8/12

Today we got up really early and drove to the central region to visit Kakum National Park and then the Elmina Castle in Cape Coast.  Kakum was so beautiful!! We did the canopy walk which was 7 different bridges suspended 40 meters above the ground in the forest.  We didn’t see much wild life.  There were some birds and butterflies but the elephants aren’t usually seen unless you camp over night. 

Then we left Kakum and drove back to Cape Coast to take a tour of the Elmina Castle.  Cape coast is absolutely beautiful.  It’s a little beach town where people mainly make a living off of fishing and salt production.  The Elmina Castle is located right on the Coast and from the outside looks so beautiful but as we walked in to the center area of the castle you could immediately feel a sense of eeriness and sadness.  This was an extremely emotional experience and a horrific part of history that I got to experience.  This castle was built by the Portuguese and later the Dutch took over it.  We first went into the female dungeon, which was a large, dark underground room.  The smell as we walked in was so strong and is a reminder of the awful living conditions that these slaves were forced to endure.  Our tour guide explained to us that these women were all crammed up in the dungeon where they weren’t allowed to leave. They were forced to excrete wastes here and when they underwent their menstrual cycles, had no way to keep themselves sanitary.  This smell is evidence of over 400 years of cruel treatment.  When families were taken as slaves in to this castle they were separated.  Husband and wife were separated in to male and female dungeons and their children would go with their parent in to their respective dungeon based on their gender.  There was a hole in the wall where husbands and wives would see each other for the final time before moving on to their dungeon.  They usually never saw each other again and yet were living in the same castle.   There was another room that was very small and dark with barely any ventilation.  You will see it in my pictures as the one with a door with a skull and crossbones above it. This was the room they sent slaves to that did something wrong.  They were forced to stay here without any food or water until they died and their bodies were then thrown out in to the sea.  This is where I began to get really emotional.  I just cant even begin to understand how human beings could possibly be treated like this.  The last underground room we saw was the one where these slaves were taken when they would be sent out on to a ship to the new world (Diaspora).  There was a door that led out to the beach and these slaves would exit here onto a boat where they would be auctioned off in the Atlantic slave trade.  Explaining this experience doesn’t even begin to describe what it was like being inside this castle and I don’t think you can truly ever grasp how horrific this part of history is unless you enter a slave castle and experience it.  The atmosphere, the environment, the smells, etc. all combined realy give you a sense of what happened here hundreds of years ago.  We also toured the upstairs part of the castle which was the sleeping quarters for the soldiers and slave masters.  As you can imagine the living arrangements were much better than those underground.  We walked along the entire top of the castle and the view was absolutely breathtaking.  After our tour we drove back to the school and didn’t get back until about 10pm. 

8/13

This morning I woke up at 530am (aaaaaaaahhhh!) since I was getting picked up at 7 by a family who I was arranged to contact when I got here.  A friend of one of my sister’s friends is from Ghana and he moved to the states to attend college.  Two of his sisters and his mother still live in Ghana and he set me up to meet them.  They picked me up in a Mercedes, which immediately I knew them had to be much more well off than the majority of the population here.  I stayed overnight at their house in Tema.  Their house was also very nice.  Any house of people more well off here is always gated.  They have a guard at night time who sits in front of their house all night.  I went to a wedding with them this morning of a couple from their church.  It was held at their church and id say there were at least 300 people if not more, present.  The wedding ceremony was somewhat different from those that I have been to in the states.  There was a lot of singing of hymns, praying, the family took communion, they signed their certificate of marriage, and then they left and everyone in the church lined up to give an offering of money.  Afterwards, the couple came back in dancing and then left to go outside for pictures.  The reception afterwards wasn’t really what I had expected.  There wasn’t music or dancing just a whole lot of people standing around eating, drinking and talking.  We left the wedding and went back home where Anowa and I hung out watching tv and a movie.  We got along really well.  She’s 19 years old and is starting medical school this year (here they do med school differently, you only do one year of undergrad).  Her older sister Abokuma came home later and hung out with us.  They were a lot of fun to be around and talk to about living on campus and such.  They have a guest room that they prepared for me which was really nice and comfy….all along I felt like I was back in the states…it was a nice little get away :)

8/14/11

This morning we got up and went to church at 8 am.  Church lasted for about 2 hours and it was a really nice experience.  There was a lot of singing of hymns which I was able to sing by following in the book.  When the preacher gave his sermon, I had a really hard time understanding most of what he was saying due to his accent and how fast he spoke.  I really tried to listen to what he was saying but it was so difficult!!  Then at the end we took communion, sang and prayed some more and then it was over.  I was somewhat surprised overall as I thought there would be more singing of faster songs and also dancing.  This was what I was told by some returnees.  This was definitely much more formal and everyone dresses up VERY nicely for church here.  When we went back home, Anowa, Abokuma and her friend made me a Ghanaian dish called Fufu.  Fufu is made of mashed cassava and plantain.  It forms into a gooey ball which is then submerged into either a light soup or with palm oil or groundnut soup.  They made the groundnut soup (peanut soup) and also put some chicken in it.  I actually reaaaaalllyyyy liked this dish!! The groundnut soup tasted so delicious, and the fufu had a weird taste I thought without the soup..however with it, it was very good!  Later, they drove me back to school and I am now just preparing for the start of school tomorrow.  I have a 730 am class tomorrow, that’s going to be difficult!!