Entertainment

So our new residence in Accra sits on a road that forms a T-junction with a busy thoroughfare, on which taxis frequently pass. This has led to my fellow RAs and I creating a new (soon-to-be-Olympic) sport:

Competitive long-distance taxi hailing. (CLDTH ... we are currently accepting nominations for better names/acronyms of this sport.)

Several months of field research in Ghana have led us to believe that taxi drivers have an innate sixth sense: obruni-radar, or obruni-dar, for short. Some days we'll walk out of the house, we'll hear a honk and out of seemingly nowhere a taxi will appear. Some people see things like this and ask 'why?'; we see things like this and ask 'why not make a really cool, pointlessly competitive game out of this?'.

How this game is played:

1.) All players must be walking on the road our house is on (the vertical part of the T-junction).

2.) Players attempt hailing taxis from the main road (the crossbar of the T). This is more difficult than one may think. There are trees at both corners of the intersection, so taxis only have visual/audio on potential hailers for a brief second, as they are speeding down the main road. This requires excellent timing and 'hailing-carrying distance' on the part of the hailer. Players who hail repeatedly when no taxi is in visual range are shunned and penalized heavily. No non-human aides, such as loudspeakers, metal whistles or those annoying football horns, allowed.

3.) Successful hailer wins and shamelessly celebrates. Distance from the T-junction is noted. Current record held by Noah--something like 60 meters.

But, wait, there's more. Bonuses:

1.) Nonchalance: Extra points for hailing with only one finger.

2.) Economy: Extra points for negotiating a lower than average price with the driver.

3.) Greed: Having multiple cabs stop with one hail.

4.) Nightvision: Winning this game at night. Obviously.

5.) Supremacy: All of the above.

This sport is still in its developmental stages, so I will keep you updated on new rules, forms of competition, etc.