It was a normal Sunday, it rained a bit in the morning and the weather was gloomy, i had just returned from Tema to the Upper west region where i spent the Easter holiday. Took the night bus from Accra on a Saturday and got to Wa the capital of the Upper west region of Ghana then onward to school because school had reopened. Being a teacher in Lassia which is about forty kilometres from Wa, you have two options of getting there either taking a tro-tro (minibus) which plies the road which is one of the most uncomfortable ways of public transport to Lassia because four people have to sit on a seat actually meant for three people with some passengers sitting on the roof of the bus. Seriously its either that or going on a motorbike. But i don't have a motorbike,this is where my luck beamed in. A friend of of mine had come to Wa and was leaving for Lassia that day so i could join him.. Coming from Tema and going to school for the first time since reopening of the term, i had a lot of stuff with me likewise him, because he had come to town to buy a few things and go back to the village. So we sat on the bike and tied our stuff to the 'carrier' section of the motorbike. We set off around 6.00 pm a typical motor bike ride from Wa to Lassia lasts about 40 minutes, the ride was ok though a bit uncomfortable but at least it was better than sitting in an overcrowded public bus. We left Wa at 6 pm it was already dark so onward we went, we rode for about 25 minutes without any hitches passing 'Varimpere' one of the villages on the road to Lassia.
Then my friend said the bike was acting a bit funny, the steering bar of the motorbike was a bit unstable so we should stop and check the back tire of the motorbike. As it was dark already, i switched on the torch on my phone to check it out and there it was a puncture. What were we supposed to do, next village was about 14 kilometres away the one behind us was also about 11 kilometres away.
We finally had to settle down to two decisions, either we walked to the next village me carrying the things and my friend pushing the motorbike or my friend hitch hiking on a passers by motorbike to the next village to call a mechanic. We decided the latter option will be the best that i stay back in pitch darkness with our stuff whiles he hitchhiked to call the repairer. the making of this decision was obviously the easiest part now the hardest part was getting a motorbike to hitch hike. very single rider signaled to stop would did not stop. May be they were scared we were robbers and were planning to attack them. in the meantime some of the folks living in the village before and after us passed by sitting on bicycles, when they saw us stranded they approached us and asked whats going on, we told them about the puncture, "can they please call the mechanic in their village to come to our aid?" We requested. In about thirty minutes whiles my friend was fruitlessly trying to hitchhike one of the passers by who saw us returned with a mechanic.
We now had to untie every load from the motorbike so that the mechanic could fix it. Meanwhile we were very hungry so ventured into the forest to gather some wild fruit, luckily, shea fruit was in abundance so we ate a few and was alright. It took the repairer about 45 minutes to fix the puncture but we could not go yet, because after fixing the puncture the mechanic has to inflate the tire before we can go and his pump was not functioning this meant we had to follow him to his village in order to properly inflate the tire. But tying all the load to a bike whose back tire is semi inflated to a village 14 kilometres away would be of no help at all. We decided to hide all of our things inside the forest woods a place where nobody could find them since it was dark anyway so that we can follow the mechanic to his village for him to properly inflate the tires.
We got to the mechanics village about 8pm and they offered us water which i quickly gulped because i was parched all the fruit eating had made me really thirsty. the mechanic then got to work, all he had to do was find a functioning pump out of his collection of pumps to inflate the tire but it took about 30 minutes to finally find a "fully functioning" pump". At last the the tire was inflated and we were good to go.
After thanking them profusely we sat on the bike and returned to where we hid our things to pick them up and move onward. that is where another drama began, we couldn't find the location where we hid the things. It was just pitch black so i marked the place by counting the trees to the village whereas my friend also had his way of marking the spot but someway somehow we both couldn't find the tree where we hid the things. It took another 15 minutes of searching with my improvised mobile phone torch light behind big trees we could see before we finally found the things. I brought some pastries from Tema and it was part of the things we hid in the forest. Ants and various creeping animals have smelt the aroma of the cake and were all over the pastries therefore we had to de-insectify the pastries before moving on which took about 10 minutes. We finally tied all our belongings to the bike and slowly but surely, moved to Lassia where we arrived safely at a quarter past 10.
