My pulse is just now returning to normal; the shakiness has almost subsided.
I’m a bit reluctant to share the following story with you, afraid that it might make me look bad. But I will fight the desire to censor all but the most flattering things and tell you straight up what happened…
I had my first all-out-yelling-in-the-street-other-people-gathering-round fight on my way to work. Unsurprisingly, it was with a taxi driver.
I’ve been working here a month now, which means that I’ve made the back-n-forth trip from home to work roughly 40 times. Each time I’m paying 15,000 cedis (roughly $1.50). My negotiation strategy isn’t complicated: I know what a fair price is and so before I get in the taxi, I say where I’m going and how much I’ll pay. Generally the driver will say, “oh, make it 20,” to which I’ll reply, “Charlie, I’m going everyday and paying 15.” He typically will say, “ok, sit down,” though sometimes the driver won’t budge and I’ll let him drive off and wait for the next (Friday I stopped a taxi that was asking 50,000 cedis! I just laughed and walked off—no point in starting to negotiate on that one). I know 15,000 is a fair price because people are willing to take me for it—if it weren’t, they just wouldn’t take me.
So today a taxi stopped with two small children in their school uniforms in back—he was dropping them “just here.” I told him where I was going and said I’d pay 15,000. He asked which side of Roman Ridge I was going and I said, “Behind Jack and Jill (School), on the way to Nyaho Clinic.”
Along the way, the driver was griping about other drivers under his breathe in Twi, but he himself was cutting people off. I just looked out the window and ignored it. He was having some problem with his car too, it seemed.
When we got to Jack and Jill, he asked where and I said, “behind, pass left at the junction.” He said he thought I had meant I was going someplace opposite, not “in back of.” I said that “behind” means “in back of” and that I’d also said “on the way to Nyaho” (which is "in back of"). He started to argue and say that 15 was not good and I’d have to pay 20.
“I’m going everyday and always paying 15,000. That’s what we agreed on.”
“I won’t take 15! You pay 20, do you agree?”
“No! I’ll pay 15, that’s what we agreed on and that’s a fair price.”
At this point he had knowingly passed the junction where he should have turned and there was quite a bit of traffic so it would have been difficult to get back to where I needed to go. Now he was not only not taking me where I wanted to go, but AWAY from it.
He wanted me to pay 15 to drop there, but I was still a good 10 minute walk away from my office.
I don’t know where it came from, but I had a fire in me this morning.
“You didn’t take me to where I wanted to go, so I won’t pay!” I think that the F-word might have slipped out of my mouth (as an adjective, not a verb), to which he might have said he would kill me. I jumped out of the moving taxi and started to walk. I was pissed, but I also thought that it was best to get out of the taxi and, if necessary, bring the public into the fight as a safety precaution.
I was in a lose-lose situation almost; either I pay him fully to NOT take me the whole way or I let him squeeze more out of me to take me to where we’d originally agreed. I wasn’t having it. I didn't want to not pay him, but he didn't give me much choice. I wasn't going to let him bully me. I was shocked two weeks ago when a co-worker basically did this same thing on the way home. I never would have dreamed I would be doing the same thing so soon.
There was a lot of traffic, lots of cars around. I started to walk fast—I was angry and I was going to be late. I was a bit scared the man would come and follow me…he did. I was just near a group of women selling some breakfast food when he came shouting. I squared off to face him, ready.
“Maybowcho (I beg, please)!” I wanted my chance to tell my story to the women. I explained how I’d given the directions, that I’m always paying 15 while he was shouting and raving. The 3 or 4 breakfast women tried to talk the man down and he threatened to slap me, which was tsk-tsked by the gathering crowd. I knew he couldn't with all those people around. He called me crazy and mad, which are big insults in Ghana.
Finally, I paid him 10,000 cedis since he didn’t take me to where we had agreed. He continued to argue, other people were obviously fighting my fight for me, and I walked off. My heart was pounding and I was looking around to make sure that there were always people near me. I know I shouldn’t have put myself in this situation, especially for $0.50, but it all happened so fast. And to think I was just telling someone yesterday that I’d been having good luck with taxi drivers lately…
Was it an ugly American moment? Or did I just handle the situation the way a Ghanaian would?
UPDATE: I explained this morning's showdown to a Ghanaian coworker at lunch and she told me, "You've done well!" Seems that she thinks it was good that I stood up to the taxi driver and shouted back. Ghanaians, she says, are used to shouting as a style of communication. And she said she probably wouldn't have even paid him the 10,000 cedis!
