CIEE trip numero dos

View from the beach huts

Marketplace for buying/selling slaves

 The other weekend I FINALLY escaped my malaria cave just in time to travel with CIEE to the central region. After about three and a half hours of driving we pulled into a ridiculously nice beach where we were each welcomed with a coconut. Placed on the beach were our rooms - small collections of huts settled in the sand beneath the shade of massive palm leaves and just yards away from the Atlantic waves. After setting our stuff down and having lunch, we made our way to Slave river, the place where slaves of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade took their last bath after being sold on a wooden block in exchange for weapons and animals. From here many of the slaves were taken to Elmina – a giant castle placed just off the shore of Cape Coast. We learned the history of the castle and were told how many slaves populated each room, what their living conditions were like, and how many of them actually survived long enough to make their way onto the boat.

Visiting the Last Bath and Elmina were both complicated experiences. No matter how much I have learned in school, how much reading I have done on my own, or how many facts I receive from a tour guide – I will never be able to understand the full weight of slavery. Throughout the day I remained quiet, struggling and searching for a way to feel the history of where I was standing. I felt it most when the tour guide led us into the female dungeon and told us that the floor we were standing on was the original cement that women had been raped, starved, and had died on. This dungeon was placed directly below the floorboards of the soldiers’ church where they would pray and worship everyday as innocent lives crumbled beneath them.  This only begins to expose the cruelty of those in charge of the trade.

View from Elmina Castle (Cape Coast)

Even more difficult to understand was how a place so torturous, so dark and shameful could be set in such a beautiful place. From the balcony of the castle was a view of perfectly blue water whose waves were only interrupted by the colorful fishing boats that sailed across them. What I learned later on in the night from Gideon (Ghanaian U-PAL) is that this gorgeous view is what makes Elmina a popular place for Ghanaians to take their dates. When we asked how such a depressing place could ever be a romantic destination he said it was because the education that Ghanaians receive on Elmina in school gives them a different understanding of slavery. For Americans, slavery is a horrific part of our history that has caused discrimination and conflict for generations – Elmina was just the beginning, the first step in carrying over our dreaded past. In contrast, Ghanaian curriculum doesn’t include what came after the ships left Elmina – without individual research there isn’t knowledge of slavery in the U.S or plantation life… for them everything ended once the boats left the dock. This shocked me. Ghanaians are always eager to hear about what discrimination is like in the U.S because in Ghana there isn’t a negative divide between black and white. Is it this difference in curriculum that has made Ghanaians so curious about America’s history and present?

The ride back to the beach was a quiet one – most of us trying to process everything we’d seen. All I could think about was how the majority of people would find Elmina horrific enough to do anything in their power to prevent another slave trade from happening… but then images of child labor and sex trafficking came to mind and again I felt hopeless. How can a practice as worldwide and systematic as sex trafficking truly be stopped? And how long will it take before the world feels as much remorse for it as it does the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?After dinner and conversation on modern day slavery etc, we made our way back to our huts and fell asleep to the sound of the crashing waves. 

Rachel and Komal walking the beach

The next morning I woke up around 4am to watch the sunrise over the water. When I came outside everything was dark but the stars were perfect. The lights in Accra blur out most of the stars so I am always grateful to be in a place where they are completely clear. Around 5 the light started to pick up around the water and at 6:02 a perfectly pink sun broke through the horizon, cascading warm light and shadows across the entire beach. Perfect way to start the morning.

After breakfast we headed to Kakum National Park and hiked for about thirty minutes up to a platform that marked the entrance to a series of roped bridges across the canopy of the rainforest. After all the heaviness of the day before, taking a step out onto the bridge and drifting over the forest was so uplifting. I can’t think of a better time to think things over than when standing on a questionably sturdy bridge in the middle of nowhere. I felt weightless – completely suspended in the middle of nature.

After a few hours of canopy walking and hiking we made our way back down the mountain for lunch at a place surrounded by palm trees and crocodiles (Nick Walsh paradise?). Lunch was delicious but the best part was definitely being able to actually go up to the crocodiles and touch them. Crouching down next to a very awake crocodile was bizarre but petting them was soooo cool. Their spines are sharp and rock solid but their stomachs are soft and warm and I could actually feel it breathing, amazing! 

After two days of adventures we returned to campus and instead of heading to bed as planned, a few of us went to our Ghanaian friend’s (Taste) birthday party at a local pub where he watches soccer religiously. Usually the pub is full of chairs and yelling Ghanaians but this time a huge table with champagne glasses, food, and drinks was set outside the pub with Taste’s friends all around. I’m still amazed by how friendly this culture is – we were introduced to everyone at the party, given free food and drinks and were made to feel so, so welcome. Eventually the dinner turned into a dance party and once again I was laughed at for all of my moves. I did have a few Ghanaians doing the sprinkler at one point so I count that one as a major success. Time for class! 

