Village boy Impressions

The traffic on the main road was moving slowly amid the shouting of drivers' mates calling out different destinations. Dzorwulu! Pigfarm! Pigfarm! Dzorwulu! By those coming from Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Serk! Serk! Serk! By those returning from the aforementioned place. Driver mates always have their head and hand outside the window of the door beside which they perch and are constantly calling out the names of the destination of their cars. As our trotro snake eases its way along the narrow New Town – Circle road, I focused on listening to the destinations being shouted by the drivers' mates going to and from Circle. In less than 200 metres, we were at a section of the road adjacent to the Mallam Attah market. Getting through that section of the road was not an easy affair. The noise was deafening. It was a continuous hubbub of running engines, frustrated drivers shouting, horns tooting, mates calling passengers, music blaring from giant speakers, and hundreds of peopl

Accra! kra! kra! kra! kra! Screamed several youthful voices in discordant harmony. Repeating it over and over and over till you hear it in the sound of the radio, the crying of infants, the tread of footsteps, the whining of school children and the chime of your waking dreams! The whole street is engulfed in one rousing cry of Accra! Kra! Kra Kra! Kra! Like fireworks going off. Without a word, I climbed into the trotro in which four passengers were already seated and settled down to wait. The mate, standing in front of the car and leaning against it continued to announce the destination of his trotro – Accra! The ‘loading’ of passengers is usually much faster in the morning but as the day wears on, the numbers get thinner and the trotro takes longer to fill up. It was a quarter past ten in the morning and so I did not expect to wait long. I took my seat at the very back of the car by the window. This is the least favourite seat of most passengers. Besides a few of us, most pe