Joe's Moto

So let's pretend you're an on-the-go student activist/pleasure seeker. Tro-tros are too slow and inconvenient and a car is too bloody expensive. What are you to do in a hostile, foreign country? Why not invest in a moped?

That's exactly what Joe and Jon decided to do. They each bought their own "motos" and have relied on them ever since for most short-distance transportation. They're relatively cheap (a few hundred dollars for a bike) and go easy on petrol.

On the road, they're fantastic. Accra's traffic can get heavy at times, taking over an hour to get from downtown to campus. With a moto, you avoid the traffic jams by simply going in between lanes and passing by all of the other suckers in their cars, although avoiding hawkers at stoplights can be a challenge. Suddenly that hour-plus trip takes 20 minutes and you're home in time to watch your favourite Ghanaian soap opera.

Probably the one caveat would be the maintenance. Unless you develop a good rapport with your mechanic, he'll just fix your bike long enough for it to run for a week before it has to come back. And charge you through the nose for it.

Over the time that he's had it, Joe has allowed me to ride with him, which for me is always a blast. For someone who has never had a license before, Joe certainly learned how to drive well (in Ghana, it's done offensively) and avoided accidents all this time. He even taught me how to drive it one day. Anyways, we've had some excellent mini-adventures on his Piaggio, from exploring Accra to weekends at Kokrobite and Winneba. Riding around with him on the open road, listening to our iPods, singing bad tunes like "Born In The USA", weaving in and out of Accra traffic and yelling at bad drivers will all be fond memories that I'll have for many years to come.

Sadly, one day Joe will have to give up his moto and will have to start taking the bus again like a schmuck - that is, until he gets a license and a sweet job and will be able to drive whatever the hell he wants. Until then, whenever I hear a whining two-stroke engine in the distance, I'll always think of him.