The chrochro is a network of vans
that carry 15-20 passengers each that serves as the public transportation of
Kumasi. The drivers work independently, but they are all registered, stop at a
set of agreed upon (but unmarked) spots, and charge a set fare per person for
each stretch of a trip. If you walk along a road outside Kumasi, you will
inevitably find a group of people huddled somewhere along the shoulder. If you
stand with that group, a van will eventually stop (if it has room) and everyone
pushes their way on. A fare collector who sits in the second row of the van
collects a fee based on how far you say you want to go. Each stop is a suburb
or landmark, so we for instance take the chrochro regularly from Trede (where
our hotel is) to Central Market (the center of the city where there is a
chrochro depot) for GHC1 per person. Taxis are more comfortable and easier to
find, but the same ride costs GHC3 per person after haggling the price down,
and the driver may not know where you are going or drop you off at the wrong
place. Somehow, the chrochro thrives as an autonomous entity, built from the ground up by drivers, not by infrastructure. You can read a better explanation of the elegant mess that is the chrochro system here.
In Kumasi, Bernard, Dr. Wanye's
nephew, was our guide through Central Market, a sprawling network of booths or
blankets spread along dozens of sidewalks and alleys that make up the second largest market in all of Africa. The booths were organized
somewhat into sections for fruit, meat, clothing, fabric, beauty products, and
other goods. There are small grocery stores and pharmacies as well, but
everyone it seems buys much of their clothing and food here or at similar
roadside markets. We stopped at a few booths to buy cloth, which sells for about
GHC5/yard, which we're planning to take to a seamstress to make into dresses,
shorts, and skirts. There are some pre-made Ghanaian style dresses here, but
seamstresses and cloth market booths are everywhere, so it seems as though
people buy just their Western-style clothes from markets and get their rest of
their clothes handmade from cloth they purchase (the pre-made dresses seem to
only attract obruni).
Adjusting to Ghanaian culture
begins with accepting their perspective of foreigners, or obruni (literally
"white person"). Locals will often call out "obruni!" when
they see us walk or drive past, but it's not meant to be discriminatory.
Calling out "obruni!" is simply a greeting; if you reply with
"obibini!" (literally "black person"), they will get excited,
shake your hand, and smile. Ghanaians are very polite and generous, especially
to obruni. They will sometimes let you cut the line for the chrochro, offer you
a gift or special price for a market good, or strike up a conversation with you
about your visit. There are touristy spots known as "obruni places",
upscale international cuisine restaurants that serve mostly obruni clientele.
We eat at such restaurants (Venus and the Chinese restaurant included) a few
times a week. They are comfortable, give good service, and have an expansive
menu, but they rarely serve local dishes and don't really let you experience
the culture. We use them as a nice retreat from the sounds and smells of the
city to food and atmosphere we're more familiar with.
There are also markups, or
"obruni prices", at local markets. Vendors assume you don't know what
a fair price is for goods, and so will start bargaining way too high with the
hopes that you take the price immediately. To help us get a good feel for the
markets, Bernard told us what a good price is for goods we wanted, which is
normally about half of the starting price, so we always start at 1/3rd of the
asking price. Because they assume you have lots of money that you're willing to
spend, vendors will call out to you (usually with "ssssst", which
means "hey, you"), grab your wrist, or pinch you. Vendors excitedly
called out "Indian?" to Shreya and Pooja, since Bollywood movies are
popular here. Many couldn't understand that you could be North American and not
Caucasian, so they didn't believe Pooja when she told them she lived in the US
or Shreya when she told them she lived in Canada. Similarly, when I explained
to one of the nurses that DC is sunnier and hotter this time of year that it is
in Ghana, he didn't understand how I could be from there and be so pale. For
most of the people we've met, living a few hours outside your hometown is a big
deal, and almost no one has traveled outside of Ghana.
The UOregon folks had the same experience, and this article about perceptions of
foreigners in Ghana sums it up pretty nicely. They also explored the Kumasi market, in all its intensely chaotic glory. For anyone who can, I would recommend walking around the Kumasi market at night. We nearly got lost there trying to find some good quick food after all the shops had closed and stumble upon an open field of abandoned train tracks, where hundreds of people were cooking their dinners over open fires behind the shop stalls.
For Chloe's birthday, we ate at
Moti Mahal, an Indian obruni restaurant. Kate wanted to meet us on the way, so we took the chrochro to the main traffic circle and waited. At the traffic circle, a woman in a pink dress came up and hugged Ricarda, who didn't know who she was and replied "no, thank you", assuming she was a street vendor. Turns out it was Kate! The food was good, but not spectacular, but
the service was fantastic. We were the only people in the restaurant, and
afterwards we had the sports bar to ourselves to play pool and watch the
Olympics. So far, we've been able to catch snippets of the Olympics in nearly
every restaurant we've been to, but unfortunately the coverage is by the
national news channel and gets cut off by the nightly news or other shows.
Today we watched 2km steeplechase, and hopefully we'll be able to see more
track & field before the games are over.
No comments:
Post a Comment