Early start on Monday. It was a continent-wide holiday, African Union day, which meant we needed to head out by 6 in order to beat the traffic to Cape Coast, which is about two hours west of Accra. We spent the day with the GIEU kids, so the bus was a little tight. Breakfast was tuna and corned beef sandwiches along with an incredibly sweet mango/oj.
It was a long long drive to Kakum National Park, but a beautiful one. Once we got out of the city the land was lush and green. When we got to the park, there was a little hiking to be done to get to the top of the canopy walk platform, and my choice of shoes (flipflops) was unfortunate. Still, not a dealbreaker, and we all got to the top fine. Each of us had the chance to walk the narrow wooden plank, erected by two Canadians and one Ghanaian, from tree to tree to tree, 130 feet off the ground; some of us even caught a glimpse of a few monkeys. On the walk down there were two men selling coconuts; Danielle, Joey, Nathan and I each bought one, and the man chopped the top of them off with a machete so we could drink the cool water. So yummy! He then chopped them open for us so we could scoop out the meat inside. So fresh and incredibly refreshing.
From Kakum we drove to Elmina Castle,a massive white stone structure erected in the 1500s by Portuguese settlers who came first to exchange goods with the Africans. Soon it became one of the largest and most notorious slave castles in all of Ghana. Right on the coast, it was used to house the Africans after they were taken from their homes until the ships arrived to bring them to the Americas. We saw the dungeons where men and women were taken, the Governor’s room, and the “door of no return,” where the slaved Africans were taken
out of a door into the open air to meet their fates on the long trip across the ocean. More than half of them died during their stay, and all were exposed to horrid treatment. Whenever the governor had the urge for some companionship, all the women were brought out from their dungeons into an open square, where he looked out from his balcony and chose the woman he would rape. Needless to say, the visit was pretty powerful. Learning about
slavery in the States, we rarely look at it from the African perspective.
Outside, I fell victim to one of the men trying to get money for his “middle school soccer team jerseys.” The little form he had looked legit, and he had given me a seashell with my name on it, so I felt obligated to give 5 cedi…not until I got on the bus did I realize there was no middle school soccer team. Ah well, you live, you learn. And it’s a nice seashell.
We had lunch at Kofi’s brother’s house. Much bigger and more comfortable than the majority of homes we’ve seen. The spread was delicious; coco (fried plantains), cooked veggies, baked beans, yams, fried chicken and fish, spaghetti, meat & veggie stew…tasty, and as we’ve seen over and over again, the family was incredibly welcoming. Sue Ann, one of the GIEU leaders, learned how to carry her four year old on her back like a true Ghanaian, wrapping little Meredith with a 2 yard piece of fabric to keep her in place. Super cute! It was raining all through lunch, the first real storm we’ve had since being here, and it’s so nice the way the rain cools everything off.
On the drive back home we stopped at Cape Coast Castle for pictures, but didn’t go in. Over the years it and Elmina were in use by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, each of them furthering the slave trade, as African tribes continues warring among themselves and capturing more prisoners who then were handed over to the British as slaves.
The drive home was even longer…traffic here is horrible if you catch it at the right time. Grabbed some dinner and then the four of us began packing up for our trip to Kumasi in the morning. We said goodbye to our GIEU friends, who we’ll see again on Saturday in Kumasi, and settled down for
a good five or six hours of sleep (Joey and Danielle have learned to function on less of it, but Nathan and I were struggling with the abbreviated sleep schedules. Luckily we’d be able to sleep on the bus the next day.) before our 5:30 wakeup time the next morning.
Overall a fantastically full day..loving it here!
More to come,
Jordan
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