Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:21 pm
I've been letting Ghana sit with me overnight while I figure out a way to express our day.
We chose the seven hour tour that took us from the port of Takoradi, down to the Cape Coast Castle, on to St. Georges (or Elmina) Castle and then a luncheon and cultural show at a luxurious resort on the ocean.
One of the advantages of taking the longer tours, is that they take us away from the port or the town we are in, and out into the countryside. We found that worked well for us in Bali and the Philippines.
Cape Coast was a 1.5 hour drive away from the ship so we got to see a good deal of the contrasts in the country, although we never veered very far away from the more prosperous areas along the coast.
My impression? Yet another African country I hope to return to someday. Ghana is closer to the life I expected to see in Africa, so it was much less of the 'bubble' feeling that Cape Town and Namibia had. There we saw wonderful sights and disturbing sights. Our tour yesterday didn't take me out of my comfort zone because we were whisked by things in an air-conditioned bus but to really experience the country we will have to do just that. Even the luxury resort where we had lunch was roughing it by North American standards.
Yesterday, we saw a country full of energy, education, industriousness, and potential. Our guide was very proud of the fact that democracy has remained in place since 1992 after several false starts since their independence in 1957.
I think this is the first developing country I've been to where I haven't seen signs for KFC or McDonalds or other global chains.
What I saw instead was enterprise after enterprise, people working, technology in unusual places, and schools. Public schools, church run schools, technical schools, and a university - education of some sort was easy to spot in each of the communities we drove through which gives me great hope for Ghana's success. In my travels, I've come to the conclusion that my overseas charity dollars are best directed towards education projects, part of the reason why we support a specific charity working to establish a library in a small town here in Ghana.
The schools were what you'd imagine, buildings with large open windows to let in the light.
Traditional ways of life seem to be blended with modern.
I have a shot of an electronics store, next to 'With God Fashions.' We saw treadle sewing machines set up on the 'front porch' of the dwellings so women could sew in the light. Some were collectives, some were singular. We saw a 'school' to train the women on running a cottage industry business.
It was Tuesday, a day of rest for the fishermen, so we got to see the fishing boats hauled up on the beaches and the nets being mended. Tuesday is also market day so we saw the teeming market place that was set up at one of the toll booths we passed by.
The country is about 55% Christian but this is a Christianity that is proclaimed daily, not just on Sunday. We got a great kick out of the business names.
Goats, and chickens were everywhere. We even spotted two goats on the second storey of an unfinished building!
We saw flamingos and lizards as well.
Children were everywhere. The little ones were with their parents as they worked. The older ones were in the schools.
We saw more of the walking that I talked about from Namibia. This time often with amazing loads balanced on the heads.
From a history perspective, we were taken to two slave 'castles', one British, one Portuguese. At Cape Coast, we were taken to the suffocation room, where rebellious slaves were thrown to literally be suffocated to death, their bodies then left out on display as a warning to the others.
We descended a few steps into the room and stood there, our eyes adjusting to the light from a 40W bare bulb, in a room that felt airless after only a few minutes of being in it. And that was with the door open. The guide summed it up best when he said, “We can only say, 'May their souls rest in peace.'” There simply are no other words to add.
We stood in the cells where up to 200 slaves would be packed for up to 2 months at a time after being sold and branded, awaiting the ships to take them away. We walked through the Door of No Return to see where the slaves would be loaded onto the ships. And we got to see the sign on the outside, leading back, which calls it the Door of Return since people are now bringing the bones of the slaves back to Ghana to be buried in Africa.
The sense I had from the guide was that there is genuine regret for the part that Ghanians played in the process (after all, the slave traders never ventured inland, the slaves were brought to them by the tribes willing to trade.)
After Cape Coast, we were taken to St. George's Castle which is the oldest, sub-Saharan European building still standing (it is 530 years old.) There the focus was more on the female slaves and what they went through. The Portuguese built the castle for the ivory and gold trade but converted the store rooms to dungeons when the slave trade replaced those.
This was the entrance to the cell where they'd starve to death the rebellious slaves.
We left the walls of St. George's and walked across the street into the fishing harbour, having a few minutes to walk around. From there we then drove to the Coconut Grove Beach Resort to enjoy a lovely lunch by the beach and to watch a cultural show.
At this point we felt completely removed from all that we had seen and learned through the day. The two hour respite over, we headed back to the port, retracing our steps. This worked well for me since I had a chance to take shots of things we had seen on the other side of the street.
The most chilling site of the day was not the poverty in the fishing village, but the prison and the arms reaching out through the bars as we drove by. This was not some relic from long-ago history, but part of the here and now.
Next up 
I am very VERY thankful that I am physically able to do this. Especially when I remember that I had a broken back (car wreck) almost 4 years ago and doctors were talking surgery & back brace. 
