TRO-TRO DIARIES PART 1: INTRODUCING PROJECT 4/11

Spot TheBizmic?

Things have really moved up into high gear of late so I have been moving around a lot. Since I don’t own a car, and my parent’s vehicles are off limits 95% of the time (owing to some bad teenage choices) I have had to consider other transportation options. Taxis have always been a staple part of my mobility requirements and they still are but their outrageous charges when you string the words, “Spintex” and “Regimanuel” in the same sentence encouraged me to master the Art of the Tro-tro. Seriously, whenever these taxi drivers first hear ‘Spintex’ I can see their eyes going dull contemplating the ever-present traffic, but when ‘Regimanuel’ follows, their eyes light up and some will even manage an avaricious smile and gesture me to sit down. That is my cue to release the fluent pidgin or Twi to let them know I am in for business, genially asking the fare before sitting down even as the price fencing proceeds. Perhaps it was the annoying nature of this constant haggling back and forth with taxi drivers over their hyper-inflated prices, or perhaps just the sheer affordability of the Tro-tro, that convinced me by and large to patronize them more and more. Now, I am a certified pro on the Spintex-37 Tro-tro route, I know all the bus stops. Though I am yet to figure out the mechanical jungle that is Kwame Nkrumah Circle, I have enough experience points to face the whole city in these rickety boneshakers. Alas, my knees, my butt, my back, my ears and my nose tend to pay the price but it is well worth the sacrifice – GH¢2 will fully finance the cost of a return trip home and still leave enough change for kelewele. Sometimes, I just love living in Ghana!

Then there are those moments when both the taxi and the ‘trosky’ become dim memories; these are the times when I find myself rolling with any of my friends who unlike me, either did not make those same teenage mistakes or have more indulging parents. I don’t think all the horses in the world can drag some of these people within a 2-mile radius of a Tro-tro station, they even tend to view taxis with such disdain – merely backups for emergencies. I understand them partly because I used to be a member of the “Ghana AC Brigade”, you know those people that talk of winter with nostalgia and cannot live without the air conditioners in their houses, their cars, their offices and yes, even their bathrooms blowing on the arctic scale. It is when I occasionally break into goose bumps and shivers in an air-conditioned environment nowadays that I realize how acclimatized I have become to walking in the sizzling heat that is the African afternoon and the sultry humidity that is the inside of a Tro-tro. For now I am juggling both temperature differentials with some practiced ease and this is all well and good seeing as I have taken upon myself the huge task of Project 4/11 which demands a lot of simultaneous troskying and dilly dallying with the Ghana AC Brigade. Consequently I have developed a very ‘balanced diet’, a heterogeneous mix of taxis, trotros and saloon cars. So when I am bouncing along in a Tro-tro, I dream of the days when it will be a mix of sports cars, yachts and jets; and when I am perched in a sleek saloon I stretch out my knees and lean back as far away from the AC as possible – I think I have found my niche in each setting.

Whichever environment I find myself in though, I am always preoccupied with Project 4/11 – TEDxHarambe. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and the blogosphere I was approached by the president of Harambe Ghana, Derek Nnuro, to jointly organize and host the TEDxHarambe conference – an independently organized event operated under licence from TED, a US conference where the world’s leading thinkers and doers – e.g. Bill Gates, Al Gore etc – congregate to share ideas on what they are most passionate about. In essence we are seeking to recreate the same unique experience of a TED event on Ghanaian soil, our theme for the event is “New Capitalism” seeking to spark a serious conversation among all stakeholders about encouraging youth entrepreneurship and social value creation. When I first heard about Harambe Ghana, TED, TEDx (x=independently organized TED event) and TEDxHarambe, I immediately thought where does BMIC fit in the equation. Well as it turns out, this was really a match made in heaven. “Harambe Ghana is a private, non-political and Ghanaian organization whose mission is to nurture a new generation of young leaders, entrepreneurs, and thinkers who see problems as opportunities in need of solutions and have the ability, will, and inspirational capacity to create long-lasting social impact.” Hmmm....rather much like BMIC’s mission statement don’t you think. Derek was a really cool guy and right off the bat I got the sense we could work together and make this program a prodigious success.  He had gone through the wahala of securing a license from TED to host a TEDx event but he needed someone on the ground with the experience and know-how to make things happen, be it via trosky or AC movement; enter TheBizmic. So he has jetted of back to the US to meet Obama at the Young African Leaders Forum in DC, wrestle with his people (Harambe Ghana is a subsidiary of Harambe Endeavor Alliance) and handle the international front in terms of the speakers flying in and what not. I am on the ground handling the local front tackling all the unending issues that crop up when organizing an event of this scope. It has been a few weeks since I got involved in this project and the momentum is gradually picking up as the team coalesces better and we sort out the workflow of this strategic alliance. Watch this space for more details on TEDxHarambe, the eminent personalities that are making speeches at the event, the who and what of the whole show. For now I give you the when, November 4^th, 2010, so mark your calendars people, you now know that truly, THEBIZMIC IS BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!

Tune in for Part 2 next week.

Cheers