Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2007
AN - Starting on our school work was very difficult. The heat is unbearable some days. Especially on days when the power was out and our ceiling fan didn’t work. We started to believe that everything move a snail pace due to the heat. Today was one of those days in which we could barely get out of bed because the heat drained us. But, eventually we did get up and started to organize our school work.
We had found a little, hot, stuff, smelt like bikrams yoga internet café, not far from our dorms (about a 15 minute walk) to do some work, send out e-mails, and in Chantel’s case catch up on the latest Hollywood gossip. I would be lying to say that I do not look over her shoulder from time to time to see who Britney Spears is dating now.
That evening we meet up with Jeneke and two of her friends, Logan, an American girl here on one of those large American programs, and Priscilla, a Ghanaian girl who has lived in different parts of Africa her whole life (including South Africa), she was pretty westernized. They had decided to go to the Living Room, and we agreed to join them. The Living Room was basically explained to us as one story home/building that had been converted it self to approximately 8 rooms, which have a TVs, a couches and a few wicker chairs. The rooms looked like living rooms, hence the name “The Living Room”. However there is one room that is furnished more like a theater, about 5 rows of six wicker chairs all facing the make shift screen, which is basically a wall. The projector plays our choice in movies, which was a bootlegged version of the Devil wears Prada.
Before we got to the Living room which is located in East Legon, we saw the first bargaining for a taxi. Pricilla took the plate. It was like a silent collective agreement that out of the five of us, Pricilla would do be at getting the lowest rate. Of course, we all knew it was because she was African and we also all knew that the taxi drivers wanted double the usual rate because she had bunch of foreigner friends with her. I noticed and she also confirmed that when speaking to the taxi driver, she would put on a Ghanaian accent.
CHANTEL - Ah bargaining with the taxi driver. This can be very difficult at first until you start to get a feel for how much a ride should cost. There are no meters on the taxis so you have to negotiate the price before you get in. Inevitably we are ripped off about 75% of the time, and it seems pointless to argue with the drive over the equivalent of about 50 cents but really its all about principal. If we know the price from campus to Osu is 30000 cedis (roughly $3.50) then there is no way we are going to pay 50000 cedis. I have gotten quite good with stating how much we are going to pay and then refusing to pay any higher - there are about a billion taxis in Accra so finding one is not much of a problem. If a driver quotes within close range of what we think the ride should cost then I don’t usually argue because they are being honest. More often we get quoted double and have to haggle down from there. All part of life in Ghana - also you can pile at least 6 international students in plus the driver, the police over here do not enforce much in terms of “road safety” and all the taxi drivers have to worry about is not bottoming out in the car over speed bumps.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.135s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 14; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0828s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
marilyn
non-member comment
Britney is toast!
Chantel has been missing out on all the fascinating details about Brit's latest meltdowns re panties, shaving her head, tatoos, two checkins to rehab etc. KFed is starting to look good. And American Idol is underway and Academy Awards coming up. Don't worry--I don't get American TV here either, but the internet has it all--unfortunately!