May 1 – Castles and Alligators

From Big Milly’s we headed up the coast to a town called Cape Coast which is one of the many points where slaves were traded and sold to Europeans and Americans. The towns are home to large forts that temporarily housed thousands of slaves as they waited to be traded or sold to Europeans and Americans. Slaves were packed into rooms so small that they were forced to eat and sleep on a 6 inch layer of their own urine and feces, in windowless dungeons with many of their “cell-mates” dying around them. We visited 2 slave castles - one in Cape Coast and one further West in a town called Elmina.

 

 

 

 

little girl fell asleep on Jacob (also asleep) in the shared taxi

We took an organized tour of one of the castles and all of the other visitors were tourists from various African countries. The castles were very interesting (and eerie) but most of my attention was focused at watching the other visitors and their reactions as we progressed through the tour. In general, the African people are very lively, loud, playful and humorous but this was a real solemn atmosphere and they were all very quiet, some of them even crying as the guide explained the unbearable living conditions that the slaves endured before being shipped across the ocean like cargo. The slaves were a commodity, like cattle, being gathered, branded with hot iron rods and sold by one company to another.

To be honest I felt kind of weird being the only white person on the tour, as if in some way I was partially responsible for this or at least my heritage. One of the female tourists approached me and asked how I felt about what took place in these castles and I wasn’t sure what she was implying; maybe she felt the same way I was or maybe she just wanted the perspective of a white North American.

 

 

 

 

From Cape Coast we took a day trip to a Kakum National Park, one of the largest rain forests in West Africa but it was little lame and highly overpriced. We were told that we would see forest elephants and monkeys but I think the group of 50 teenagers on a class trip that entered before us scared off any wildlife; the only living creature we saw was a giant spider. On the way back we stopped at a restaurant which is built in the middle of an alligator infested pond. The staff would coax the wild alligators out of the water with pieces of chicken and for a small tip, we were allowed to feed and touch them - a bit scary considering these things are killing machines that can whip around in a split second and take off an arm. But we made it out in one piece and are now back in Accra to see a dance/music show and just take it easy before heading off to Asia in a couple of days.

 

 

 

 

 The African concert: