Friday June 22, 2012  Africa:  Day 12

            We got up this morning and walked down to the area of town around the Cape Coast castle.  We ate a delicious breakfast, spent some time buying fabric and various souveniers in some of the little shops, then took a tour of the castle.  I have found that when I introduce myself as “Effia” (which means I was Friday-born), I make can make friends really quickly with the locals.  Ghanaians name their children after the day of the week they were born.  I met a guy selling various goods at his shop by the castle.  When he introduced himself as Kofi (the male Friday-born name), I told him my name was Effia.  He gave me a huge hug and told me that he was a brother from another mother.  I was then able to get some excellent bartering deals from his little shop.

            At one point we wanted to explore a road right along the coast that was lined with shops.  As Kelsey and I started walking down the road, a young teenage boy poked his head out of a small shack across the street and called to us.  We tried to ignore him, assuming that he was another vendor trying to get us to buy his jewelry, paintings, or animal carvings.  However, he began looking more and more concerned, telling us to stop where we were going.  We finally crossed the street to see what he wanted, and he told us that we shouldn’t walk down the street because of thieves that frequent the area. We were so grateful for this tender mercy-that this boy would take the time to protect two complete strangers from walking into a potentially dangerous situation.  Liyam, who isn’t particularly religious, later suggested that I should remember to mention the boy in my prayers as a way to thank him for keeping us safe.

            We toured the castle which was quite an experience.  The castle was built in the 1600s by the Portugese, but was taken over by the Dutch and eventually the English.  The castle is most infamous for being the holding ground for captured Africans before they were shipped West as slaves.  I have a hard time describing the feelings that flooded through me as I stood in the dark, dirty dungeons that each held up to two hundred slaves for over two months at a time.

I tried to imagine what it must have been like-you just became a prisoner of war from a tribal dispute in your African village.  Your captors march you down into Ghana and turn you over to the white men in exchange for gold trinkets and other various wares. You then sit in a dark cavern listening to the ocean waves outside the tiny ventilation hole for months.  The tiny gutter that runs through the middle of the dungeon is supposed to carry away your own filth along with your two hundred neighbors.  However, after years of use, the gutters are full and the floors are inches deep in human waste.  If you are one of the two-thirds that survive the dungeon, then you are loaded on to a slave ship where you have a 50% chance of making it alive to the new country where you will spend the rest of your lives in slavery.

The part that made it hardest for me was seeing the church that was literally built directly over the dungeons.  I tried to think of the social acceptance and mindsets of the people at the time, but I don’t think I will ever understand the hypocrisy and man’s inhumanity to man.

After the tour, we took a spectacular taxi drive along the coast to a small coastal town of Elmina.  The road was lined with ocean, coconut trees, and white sandy beaches on one side, and thick tropical growth on the other. 

The town of Elmina had a very different feel from Cape Coast.  Both cities were a nice change from the chaotic streets of Accra, but I definitely got a rougher vibe from this place.  We got out of the taxi at the Elmina castle and were immediately bombarded with men asking our names.  We figured out after we left the castle that this is another way to make money.  The same men greeted us at the exit of the castle holding a large seashell with our names written on it and a short message from them. They handed us the shell as a “gift”, then proceeded to ask us for donations to their “charity”.  After seeing the same official-looking form asking for money for school fees, football (soccer) uniforms, and other causes throughout the day, I learned to just push my way through the crowd as fast as I could in order to avoid any kind of eye contact or conversation with another person asking for money.

Elmina Castle was even more impressive than the one in Cape Coast.  It was built in the 1400s and was even visited by Christopher Columbus ten years before he sailed to America.  This castle was also used to hold slaves until they could be shipped across the sea.  There was also a large church on top of the slave dungeons.  There was something unique about this castle, though.  I stood in one of the women’s slave dungeons taking in the horrifying conditions when all of a sudden I was filled with a strong feeling of peace and the thought that “it’s okay.”  I didn’t feel anything particularly good or bad in the Cape Coast castle, and I definitely didn’t expect to feel such a peaceful spirit in this dungeon, but it was as if I could feel the former inhabitants telling me that they are at peace now.   I didn’t mention the strong spirit I felt in the dungeon until later that evening when Kelsey started talking about how she was confused when she was standing in the dark room and all of a sudden felt a strong feeling of peace.  I told her that in our church we refer to that feeling as the Holy Ghost and told her that I had experienced the same thing.  What an experience to be standing on obviously some very hallowed ground.

We left Elmina and headed off to Hans Cottage Botel a little ways outside of Elmina.  It’s called a Botel because it is a hotel built on water like a boat.  It’s really more like a restaurant on a little lake with rooms built around an African swamp.  The lake is home to about forty crocodiles, so we were very excited for the next morning when we would (hopefully) be able to see some these animals roaming the property.  We stayed in the “budget” room which was essentially a little cabin with four twin beds and a couch.  The shared bathroom was down the sidewalk.  What we didn’t realize is that we would be sharing the bathroom with more than just other hotel guests.  It’s kind of unnerving to have a frog jump out from behind the toilet just as you are about to sit down, and then hope he doesn’t fall on you as he proceeds to climb the wall behind you.  If that wasn’t enough of a good African jungle experience, there were plenty of gigantic ants and a beetle the size of a cell phone just outside our room.  We all had a hard time falling asleep wondering what other creatures were sharing our beds with us.