Catching up...

So after a week or so of malaria recovery, I’m back to blogging! Two Fridays ago a few of us tro-tro’d to my friend Caitlin’s internship site in a nearby town to help her with an event the clinic was putting on for the children of their patients. While her clinic works with a variety of public health issues, one of the most prevalent is its attention to HIV/AIDS. Spending the morning playing “red light, green light” and “duck-duck-goose” with kids who are children of HIV/AIDS patients or who carry the disease themselves, was both super fun and silently agonizing. To meet these kids, some as young as five years old, who were born with or have developed this life-long disease is tragic -- but, to see the joy and the laughter they greet each day with is equally inspiring.  The clinic itself was organized and clean and the doctors showed such genuine love and care for their jobs and for their patients. It is this kind of positive environment that makes the struggles facing the victims of this disease seem hopeful.

After many, many rounds of duck-duck-goose the kids started to head home and we hopped on a tro-tro back to campus to start gearing up for the Friday night Ghana v. Swaziland game in downtown Accra. Gideon, one of our awesome U-PALS, set us up with a giant city bus to take everyone to the game. From University to the stadium, rush-hour traffic witnessed a bus full of Oburonis and Ghanaians singing “We will, we will, rock you” and its Ghanaian equivalent at the top of our lungs. It was awesome.

 Once at the stadium I bargained (badly) for jerseys, bandanas, facepaint etc and headed inside. I always love the last few steps before you enter a stadium. The way the tunneled ramp muffles the sound of the people already cheering so that when you eventually reach the landing, you are instantly hit by the field and the fans and the sea of red, gold, and green black star jerseys and Ghanaian flags. The game itself was awesome – lots of dancing and cheering and pretty similar to games back home but with a Ghanaian twist… vendors selling Joloff rice instead of pretzels and plantains instead of nachos. Delicious. Ghana beat Swaziland 2-0!!!

The next morning I woke up a bit late and ended up bolting across campus (40 minutes away…) to catch a 6am bus to Cape Coast, a city about three hours outside of Accra. Some friends and I heard about a festival going on there and decided to check it out. We had no idea what to expect but it ended up being awesome. The festival brought everyone out of their homes and the whole city was full of color and music. Men and women in every kind of fabric and costume paraded through the streets singing songs and performing dances. All of them were escorts to the Chief and Queen Mother who use this annual festival as a way to meet with chiefs from surrounding areas to discuss plans for the upcoming year. The parade ended in a giant pavilion placed in front of Cape Coast Castle and because the following ceremony was spoken entirely in the local language, an eleven-year-old Ghanaian named Steven kept me in the loop. Eventually the president of Ghana, John Atta Mills, arrived and gave a speech. It’s insane how different security is for the Mills v. Obama but it was amazing to be that close to the leader of this young democracy. The bus I had planned on taking left before the end of the ceremony so my friend and I decided to meet up with other students we knew were in the city and stay the night. On the way to meet them we got caught in a spontaneous parade of hundreds of people dancing through the streets to a brass band. They were huge fans of the enthusiasm we put into our hopeless Oburoni dance moves.

The students we eventually met up with were exploring the city with Iggy, a Ghanaian friend of ours who is originally from Cape Coast and who invited whoever was available to see where he was from. In true Ghanaian form, Iggy was overly hospitable buying us plantain chips and popcorn and taking us to all his favorite places. We started with dinner at a bar/restaurant right on the water and eventually moved to a huge concert at a gas station parking lot where an awesome high-life band was performing. The lead singer noticed how chaotic the front rows were and pulled some of us on stage to dance with her/save us from the crowd. I’m sure I looked ridiculous but looking out on all of the people dancing and singing along made it worth it, who knew a gas station could be such a hot spot?

After checking out another concert/dance performance in the middle of the city, we headed back to our hotel for some much needed sleep. The next morning we met up with everyone again and had breakfast on a hill right next to the Cape Coast Castle that offers a beautiful view of the water. Slow morning at its finest.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me to Cape Coast but it really was a beautiful city. It is a lot smaller than Accra so all the entertainment is close together which makes exploring a lot easier. Plus, there is significantly less traffic so the whole city is a bit more relaxed. After breakfast we walked around for a bit, found a bus headed back to Accra, and three-ish hours later we were back on campus.

The next morning my roommate Megan and I went running and about ten minutes after we got back I started feeling super dizzy/feverish and ended up going to the hospital and being diagnosed with malaria. I had great people with me and terrific doctors so once I had medicine I started feeling a lot better. The only bummer was that I had to miss most of my classes but luckily I recovered by the end of the week and now I’m back in action! More adventures to come!