white people on the street

Accra Quest is the event in which all the Trainees are divided into groups and let loose in the city to complete and scavenger like task list. We were given 10 cedis each as transportation fee and were supposed to figure out how to get there and back ourselves within 3 hours.

Yeah, it is as fun as it sounds. Especially if counting Saturday, we would have only been in Ghana for 3 days, and most of our time was spent on safe and roomy AC busses. Our Twi was limited and our sense of direction non existence.

I have to admit that out of all the activities I have done in Peace Corps up until now, Accra Quest is still tied with homestay revealing as the most nerve racking event. Though I have taken crazy bus rides by myself in Vietnam, being in Ghana in which you obviously stand out felt a little bit different. My group had Grace, Olivia and myself, the three smallest girls out of all the PCV. I was pretty sure that one of us were gonna get kidnapped.

To prepare us for the quest, the night before, the trainers presented to us a skit of what could possibly happen during the quest on the tro, and it was hilarious, especially when one of our PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders) got too into it and broke a table (pic). 

We started out by walking from the dorm to the main road. The plan was to take a tro-tro straight to Accra, then walk around the city to find our scavenger spots. A tro-tro is pretty much a cheaper more crowded and bigger version of a taxi. It’s not quite like a bus because often time it is only a 12 persons van but would go longer distance. The van is often run down and cramped with passenger, and by run down I mean it one of two sockets away from being a metal pile at a junk yard.

Anyhow, to pick up a tro, you just have to look to see if there is one going the direction you’re going and flag it down. If it’s not full, it will stop for you. So our group slowly walked toward the direction of Accra, and tried to flag down the tros as they rolled by. Apparently that day was a busy day, since none would stop for us. I think it took us about 30 mins of walking to finally get one. I was real nervous about all the harassments that could potentially take place in the tro, but once we got on, it was surprisingly peaceful and quiet. Everyone minded their own business, and though they stared, I was fine with that. I guess the plus side of traveling outside of America these last few years is that I am not that bothered by people staring at me anymore. Especially since I know that no matter what I do, I will stand out anyway, so I might as well play the part. And at least, in Ghana, no one calls/tells me that I’m fat (Vietnam), so Accra quest started to look a little positive for me.

It turned out that our plan of taking one tro straight to Accra did not work out well since there was no tro that goes that length. We had to take a tro to the next town, and from that town, take a tro to Accra. When we got to Accra, we decided to walk to our locations by foot because taking a taxi was not permitted for this quest. I should mention that prior to this we had only walked in Accra once, for 15 mins around the Peace Corps office neighborhood, which is in no way a correct representation of Accra. And street signs are sparse around here.

By the time we stopped and asked for direction, we were already lost, but then we found ourselves again, and even crossed path with this. From a far, I thought it was a broken bicycle helmet, but Grace’s scream assured me that it wasn’t.

Yeah, about that… there are a lot of bats here. And during the day, they sleep on trees, in publics, on the streets. All of them, just hanging upside down looking like fruits in the daylight. I don’t know how this guy managed to fall off the tree nor do I know if he was at all alive after the fall, but I have never seen a bat up close before, and I wasn’t too glad of seeing one now. Another first for this journey.  None of the Batman movies prepared me for this.

But yeah, running across the sleeping bat on the ground was the most eventful thing that happened to us. We weren’t harassed that much and nothing freaked us out massively. We didn’t make it to all of our spots because we wanted to head back in time, so we took the same route the way we came, and this time, the most eventful thing was that we got stuck in a alley between a stream of on-coming cars and a cement wall for about 20 mins while we were stuck in the back sweating.

Compare to America, the tro-tro is a terrifying experience if you’re there alone for your first time so I was glad to be in a group and had someone else there with me. Compare to the ridiculous traffic in Vietnam, the tro-tro is still one level below. I expected it to be more cramped, but tro-tro stop picking up passengers when it is full. I recalled being on a 3 people seat with 5 people in Vietnam so this experience turned out aiight.