If you are not in Ghana and reading this am 100% sure you've never heard of the word
trotro.
mate used here is the name of the one who helps the trotro driver, collecting lorry fare from passengers and others.
Trotro I will say is a major means of transport. I love taking trotro's a lot. I was thinking I name this post
Aflao - Ho, Ho - Aflao #trotro experience since, the experience from
Aflao to
Ho to was funny and interesting too.
Aflao to Ho...
Leaving Aflao for
BarCamp Ho in October, At 5 AM, getting out of my house and the shouting
Ho! Ho!! that morning the driver of the
trotro just applied the break and I jumped inside happily thinking it was full of people going to Ho. Not knowing all of them were going to
Dzodze. After Dzodze, the driver and mate's eyes became hot since they were not getting passengers as we move.
Well luckily we got one passenger on board, he was heavily drunk. He started telling driver he was over speeding. Soon another passenger, a male, also got on board. As we were going another trotro who was also looking for passengers along the Dzodze - Ho stretch came to by pass us.
My driver was like ahhhh! lol. All these passengers were not going to Ho, so the drunkard alighted first as he continues to sing his destination to the mate. Now the second guy alighted and presented
GHS 50.00 to the mate. The driver nearly died. Haha! If you know the way I was laughing.
So we have to wait for him to quickly get money from a
koko seller near by. And the driver was telling me, some people are not serious oo. Laughing all together.
Off we go and another drunkard again. Oops!. They will enter the vehicle before you can tell. This one wasn't having money to pay the lorry fare. But sat down quietly. Now time for him to alight. He was telling the mate, he will get the money at his destination and pay. Then the driver roared: "
If you don't pay, I will drive you to Ho" can you imagine? Ho is very far from where we were at that moment. And how will he get back. He alighted and was playing nonsense, so the driver instructed the mate to remove his pair of shoes and let's go. Still laughing at the way the mate and drunkard were displaying. A woman at the roadside came to his rescue, paid for him and off we go.
The driver managed to by pass the other trotro driver before we reached called
Ziope. He was telling I really wanted to reach Ziope before that driver, if not wahala for him. Still laughing.
Got to Ho safely and said bye to the driver and still laughing.
Found my way to
Ho Polytechnic and BarCamp Ho started.
Ho to Aflao...
After BarCamp met some old friends who wanted me to spend my night at their place. It was a clash.. Those in
Ho Polytechnic and
University of Health and Allied Sciences. I wasn't able to tweet in Ho at all since
I tweet via SMS. Tigo Ghana's service in Ho and all over the Volta Region is very POOR.
I was mad at Tigo.
Spent the night in Ho, Enjoyed free Wi-Fi and blah... blah.. blah.. :-D
Now is Sunday and time to leave home (
Aflao) Here the #trotro experience I never had started from.
Getting to Ho main lorry station at 6 PM, I decided to enter the first car available going to Aflao. Things didn't work normally like how you enter a trotro. Trotro always set off before you start paying to the mate. We paid before we set off. Some women were complaining.
After paying already, this driver without a mate took us to a filling station to fill his fuel tank. Instead of him doing that earlier.
Then something happened the guy at the Filling Station was seriously talking on the mobile phone, so with less attention on business the fuel poured on to the ground. The driver want him to give out
GHS 2.00 for the fuel on the ground. He disagreed and was saying : "
It was the fuel tank of the vehicle that was leaking."
This went on for some minutes, I was only thinking of getting home as early as possible.
Off we go. One the way I learnt something new from the women after three or four policemen signaled the driver to stop.
We were in the vehicle for about 30 minutes drive out of Ho township, then OOH! The car just started slowing down in a manner that you will know something is definitely wrong.
Then
Driver: We can't move on, there is something wrong with the engine belt. I was like hey! Then we all started complaining. One of the women said: "
It was because the car was not in good form, that was why they were doing things secretly at the station."
Luckily for us it was just a few metres away a Police Barrier and houses were around. I felt very sad for a woman who was actually concerned about how her children are doing back home at that moment.
We were there for about 30 minutes, it was even going to rain and we were all saying if it get serious will just enter the vehicle. The driver talk to one of the drivers back at the station. Soon a vehicle arrived.
We got inside quickly as it started raining and got home safely.
