Exercise Patience

Each morning, you are ripped out your dreams of blue cheese and Australian Shiraz with a ‘Marioooooo!!!’. Aunty Sylvia is in a really bad mood today and she continues to bellow out ‘Mario, blah blah blah blah blah’ (something I imagine to mean ‘get your school uniform on you little rascal and make sure you brush your teeth, we don’t want you losing your teeth before you’re 12’.) Your alarm is not supposed to sound for another hour at 6.15am so you decide to place your head under the pillow to muffle the racket outside.

When you eventually get out of bed, you rush around dressing, eating breakfast and packing your things simultaneously. 'If I get out as soon as possible, maybe the tro tro will be there'. So you rush out the door, waving hello to everyone in the compound as you run to the lorry station. You reach the station to discover the tro ro is not at all there. Instead a queue has formed - 25 people deep - anticipating its appearance for the last 30 minutes. You have grown accustomed to waiting, so you join the queue and open your book to kill time.

Hang on, it’s Monday. You won’t really be able to read your book because you notice the local Pastor setting up. Plugging in a set of huge speakers and adjusting the dials of his 3D Audio Professional Mixer, you’d think he’s organising a bloc party. To him it may be a party, but to others, his street sermon is deafeningly loud. There are moments when you’re glad you don’t speak Twi. Nevertheless, his sermon is lively and tolerated by the crowd, even well received by some. The fact that he plays music probably increases his popularity and passersby dash him a cedi or two.

Some 40 minutes later, the tro tro finally arrives and people board the 1970s van in an orderly fashion whilst a few impatient men use their physical build to their advantage by jumping the queue. As on all tro tros and taxis in Ghana, this one has a motto plastered on the back window ‘Exercise Patience’.

To avoid peak hour traffic, the driver decides to take a slightly different route but the passengers won’t have a bar of it. ‘I have to alight at Airport area’ protests one lady, ‘if you go this way, you won’t pass my stop’. ‘Don’t go this way, the traffic will be worse’, shouts another. After a group discussion involving almost all of the 15 people on board, the driver accepts group consensus and sticks to the usual route.

A bumpy 40 minutes later, you arrive at your stop which you signal to the conductor by shouting ‘mate, bus stop’ and jump out the side door of the van. A quick check of the watch indicates you’re half an hour late to work and you curse the tro tro. Sweating and hot, you arrive at work and apologise for, yet again, being late. Your colleagues don’t react and look at you confusedly as to why you’re so flustered. ‘Lateness is not a crime’ they’re probably thinking.

It is difficult to judge how productive your day will be. Ghana Electricity may turn off the power with no apparent warning because the landlord hasn’t paid the bills. Or the water may run out. Perhaps the meeting you scheduled, may start one hour late. No matter what happens, you come to appreciate the infectious Ghanaian laugh and to EXERCISE PATIENCE.

Abena