On Saturday morning, we woke up at 5am to start getting ready for our day trip to Cape Coast. The driver was set to arrive at 5:30, but instead arrived on AST (African Standard Time, not much different from Megan Standard Time) at 6:45. After a few complaints amongst ourselves here and there, we hopped into the van and headed to Accra. We picked up Kofi from his hotel, and the other Michigan girls from their hostel. The drive to Cape Coast was about three hours. I head-bob slept for a bit, but mostly stayed awake to look out at the changing scenery. West Ghana doesn’t present much of a difference as the east, but it’s always interesting to me to see style of housing and the goods people are selling on the side of the road. There’s always something going on. I think I’ll miss the people-watching the most when I return home.
We arrived at the Kakum National Park around 11:30am and set out on our climb to the canopy. Katie and I both got really excited at the feel of being in the woods and climbing. It was a small taste of the adventure we have planned at the end of our trip. We have about a week of travel time from when our internship ends to when we depart for the US. We had been throwing around all kinds of ideas of where we would travel. Initially we really wanted to fly to Eastern Africa, where several of our friends are doing their internships, or possibly to South Africa. We even thought Morocco would be an awesome adventure. But with the travel time and expenses required, we’ve decided our best trip will be right here in Ghana. We’ll head east and then north to explore the Volta region and climb the tallest mountain in Ghana. It will be a true backpacking adventure. We were happy to get a feel of the outdoors this weekend, though.
The canopy was absolutely gorgeous. Sometime within the last 10 or 15 years, a group of Canadians from Vancouver built a series of bridges in the canopy. There is no other canopy tour in all of Africa like this. I guess at times you can even see elephants down below and monkeys in the trees. We didn’t see any wildlife, but it was still a beautiful view nonetheless.
After the canopy tour, Kofi took us to some fancy resort nearby. I ate Red Red for lunch..sooo good! After lunch, we all piled into a room near the bar to watch the rest of the Ghana-Australia match. We were all hoping for a second goal from Ghana in the last ten minutes, as a win against Australia would have qualified Ghana for the next round. Now they need to hold their own against Germany. We’re sort of hoping for a Ghana-USA match up. In order for this to happen, Ghana has to be the #1 seed from their group and USA has to be #2 from their group. Or Ghana has to be #2 and USA has to be #1. Here’s hoping.
We headed to the Elmina Castle for the last part of our day trip. In 1482 the Portuguese arrived on the shores of Ghana in hopes to exchange spices and other goods for gold. They built this gorgeous white castle, which served as a trading post for many years. Unfortunately, it also served as a slave-trading post. It’s sort of ironic that this castle is so beautiful and lies upon a breath-taking coastline, yet inside the castle walls such atrocities took place.
They were allowed to see sunlight for an hour in the day, and also bath from the rainwater reservoir that rested underneath the stone floor. During this time, the governor would come out from his bedroom (bigger than any of the rooms the slaves were kept in) and stand on the terrace over-looking the women. He would choose one lucky lady. She had two choices. She could either refuse and be chained to a cannon ball and beaten for the day – an example for the other ladies. Or she could choose to submit, climb up the ladder into the governor’s quarters, and be taken in the corner to be raped by the governor. She was never to stay in his bed.
On certain days, hundreds of women were lead down the small staircase within their cave-like holding room. This staircase led to an even smaller room. The room where men stayed also joined into this room. In chains and shackles, they all crammed together, and formed a single-file line into the tunnel at the opposite side of the room. It was in this room that sometimes husbands, wives, brothers and sisters would be reunited. As they shuffled through the tunnel, they were led into the room of no return. When entering, one can see a small opening with a view of the ocean. Hundreds of years ago, slaves entered through the opening and into the fresh air at last, but only to soon walk onto a ship to take them to the Caribbean or North America. The guide told us that the men and women shipped to North America would have been slaves in what is now New York, Florida and Texas. We learned that slaves that were healthy enough, according to the traders, were selected to board the ships. It’s just a theory, but health scientists have thought that slavery may play a part in one of the reasons why African Americans are more likely to experience heart disease, hypertension, etc. Only slaves that were plump enough after making it through days of starvation were chosen to be transported and only those that could retain enough salt and water to make it across the sea, survived. Interesting thought. Either way, being in this room, it was hard not to imagine the pain and suffering that people endured as they were taken away from their families away to strange worlds. Flowers and grave adornments now decorate this room. Visitors who have traced their ancestry back to Elmina have left the decorations.
After the tour, we had the chance to walk around on the top tier of the castle. The view was absolutely breathtaking. We also browsed through the gift shop which sold postcards, trinkets and many books about things like Ghana heritage, history of Elmina and oh yes, of course, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope. Let me tell you, the people of Ghana are VERY fond of Barack Obama. He’s on a billboard at least every 30 miles or so. Sometimes, when Ghanaians find out that we are American, they even call us “Obama people”. I’m sure the Republicans in my life are rolling their eyes at this point, but I’m only laying down the truth! Obama love is so very alive here in Ghana and we Michigan liberals are loving it, too. Ha! Anyway, after browsing the gift shop, and being harassed by the many sellers outside of the castle we made it safely to our van and headed back to Accra. We passed approximately four Obama billboards in transit. It was a great trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment