Monday, May 23, 2011

Trip to Kumasi Part 1 5.20.2011

Back to the actual trip to Ghana. Like I said, some of us decided to go to Kumasi this weekend and go to what the Philip-Briggs Ghana guidebook (between all the members of our group we have two) says is the largest market on this side of West Africa. There’s also a cultural center and a zoo but after all the fiasco we went through in the market, we just walked into the cultural center craft shop and then got on the bus back to Cape Coast. Nothing we did was without some action. I’ll tell the story in segments.

Part One
Before we could even go to Kumasi, three of us from the group got into line at the bus station in Cape Coast and waited for a ticket, but they ran out so they pointed us to the queue of like 100 people sitting in a cramped little area, waiting. So we’re waiting, and the first bus leaves and a few people started creeping and shuffling ever so slowly toward the line, so I’m like…do we move? Then everyone caught wind of what was happening and within one second, everyone ran—scratch that, SPRINTED—toward the line and we were like...question mark? So we just tried to stay in the mix and not get pushed out of line and then we waited. Everyone was cramped into line but no one was getting tickets, people in the front were just arguing and fussing but getting no tickets. Then, the other half of our group came and we just kind of stood for some time waiting until a lady working at the ticket door came out and asked us (skipping everyone else) how many tickets we needed. We said 8, and then the whole line gasped ahhhhH!! And THEN this old lady closer to the front just goes off. She starts screaming in Fanti (language spoken most prevalently in Cape Coast) at the lady and we don’t know why. And then they blow up on each other, just screaming and yelling and pointing and clearly cursing each other out. So then, one of us asked another person in line why she was screaming and they said that the bus lady wanted to show us that Ghana could be nice by making sure we got on the bus and the old lady at the front wasn’t having it. But we didn’t ask for special treatment, so we felt bad about the situation because it wasn’t like we weren’t still waiting in line with everyone else but the lady was not having it either way. Long story short, we didn’t get our tickets ahead of everybody else but I think they were just trying to make sure that there were enough seats for all eight of us to get onto the same bus. So everyone gave the two of us waiting in line the money and when we got to the front I asked for 8. She said, ah, that’s too much, but then I gave her the money and she didn’t give me all my change. Siiigh, Ghanaians never missing a beat lol. So I laughed, and hit the Nigerian accent again, “ahh, please, we’ve all paid separately, if you take some, whose money will it come from?” She pointed at one of the white girls from our group standing behind me, and smiled, “from hers, she doesn’t mind.” I laughed again and said please. And she was gave me 2 cedis (of the 4 she had kept). Then she gave me one, and finally, the last one. I probably should’ve just let it go but really now. It was all quite unnecessary; another fun moment though. Happily, we got onto the bus and got ready to enjoy Kumasi. Little did we know there was a lot more coming up…

3 comments:

  1. if kwaku sees this, tell him to tell his people to stop playing you!

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  2. This blog is too good...making me want to go back NOW! No shakinnn

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  3. Nony, this is too good! I got so tired of being chipped in Morocco, I stopped caring after a few times lol. Im takin you with me next time I go!

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