He pulled my bag out from under the seat in front and brought it off the van for me. I thanked him again and scanned the scene for a taxi driver. I didn’t have to try hard – three men engulfed me as soon as I set foot on ground. “Where are you going?” “Need a taxi?” “White woman, need a ride?”
I took my bag from the man and walked away from the crowd to a taxi driver leaning against the hood of his car. I asked him to take me to the STC station.
“OK, let’s go,” he said, moving toward the driver’s seat.
“How much?” I pressed.
He rested his folded arms on the top of the ajar door and gazed across the Kejetia market, the largest open market in West Africa. “You give me 15 cedis.”
“Fifteen?!” I laughed. I turned to walk away and saw the man from the van standing close by, smiling and shaking his head.
The taxi driver followed me. “The traffic is too much at this time of day.”
“The traffic is always too much – this is Kumasi!” I retorted.
I shouldn’t have expected to get a fair price at the lorry station anyway. The lorry stations in Ghana’s bigger cities are known for overcharging drop taxi passengers – foreigners and Ghanaians alike. The Van Man and I walked away from the station along the main Kejetia road. The taxi driver did not follow.
“You will get a taxi for three cedis, don’t worry,” he promised me. I find it amusing that when Ghanaians want to help me they find it necessary to promise that everything will be alright and not to worry. Both men and women do this to foreigners, I’ve noticed. Very peculiar – more on that later though.
We spotted a taxi driver with no passengers inching along the road in traffic. Van Man lowered his head and spoke in Twi to the driver. I was perfectly capable of getting my own taxi but let him help anyway. He looked back up to me, smiled and proudly said, “Three cedis.” I chuckled and thanked him. Before I shut the car door, Van Man asked, “How can I reach you?” I laughed softly to myself – I had felt that one coming. “Next time I’m in Kumasi, maybe I will see you.” I shut the door and waved goodbye.
The lady at the STC bus station was not nearly as helpful. Extracting information from people is one of my duties as an INGO Project Coordinator – I didn’t want to work on my holiday. After a painful question-and-answer session, I finally found out that the STC bus from Kumasi to Tamale this day and the next were already full. I had some wildlife to see – I wasn’t about to lounge around Kumasi for two days before getting a bus, only to take another bus to my final destination. I opted for my next option, the Metro Mass bus, which was positioned inconveniently on the other side of the city. I walked outside to the drop taxi station and asked a driver if he could take me to the Metro Mass station.
This man was a hospitable driver, transportation system informant and tour guide. When we got to the Metro Mass station I asked him to wait for me while I checked to see if I could buy a ticket to Tamale. There wasn’t a line to the Tamale booth, so I walked up to the ticket lady and asked how much a ticket to Tamale would be. “Eight cedis,” she replied. She stood up and began fiddling with the money trays in the money box. I fished eight cedis out of my bag, dropping one bill on the ground. As a frequent dropper of items, I've learned that most Ghanaians will jump to help you clean a mess you've accidentally created but won't assist you in picking up your valuables. I'm wondering if not touching another's possessions stems back to the highly competitive and untrusting nature many Ghanaians associate with their working class.
I slid the money through the open window. The ticket lady clicked the money box shut, then looked at the money and back at me.
“O!” she exclaimed and picked up her purse from the ground and moved to the booth’s exit.
“O, madam. You are leaving?” I asked.
She turned around and said, “Yes.”
“So, no more tickets can be bought for the Tamale bus today?”
“Oh, please, no,” she responded.
My heart sank. “If-only thoughts” tried invading my mind (if only I hadn't gone to the STC station, if only the van from Cape Coast hadn't taken two hours to fill, etc.), but if I gave these thoughts a swift boot out. She turned to leave again. I called after her. “When will you start selling tickets to the next Tamale bus?”
“Four a.m. tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder.
I need to be back here earlier than 4 a.m., I thought. I asked a man nearby when lines form for the 4 a.m. buses. He told me 3:30 a.m. I thanked him and walked over to my waiting taxi, knowing I should be at the station before three.
I got back inside the taxi and sounded out to the driver my last two options. I could either pay another five (ish) cedis to have him drive me to the Tamale tro-tro station, get to Tamale by nightfall, spend the night in Tamale and board the Mole bus the next afternoon, or I could overnight in Kumasi near the Metro Mass station, get a Tamale bus in the morning and try to get to Mole in one day. It was a five-hour ride to Tamale via bus, so that meant it was maybe an eight- or nine-hour drive via tro, not including a potential breakdown along the way. I figured the safer and more relaxing option would be to stay a night in Kumasi.
I asked the driver if he knew any guesthouses nearby. He did but didn’t know the names of them or how much they cost. I took out my Bradt guidebook from my bag and flipped to the Kumasi guesthouse pages. I gave him the book and asked if he knew where each of the cheaper guesthouses were. One by one, he said told me which part of Kumasi the guesthouses were located and whether it was far from the station. They were all far away. “How about you drive me to the closest guesthouse you know?” I asked. “Yes, it isn’t in the guidebook," he said. "I will take you there.”
As he drove from the Metro Mass station, I felt a powerful wave of gratefulness for his willingness to help. And I didn't even know his name! Normally I ask taxi drivers their name as soon as I get in their car, but this time I had forgotten.
"Please, what is your name?" I asked.
"I am Isaac."
"Isaac, very nice to meet you. Thank you for going out of your way to help me."
He beamed and said it was his duty to help obronis like me. Then he explained that we were in Bantama, a suburb of Kumasi, and pointed out recognizable buildings in case I wanted to walk to the station. I wouldn’t, though, because it would be in the middle of the night, but the gesture was sweet anyway. We parked in front of a tall brick building with a white gated patio. The sign on the bricks said it was a café, but the sign on the wall read “Restaurant and Guesthouse.”
The cheapest room was double the price I was looking for (22 cedis per night for a double bed with a fan), but the location was ideal for my early morning, and I had already spent money to get there anyway – asking Isaac to drive me to another guesthouse to compare prices would cost more. I took the room.
After I made the decision to stay, Isaac turned from the front desk lady to me. He looked satisfied that he had properly seen me off.
“So. Your name is?” Isaac asked.
“Michaela.” I took his hand in mine and shook it the Ghanaian way.
"Michaela," he repeated. "It sounds Ghanaian."
"Thank you," I smiled.
“Safe journey tomorrow.” He bowed his head and raised his hand to indicate "goodbye." Spinning on his heels, he walked out the door.
“Medaase.”
It was intriguing that he didn’t try to give me his number and tell me that I should call him to pick me up in the morning. Usually when the conversation between taxi driver and passenger flows well, the drivers try to give you their number and suggest that you call them for a drop taxi ride. Isaac had mentioned that he lives on the other side of town - if he had come to pick me up in the morning, it would’ve cost me more because he would have to drive farther to get to me. It was either very thoughtful of him to not push that on me, or he just didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to drive me around.
I paid for the accommodation and followed the caretaker woman to my room up the stairs and around the corner. The building was open-air - opposite my door was the kitchen. Water running, women singing, pots clanging, but at least it smelled good. I followed the caretaker into my room, set my bags down and walked to the bathroom to turn on the faucet to make sure the water was running. It was. I thanked the woman and sat down on my bed as she left the room. The mattress was a lot softer than mine at home in Cape Coast. I leaned back across the bed and closed my eyes, thinking about how the next day was going to come early and end late. In like a lion and out like a lion.
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