O the trotro is hot, and even though the temperature drops slightly as night falls it gets hotter still. At least I have a good spot. This trotro is actually an old bus. Its seats have been torn out and replaced by rows of small, narrow benches. There is an aisle up the middle and a two-seater to each side. Every row also has a jump seat that folds down over the aisle. I am in the second row jump seat.

To my right a man studies a small, detailed map of Great Britain bound into the front of his daily planner. The rider just in front of me gets up from his jump seat and turns around to face the passengers. He is wearing a dark blue suit and a limp necktie tied in a small, clenched knot. It looks like he pulled the knot as tight as it would go. He lays his briefcase on the jump seat, opens it, and pulls out a three-ring binder. Then he starts his pitch.

Every big trotro traveling a fixed route carries a salesman or a preacher. You can tell right away that this guy is the former, because preachers don’t carry briefcases.

The most common item sold on trotros is Smokers Toothpaste (with free hard-bristled toothbrush) from China. Typically sales pitches are done in Twi with bits of English thrown in for color and emphasis. For Smokers Toothpaste (with free hard-bristled toothbrush) there are phrases like, “Eye strong! Eye powerful! Eye natural!” (“It is strong! It is powerful! It is natural!”). Extensive pantomiming and gesticulating ensure that the deaf learn something, too.

A funny thing happens on a trotro when the pitchman starts to work: nothing. It’s nothing if he’s slinging secret herbal male enhancement pills from the jungles of Thailand and it’s equally nothing if he’s forecasting the End of Days. Like so many other smells and sounds and sticky heats, the pitch is inexorable; and as it is with those things, I can’t tell whether anybody else in this trundling heatbox even notices it.

As soon as he opens his binder we are sure that he won’t be selling Smokers Toothpaste (with free hard-bristled toothbrush) because he flips open to a laminated page with pictures of orange gel-caps and a lot of small Chinese writing. If it were toothpaste he would have just held up a sample. In fact, today we are being given a rare opportunity to buy a powerful orange Chinese wonder-pill, and let’s find out what those Chinese have jammed into this thing anyway.

On one hand it is a powerful curative. It can relieve:
· Leg pains
· Migraines
· Fever
· Insomnia
· Malaria
· Blood clot
· Spinal pains
· Pain in the joints
· Pressure in the eyes
· Stomach pains
· Running (diarrhea)
· Pain in the throat
· Cutter (common cold)
· Bad dreams

At the same time it promotes general health:
· Circulation
· Muscular strength
· Regular menstruation
· Virility (“Strong Penis”)
· Powerful Hips
· Warm chest
· Strong bones

And all this for just GHC 1 per pill. You only have to take it once to get all the benefits; but the more you take, the better. At a pharmacy they would cost at least GHC 10 each. This is a special limited offer for the riders of this car only. Who will take some? If there is no response he continues the pitch. Just look at your arms. (He holds out his arms wide.) The blood will flow freely and your arms will become more powerful. Your bones will be very hard. Just one Ghana cedi. No more tired arms!

While the man talks and pantomimes the riders sit mostly in silence. They don’t talk to each other very much. Once in a while one raises his hand. How many, sir? Just one. The salesman carefully shakes one pill out of the plastic bottle and places it in a tiny ziploc bag which is then passed back over the rows of passengers to the man. He puts the bag in his pocket or his briefcase. Then he produces GHC 1 and it is passed up to the seller.

A man sitting just to my left raises his hand and asks for one pill. The salesman shakes it out and puts it in the tiny bag and hands it to him. The man produces a GHC 5 bill. It’s the only bill he has. The salesman says, “Why don’t you just take five?” But he doesn’t want five; he wants one. “They are very good. No more back pains, no more migraines.” Pause. Well, alright. He’ll take the five then. He passes the tiny bag back to the seller, who has already shaken out the other four pills. They hardly fit when he jams them in there. The man accepts the bag and stares out the window.

This will continue until enough product has been sold. I’ve seen the pitch go to the bitter end. By then the salesman is repeating himself and trying to shove tubes of Smokers Toothpaste (with free hard-bristle toothbrush) into riders’ hands as they file hunched out of the trotro. Other times enough is sold in the first few minutes that he can get off and board another trotro long before reaching the destination. He always sells some, though, no matter what it is. I wonder whether people sometimes buy one just to make him feel good, or to get him to sit down and be quiet.

On this ride the man sells his share of orange pills within a half hour. Then he puts away his three-ring binder and takes out a box about the size of a cigar box. He smiles and holds it up for the whole car to see. The dramatic opening of the pitch. On the cover is a pornographic photo of a white woman bent over on all fours with a huge, musclebound black man behind her and with her face buried in the breasts of a blond woman who’s arched ecstatically backwards on a mattress. Since I’m sitting so close I can see by the trotro’s dim overhead light that the mattress is bare, and that the blond woman’s eyes are squeezed shut and her tongue protrudes just a little bit between pressed lips, as if she’s thinking very hard. There is no response from the other riders. It’s the same sweat and dank smells. He could just as well have been reciting Psalms.

I got off the trotro just a few minutes after he started into his pitch for the rare, ancient Chinese remedy for sexual dysfunction. (“Creates great warmth in the genitals,” etc.) By then he had just sold a few, all to a woman in the back who had raised her hand almost immediately and said loudly that her husband could use some. The passengers got a kick out of that. They must have been listening, after all.