Good road, good business

Starting our fourth full week of operations, we travelled north to some villages we drove through last week to see if we could find an agent in one of the most promising villages. We took a different route to the village - because the map said we could - and because we thought we might find some additional markets. It was a one lane road all the way, with branches scraping the truck on both sides in some places. At one point we had to pull into someone's front yard to let a tro-tro pass by.

In another place, there was a deep open cement ditch cutting across the road (perpendicular) to route the runoff from heavy thunderstorms. The ditch was about two feet wide and there were two boards across the top of it, spaced approximately the same distance apart as most car tires. Tim got out to guide Whit across - like they do when you pull your car in at Jiffy Lube for an oil change. It was hotter than blue blazes and all I could think was how hot it would be if we fell off or broke the boards, got a tire stuck in the ditch and had to call for assistance. I started my mantra - "don't get stuck, don't get stuck, don't get stuck." And we didn't! That was quite a relief.

About half way to the village that was our destination, we came up over a small ridge, and the view was spectacular. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't nearly capture the depth, but there are many layers of hills in the distance, all different shades of green, grey, and blue. Just glorious.

Finally at the village, we asked about for the man we had met on the first day, who said he would show us around and speak with us about our batteries. He was still out at the farm (most people in the rural areas have small farms that they work in the early mornings and late afternoons), but some other villagers said we could just tell them. So we began explaining the concept to about four men, one of whom was the village youth leader - a very important and respected adult position in each village - who was very dynamic and totally grabbed onto the idea. By the end of our visit about two hours later, we had about 50 people, including 20 or so children gathered around us and had 9 new customers and about three people who wanted to be agents. Tim could hardly sign them up fast enough.

On Thursday, we'll go back and sign up an agent.

NOTE - and you ask, what is a trotro? Trotro is the most common form of town to town transportation in Ghana. There are large busses, both air conditioned (more expensive) and not, but they primarily run on a set schedule. Trotro's are more like narrow 12-15 passenger vans - and they leave whenever they are full. This means that you might wait five minutes or five hours from the time you find a trotro going to your destination. Most of the time, it's not that long, I think. There are also shared taxis that will go from anywhere to anywhere, but they are more expensive than the trotro.