Riding Shot Gun

Sorry sorry for no blog post for the past 10 days or so. Since my trip to Tamale I have been quite busy either at the village, in Adum (downtown), getting paperwork for licenses, teaching Pizza Making Class, doing paper work, not to mention a laundry process that is different than ours. Although I must say, Irene and Laurene do have a washer so it isn’t too bad to do.

Riding Shot-Gun- “Riding shotgun refers to the practice of sitting alongside the driver in a moving vehicle. The expression was applied originally to the movie depiction of stagecoaches and wagons in the Wild West, in danger of being robbed or attacked. An employee or passenger would sit beside the driver, carrying a shotgun or rifle, to provide an armed response in case of threat to the cargo or passengers. More recently, the term has been applied to the contest of a group of friends to determine who rides beside the driver in a car. There may be elaborate rules involved in the game. It is also used to mean giving actual or figurative support or aid to someone in a situation or project, i.e. to "watch their back." This definition is from Wikipedia, giving credit where credit is due.

This term occurred to me as I rode in the cabs in Tamale. But I will expand on the term, not only to mean keeping us from being attacked in the cab (ha, fat lot of good I would be in that situation) but to also look at the ‘watch their back’ portion. And to examine that term, let’s think of the US and how they ‘watch the consumer’s back’. For example, seatbelts. There are seatbelts in the cars in Ghana…somewhere, I just have yet to find them. The US is watching our back, by having seatbelts installed in cars and there being laws to use them. If not, you get a ticket. Not so here, I wear a seat belt when with my driver but his car is not a taxi either. I can’t find the seat belts in the taxi. If you look around at the cars on the roads and the people in them, not many people have on seat belts. Along those same lines, infant seats for babes and small children? Have yet to see one in use. I have seen them on the side of the road for sale, but never one in use.

And those darn laws when you are building a house, code enforcement for electrical, plumbing, smoke alarms in your city or town. In Ghana, well, maybe I’m getting old, being a nurse and more concerned about safety, or just used to a safer environment, there are days when I wonder why more car accidents don’t happen, or you don’t hear of people dying in house or building fires that often, although I am sure they do. Example: We are living on the second floor of a 4 family ‘flat’. After the obligatory couple of adjustment days, I began to look around. There are heavy bars on ALL the windows, there is a door into the stairway going upstairs, and a door onto the porch. The door to the porch also has a huge grate that is locked at night, then the door. Robbers you know. Of course, as I thought about it, there is no way to get out in case of a fire…but we don’t have to worry about robbers. At least, that is how it was explained to me by a Ghanaian friend. I have been going to sleep at night these past weeks wondering how to get the heck out of here in case of a fire……let me jump the 2 stories…just get me out!

Back to the vehicles. It is NOT unsual to see a tro-tro (a micro bus from the 60’s) packed with people, babies on mom’s back, the top carrier piled as high as the tro-tro with stuff that is sorta tied down and sorta not, then add about 2 to 4 goats/sheep riding on the top. All that whizzing around a round about that would be virtually impossible for any person in the US to navigate. Let’s so some simple physics. How do they remain upright? I am not Catholic, but do stay with some Catholic sisters and I can say a Hail Mary and Our Father in about 30 seconds as we approach a round about to ask God to get us safely around the round about. I have yet to see a car accident at one though.

Side walks? Humm, maybe I have encountered some in Adum, but they are crammed to the street with vendors. Then there is the open sewer/drainage ditch about 2 ½ feet deep you definitely don’t want to fall into! So you spend your time walking in the street with the cars. A challenge and one must be on their toes all the time.

Another safety issue I see a lot. Barefoot children and broken glass. How those little kids miss the glass I don’t know, but they seem to. As I take my walks each day, the children all come running out of their houses shouting “broni, broni”, in barefeet, with broken glass and it truly amazes me that I don’t have any blood to mop up after all those little feet.

These are just some thoughts and observations. I am not being critical but keeping my eyes open and looking around me. How people live in different parts of the world is a study to me. Children play, adults work, laundry gets done even by hand in streams, food cooks, cars go, people travel, drink water clean or not, ways of life are different yet we all find a way to proceed with our lives. The US society is so busy trying to keep us from hurting ourselves while other societies are busy just trying to exist day to day. I gaze around myself in Ghana in wonderment some days, I think of coming home and gazing around myself in wonderment in the US. How different yet alike we all are.