[Tro-tro = Any private shared taxi bigger than a car - e.g. small minibus into which 18 passengers will be fitted - generally on a fixed route like a bus]. It’s all true. The defining moment on my first tro-tro ride, with Charlotte’s bike on the roof, and with us sat in the worst seats, four facing four, was when the final people boarded. Eight knees face eight knees and as the final people squeeze in sixteen knees lock like a rugby scrum, and no-one can move until the next stop.
The medium-distance tro-tro (e.g. Bolga to Walewale) doesn't leave the start-point until all seats are sold. This can be frustrating if you’d like to leave by a certain time – or if you’d just like to leave. But there is a way…. On Tuesday I was at Bolga after dark sat on maybe the last tro-tro of the day, hoping to reach Walewale (30 miles). After a while the tro-tro mate (tout) told me the bus wouldn’t run – there were only five people on it. He needed to fill all 18 seats at 1.40 cedis each to make 25.20 cedis (just over £10). Now a way round this is that you buy all 18 seats. This now makes you the Bus Owner, and you get to travel in the front. The bus sets off, and everyone else pays you. (I didn’t realise this on Tuesday, negotiated the 25 cedis down to 10 and was prepared to pay that - £4 - to get home. But I’d missed a trick here. I should have bought 7 seats. Then the first 11 seats filled would have been fares for the tro-tro mate, but if any of my 7 seats had been taken then those fares would be mine. In fact the bus was packed from people boarding at villages between Bolga and Walewale, so the tro-tro won on the deal. I was still addressed as “Bus Owner”).
Just as another illustration, - heading to Bolga on Thursday morning to run an Organisational Development (OD) workshop.
My plans are disrupted by the (reasonably reliable) 7.45 am Metro Mass Transit coach declining to stop for me. I find a tro-tro in Walewale, with many seats taken but as time goes on it’s still not full. One or two passengers seem to be losing interest and looking elsewhere – not good news. Time is slipping by – 8.30 am comes and goes - and I have a meeting to organise starting 10 am more than an hour away. I ask the mate how many seats are unsold – two! I buy two more seats, everyone is suddenly galvanised into action, we can go. I even get my money back for one of the seats because another passeneger materialises. I have the privileged view (see picture) that belongs to the front seat passeneger as marginal Bus Owner.
Clutching the takings the driver takes us to fill up with just enough fuel for the journey (after a push-start that is). After that the journey is uneventful – just one further push-start in Balungu - the driver has to get out to open the tro-tro sliding door, and unfortunately this time the engine dies. A couple of passengers are summoned to push the tro backwards (downhill slightly) for a jump-start – no good. The driver jumps out again and bangs on the front door. (Having bought two seats, I don’t actually have two seats but I am in the front passenger seat). My neighbour and I get out; I could probably claim exemption from pushing as marginal Bus Owner, but I help anyway. Success! We all get back in. But the sliding door won’t shut. The driver grabs his hammer and goes round to the door again. Engine, please don’t die…..I make it to the workshop at 9.58 – ahead of the attendees, so the day works out ok.
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