As you can imagine my 'daily' commute in Ghana is ever-so-slightly different to my previous commutes to work - two hours door-to-door down to London often on over-crowded, slow trains and tubes or 45 minutes cruising up the M11 praying for no delays, as I was always running late anyway! Instead I ride my moto (on the days it's not got a flat tyre or I haven't dropped it and broken the clutch handle off again or it's not raining) down the 'back road' to Tongo.
I am the only volunteer to take this route, which has turned it into my own special and private oasis in Ghana where I lose myself in my thoughts every day! The road is pot-holed, dust filled and has a suicidal chicken that runs into my tyre at least once a week, but it is my road where I see the same smiling faces and waves of hello. I know the exact swerves to make to avoid the bumps and holes that give me all the flat-tyres and I know exactly where I'll see people at different times of the day. The road and the people feel like they are mine! I pick people on my moto if they are heading in the same direction and sometimes we talk, sometimes we don't. Some days I will be completely caught up in my own World of problems and issues I am working through so I ride the forty minutes head down with a stern look on my face. Others my mind will be clear and I will be squealing and smiling to myself the whole way! Either mood the people on my route seem to be able to sense it before I have even arrived by their side, a flash of red bike passing through their lives. They will greet according to me, and they never seem to be phased by the days when I am so caught up in myself that I forget to answer their shouts or flash them a smile from my helmet, and that is fine!
But I am not a part of peoples lives and they are not a part of mine! Speed and movement allow this and I am thankful for that, because I enjoy the element of distance and unknown it creates! I do not think of all the bad things I am forced to think of through work - corruption, harassment, corporal punishment - I think of the people, just the pure people that I see on the surface...
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| These guys nearly always have some meat hanging above their heads where they sit. They then smoke it up and chop it for lunch or dinner. |
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| Before the rainy season, this piece of land was completely bare and dry. I could see the compound and all the people sat outside. Now we are in the rainy season I cannot see anyone beyond the field. |
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| How children in Ghana spend their 'summer' holidays! |
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