First, I need to explain what trotro is:
Trotros are like “public transport” here. So, basically they are equivalent for
a bus, but they just happen to be mini vans, fitting maybe about 12 people in,
depending on which kind of trotro it is. Some of them are nice ones, almost
“fancy”, and then some of them look like they will break down in any minute, or
look like they have been robbed very
thoroughly multiple times, left with nothing but steering wheel and seats. One
trotro (photo below) was started like stolen cars in movies – with the cables,
not sure what happened to the keys of the car. But, it was pretty cool. Surprise surprise, trotros do not have line
numbers, like “oh okay we need to take trotro number 54 to get to Agona”. No.
You just need to ask, or usually the cashier boy will tell you where the trotro
is heading to. Climbing in the back seat of trotro requires gymnastic skills
and flexibility, since the trotros are tiny, full of people and probably not
designed to carry that many persons. And I have not manage to exit trotro even
once without hitting my head, the roof is just so low. But, trotros are
awesome!
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| Trotro |
Hmm, what else. With 20 cents, one can get 2 bags of bissap juice. Ice cream. Bag
of popcorn. Doughnuts. Bread. If you double that amount, you can get for
example avocado(s), depends on where you buy them from, pineapple, mango(s).
I’m not sure what you can get with 20 or 40 cents in Finland, some tiny lollies
maybe? Maybe a fruit, like apple or something? Not much anyway. You can’t even
dream of taking a bus, not to mention taxi, with 20 or 40 cents. I think in
Jyväskylä the cheapest bus ticket is something like 2,80€? Here, A TAXI from
the city center to home (more or less 10km), costs about 4-5 euros. If you trotro
home, it's about 35 cents. Trotro from Agona to home, which is about 15km or
so, costs 40 cents. Shared taxi from Busua to Agona (probably about 10km), is
70 cents. If you want to treat yourself and take a private taxi, then it’s way
more expensive, costs as much as (almost) 3 euros.
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| Cedes |
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| Pesewas |
Somehow, very quickly, you get so used to the cheapness of
things that all the sudden things seem expensive. Like, we went to have dinner
in Indian restaurant and I think I spent about 10€ and it seemed like a lot!
Even though that price included a soft drink, delicious and HUGE main dish
& rice (ate that for 2 days!) and garlic naan bread, it still felt a bit
expensive. Which is crazy, since that was one of the cheapest and one of the
best Indian dinners I have had for a long time.
On Sunday, when leaving from the Butre beach, we had to take
a “private trotro”, because trotros do not really operate on Sundays there. It
cost 50 cedes, so something like 9€, meaning 4,5€ per person, and for a while
it felt really bad to pay “that much”. You just get used to it, which makes
sense. On our way to the beach we payed about 80 cents for the same journey, so
paying almost 5 euros of it now felt like a rip-off, even though it’s not much.
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| Huge breaad: 6 cedes (1€) |
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| Water bag (0,5L): 20 pesewas (0,035 cents) |
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| Ice cream <3: 1 cede (0,20 cents) |
Night at decent room, right on the beach, costs about 10€.
With that you get clean room, with private toilet and shower, and ceiling fan (important) so
basically all you need for sleeping! Of course, there are expensive options as
well. If you want to get fancy and if
you feel like spending lots of money. It’s really not difficult to find a hotel
with rooms that are “standard priced”, like twin room being 100€ per night. So
for the people who have too much money and they are looking for places where to
spend it, there are options too!
Then, internet and stuff. I have prepaid sim, so I buy
credit I add on to my account whenever I run out of data. 1000MB (expires in 7
days, but usually runs out faster than that since there’s no wi-fi anywhere),
costs about 2 euros. If I make whatsapp calls (which I don’t really do hehe),
that naturally uses data quite a bit and I run out of it in no time. My favourite café (and also the only one here),
has free wifi so if I need to make mandatory “mom and dad I’m alive” – calls, I
do them when I go there.
But, in conclusion, since I pay for internet on weekly basis, it’s about 3€ a
week. It’s cheap, and since I don’t have unlimited data, the plus side has been
that I can’t use internet and thus my phone that much. It is actually very
refreshing to have days when I barely use my phone! But then, there are occasionally
times when I end up using the data, planned to last for the whole week, in 24
hours... Whoops. Luckily does not happen very often since I have good books to
read, and often plenty of other activities to do! (Btw, updating this blog uses
huuuuge amounts of data, mostly the part when I add photos!)
For example:
3 avocados 5 cedes (0,85 cents)
bag of coriander 2
cedes (0,35 cents)
10 eggs 6 cedes (1€)
Indian food for two people (two main dishes + rice, and naan
bread) + home delivery (10km), 126 cedes (21€)
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| For ex. Pineapple: 2 cedes (0,35 cents) |
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| Fabric: 3 yards (2,70m) 30 cedes (5,80€) |
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