The Nightjar Project: Sound Scrapes (Sound 3)
Sound Scrapes is part of a project that takes evocative recordings of Ghanaian life and transposes them into related environments here in the New Forest. The Nightjar Project uses the bird’s migration to represent the fluid movement of people, histories, cultures and ideas between the UK and Ghana.
The Penny Bus Station
Press Play to listen
Trotr Bus Station in Ghana
Kwame explains “A Tro is a coin, a penny, something low-priced, and it is the price you pay for your travel at the bus station. Trotr means ‘One Penny Station’ or ‘Cheapest Bus Station’. The voices are the drivers calling the routes, and all the towns and places that they will travel through. Nothing is written on boards or signs, it’s all verbal because not everyone can read. So, it’s a negotiation about the route and the possibility to get you to where you want to go. Everybody is calling. You you can hear someone shouting “Hospital” as a destination, and (En-ge-ge) which is a stop on the way.”
​
​
An Interesting Fact About Nightjars
Nightjars migrate in a loop pattern between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Nightjars overwinter from September to March in the scrub grasslands south of the equatorial rainforests of continental Africa often making a detour through Western Africa. Nightjars arrive in the UK in late April and May where they breed on heathlands, moorlands, woodland clearings, and recently felled conifer plantations
Click the button to listen to more sounds and learn more about this project.
