"Burning oranges is the best way to keep off malaria."

Greetings from Koforidua, capital of Eastern Region. We've just finished our research stuff for today, and I have a little bit of time to update this blog. Koforidua (or Koff-town, as the tro-tro circuit refers to it) is a decidedly more pleasant place than Accra, both in terms of weather and overall feel, though I've decided that the taxi drivers here are quite absurd. Namely, last night as we were returning from the famous Linda Dor restaurant around 9pm, our driver who "knew" the way to both of the hostels we were staying at took us to the wrong hostel first, despite us telling him at least a dozen times to turn around. Of course, it turns out that he doesn't know the way to the other hostel, so we ask for directions ... from the AK-47 armed security guards of the Eastern Region Commissioner's residence. They don't know where it is, either. Luckily, we find a sign that leads us back to the hotel, and our RA gets dropped off safely.

And then the fun begins.

See, in Ghana, you have to negotiate the fare price with the driver--there's no meter or anything. We had agreed on a fair price of two cedis, but when our driver took us back to the hostel he immediately demands more money. Oh, hell no. I give him the two cedis, explain that it's his fault for not listening to us, not knowing where he was going, which resulted in him making a "double trip."

At which point he decides to follow us into our hostel. Now, there were three of us RAs and one of him, not to mention the fact that there is a security guard at the hostel. The driver attempts to sway the security guard over to his side, at which point we all enter into a somewhat crazy shouting argument. It lasts for a few minutes, but the guard sides with us, and eventually the driver relents and drives off. Not exactly what we all wanted after getting up at 5am and working the whole day.

The funniest part about this whole story? The other three members of the team (who weren't in this cab) had basically the exact same story ... when they returned 30 minutes later. Must be something about this route.

Luckily, this seems to be a very rare incident here (only the second negative cab incident for me in my Ghana travels), and most drivers are pretty honest. Just sad when you find one that's not.

The quote from the title is something I learned from a Ghanaian yesterday. Not sure if it's true, though maybe I should supplement my bed net with it. I'm actually starting to accumulate some nice phrases, and I'll write about them the next chance I get at writing a lengthy post with pictures. Might be back in Accra this weekend or so.