Taxi Drivers

I find taxi drivers here so frustrating and irritating, that I am designating a post to them.

Top 5 annoying things taxi drivers do:

1) Honk repeatedly at you, as if you didn’t hear them the first 10 times as they were approaching you.

2) Make hissing/kissing noises to get your attention….or if they are parked, will say "hello?" "hello?" "hello?" about 5 times until you look over and shake your head no.

3) Picture this. It is a busy road, with cars driving in both directions. I am trying to cross the street and am halfway. Then a taxi will be passing and will slow down to see if you want a ride, but really all he is doing is blocking the road for me to cross, loosing the small window of opportunity to cross the road.

4) When I am standing at my house gate, knocking to be let in, and a taxi driver across the street is stopped, honking at you….I AM TRYING TO ENTER MY HOUSE!!

5) When I am standing at a tro tro (bus) station, waiting for a tro tro to get to my destination. There were generally be a few taxis there as well, and many times the driver will approach me, in a crowd of many people and ask where I am going. He then will say something like ‘come, lets go’. I am just standing there, waiting for a tro tro to get home, just like everybody else.

I think about these things way too often, and because all this anger is bottled up it then pisses me off even more. Last night I actually said, ‘fuck you’ to a taxi driver. I couldn’t help it. I was just walking to buy minutes for my phone and the driver was super insistent and obnoxious. He kept saying, ‘come on baby’, which made me furious, and then it just came out. ‘FUCK YOU’.I was shocked with myself. He didn’t seem to care as he started laughing hysterically. So not as satisfying as I would have hoped. I guess this would be categorized as one of those 'ridiculous' (hence the blog title) moments.

Sometimes I forget how much I stand out. Sometimes I just wish I could just walk freely and not have people assume that I need to take a taxi everywhere I go. I think many people think "obrunis" (foreigners) are totally incompetent. Like we aren’t able to take a tro tro, or that we deserve better or something. Many times too, when I am crossing the road (often at busy intersections), someone will stand next to me and when there is a clearing, they will say, "ok now"…as if we don’t have busy roads or traffic from where I am from and have no clue when the right time is to cross.

My address

Some people have asked for my address, so here it is:

Alison Roadburg
The Center for Gender Studies and Advocacy
University of Ghana
Box 862
Legon, Accra, Ghana

Song Competition Launch Event

Just a brief update on the popular culture event we had last week. It was great! Just a reminder, CEGENSA (who I work for) in collaboration with a group called Pathways for Women’s Empowerment held a song competition in April, seeking submissions that change the stereotypical role of women in popular music. The idea was to use the music industry as an outlet for change, trying to represent women as key members of society who hold roles outside the domestic sphere and whereby they are not merely sexual objects dancing in the background of videos. Anyways, the winner of the competition was awarded a music video, which our staff were in, but the previewing we had the Friday before the launch event, I was not seen at all…which believe me, I was relieved. I’m not a spotlight kind of girl, so I was quite satisfied to not be seen. The launch itself was great, and there were performances of poetry, the Ghana Dance Ensemble, speeches from various head figures of CEGENSA, Pathways and the VC of the University of Ghana. The three winning artists then performed their songs, and the first place video was shown. Throughout the entire evening, one of my co-worker sons, who is about 8 years old, was sitting with me and was extremely intrigued by my camera. I showed him how to use it, and mistakenly put the strap around his neck, and that was it. I luckily got it back in one piece, but before I knew it, he was walking all around the room, taking pictures of audience members, shoes, people’s watches and the floor…he was short after all. And then his younger brother came over, who was not as gentle. He was grabbing at it, wanting to be like his brother, but there was no way I was going to hand over my camera to this 4 year old. And then the video was shown. So while juggling with these two boys, and trying to glance up at the screen, I see my bright white face alone singing on the massive screen. I knew they were doing some editing from the day before when I had seen it, but I was not expecting to see myself singing along to ‘As Long as You are a Woman.’ So classic. And then the guy next to me says, ‘Oh that’s you!!’, ‘yes, yes, it sure is." When the event came to a close, I was speaking with Ama, my co-worker who I adore, and the mother of these two boys, she approaches me and said, "Oh, they were worrying you weren’t they??" Saying this as if she had been watching me fumble around awkwardly with them the whole time, and secretly loved it!