The blood of a sacrificed sheep is poured into a bucket. Behind the crowd is the police checkpoint and the beginning of the Accra-Kumasi road.

What a coincidence: I was travelling from Accra to Kyebi when our trotro minibus got into a traffic jam just before crossing the city limits. This was annoying at first but then turned out to be quite captivating: the traffic jam was caused by a crowd which was attending a large-scale road ritual. In the middle of one of Accra’s most important arterial road some chiefs, priests and other traditionalists had gathered and created that traffic chaos. Very obviously they were celebrating a cleansing ritual in the course of which the blood of a fowl, a sheep and, finally, a full calf was sacrificed. I quickly got down, took a few pictures and got my share of the blood splashes which were distributed among the spectators, too, during the spiritual road cleansing.


Priests pour schnapps on a basket of palm tree branches. Under the umbrellas, some chiefs from the Ga Traditional Area (Accra) and their drummers.

The following day I visited the chief who had been the one in charge of that ritual. He appeared to be very friendly, helpful and also spoke fluent German (he once studied cinematography in Berlin). He explained to me in details how the Highways Authorities had missed to consult the traditional land owner, i.e. the Accra chiefs, before undertaking extension works on the Ofankor-Nsawam road section. Soon after the inauguration of the two-lane motorway quite a number of fatal motor accident occurred on that road. Allegedly a deity called Olila was responsible for these incidents. Olila now demanded that a ritual be carried out in order to exorcise the spirits or souls. And to cleanse the road to protect it from new accidents. Interestingly, too, the ritual experts had inquired from the police about the names of the deceased and then placed them symbolically into a basket made of palm tree branches. The latter was dragged to a nearby cemetery. No spirit is supposed to demand even for more blood.

... I have to be working. At least that’s the case for the bus rides from Kyebi to Accra (or vice versa) which can be long and exhausting. After setting off from the bus station many passengers soon doze off and only wake up again when the road becomes particularly bumpy. Or when the inside temperature rises drastically due to a traffic jam. But since I’m not just an ordinary passenger but rather have to do my fieldwork, I’m supposed to be awake and attentive. For my job is to observe what goes on on the road and inside the vehicle, how bus drivers work and how passengers arrange their travelling routine, etc.. Anyway, it would be utopian to believe that Ghanaian minibuses offer the appropriate environment for taking a relaxing nap.

These young shoemakers have their stall just by the Accra-Kumasi road, a stone-throw away from the Kyebi bus station. The guys have been complaining that a bypass has been built over a year ago. It means that the main traffic to and from Kumasi doesn’t pass any longer through Kyebi and the neighbouring villages. Therefore the ‘old road’ is now quiet, even dull. Hardly any long-distance travellers make a stop in Kyebi these days, and the shoemakers have less work to do.
Jovial as these guys are, they have founded a sort of club and named their roadside neighbourhood „Come Back Street“, which is now written on the asphalt in capital letters. This somehow conveys their intention to relocate the busy highway back to Kyebi. Of course they know that this will never be done. What they can do, however, is partying. Every once in a while they organise a street party, close down one lane of the road and make the town’s youth dance to deafening highlife/hiplife music.
One such „Come Back Street“ party was to take place last week [Oct 06], but was called off. The guys simply had missed that it was the time of the Ohum festival, a period during which palace traditionalists don’t allow any noise in the kingdom.

Anyinam lorry station, GPRTU office

The one with the light shirt is Flipa. He has been my field assistant for a little more than a month now and helps me with contacting people, visiting lorry stations, travelling on the Accra-Kumasi road, observing drivers and travellers and of course with taking notes. Here you see him conversing with officers of Ghana’s most important drivers’ unions, the GPRTU (Ghana Private Road Transport Union). They make sure that operations in and around taxi/lorry stations run smoothly.
Flipa also translates into English when things get too complicated for me in Twi. In return, I let him know what has been written on some of these vehicles which have been imported secondhand from Germany. We both think it’s quite amusing that, nowadays, this transporter from Günter Braun’s Schreinerei doesn’t carry wooden furniture over Ghana’s roads any longer but rather 24 sweating passengers.
The other day I liked Flipa’s methodological reflections on doing fieldwork among commercial drivers. He suggested that we could invite our informants for a beer or two, which is likely to make them talk more and freely. I guess such assisted conversations should rather take place in the evening or on days off the road.

Last Tuesday [06-08-22] I travelled from Accra to Kyebi. It was my 30th bus trip since my arrival six weeks ago. Luckily I was given a seat just behind the bus driver which allowed me to have a perfect view on the driver’s manoeuvres and onto what was going on on the road. Next to me sat a small boy who wanted to play with my camera, which his mother wouldn’t let him do. So he started crying, the driver threatened to beat him and he (the boy, of course) soon fell asleep. He wouldn’t even wake up when we had to take a detour on a bumpy ‘bush road’, about 30km before Kyebi. Once again an articulated truck had tipped over and was now blocking one of the busiest motorways in the country, i.e. my field of research.
It was a friend-driver from Kyebi who took this picture. He was waiting at the same lorry station for his turn to load his minibus with passengers and came over to our vehicle for a chat.