Cape Coast- One Last Adventure Before Home

I apologize that the posting of this one is late- we didn’t have internet for 3 days. But in the interest of being thorough, I wanted to post about our sight-seeing in Cape Coast. Especially since we finally made it down there after 2 and a half days!

Louisville t shirt- nice
Skinny jeans- uncommon
Virginia is for Lovers fanny pack- priceless.

 Yesterday (Sunday) morning we had breakfast, checked out, and went to Kakum National Park, where we walked a really tall, very narrow canopy bridge, made of ropes. It was scary because it wiggled a lot and never did feel quite strong, but the view was amazing and apparently hundreds of people walk it each month. 

The forest we had to walk through to get there was almost scarier than the actual bridge. The only thing the tour guide could guarantee us was that he'd never seen an Anaconda there. He made no such promises about vipers or pythons. And if you ask me, a snake is a snake. Yuck!

Anyway, the bridge was really nice and we felt it was worth the drive.

Kakum National Park Canopy Bridge

Sideways view of a very tall tree

Elan played it cool

Always the adventurous one

Chicken, as usual

This guy was just plain crazy- loved him.

Then we headed up the coast to see the ocean and got a chance to see a lot of the boats, fishermen, and just a different part of Ghana. It was really beautiful and the breeze was nice.

We also visited the Elmina Castle, which at one point in history housed slaves. Now that tour was very interesting. It was sad to hear about how much people suffered back then, but the tour guide was great at telling stories about each room and what happened there. 

This hole in the ground is where they used to keep water. When the governor (who lived in the quarters upstairs- the higher floor meant you were of higher status) wanted to rape a female prisoner, the thought was that she had been living in the sweaty, smelly cell for months, so she needed to be cleaned. They would bring the woman out to the courtyard naked, wash her down with water from the well inside, right in front of everyone, and send her upstairs to the governor's room. If she refused or caused any problems, as a punishment she would be forcibly chained to this giant heavy ball, to be humiliated for an indefinite period of time, and also to instill fear in the other female prisoners.

Needless to say, because of all the rapes, there were lots of pregnancies. What typically happened was that the woman was housed in a different cell until she gave birth, and then those children were raised into slavery as well. 

Just when I thought I had heard the worst, the tour guide kept telling us more stories. 

For example, the slaves’ living conditions were truly horrific. The tour guide took us into this room that was about 10 feet by 50 feet and said usually about 100 women would be kept in there for about 3 months until she was ready to be placed on a boat and sold to a master. Now the cell did not have any bathroom facilities, and the women were given VERY little food and water. Many times they would collapse with weakness, which left them lying in everyone else's feces, urine, vomit and blood. After 3 months of staying in quarters like that, many died before they got out. Those who managed to survive were usually stick thin, and were basically pushed through an open window onto a waiting boat.

There were certain cells where there would be 50-100 people in one very tiny room with barely 2 slits for a window, and if they were being punished for some reason, they were simply starved and dehydrated. The rule was, you stayed in there until the very last person died.

Terrible.

We were just speechless by the time the guide finished, but we are thankful that we got to see a piece of history right there. By the time we finished the tour (and warded off half a dozen panhandlers), it was time to make the drive to Accra, where Bertina and I would split from the rest of the group and go to the airport. 

We really enjoyed those last few hours together as a group, and it was hard to say goodbye. Hard to say bye to Jonathan and his brothers (a truly wonderful set of 3 brothers by the way), and hard to say goodbye to Ghana in general. Our time here was over. It was time to return home.

This is the first time I have ever written a blog and I really thank all of you who followed along diligently, giving me encouragement either through comments, or emails or the phone. It really helped me to know others were enjoying it too. I hope that there were times that you felt like part of our group too. My hope is to return to Ghana someday and help some more. I would also love to do similar work in South India, where knowing the language might be helpful.

So thank you again, and feel free to email with any questions or comments :) 

Nanara01@louisville.edu

Love

Nitya

Rollin in the Wingle (Part II)

Anyhow, we spent a restless night sleeping in the hotel room and awoke to the loss of power, which is when the air conditioner kicked off. Begrudging to wake up, yet eager to get the hell out of there, we pulled our clothes on (no water, no shower) and were told by Aziz to meet downstairs. Poor Aziz had worked to find a friend in Kumasi who had a vehicle he was willing to let us use. We were elated. We stopped to exchange money, and FINALLY had breakfast. Hot coffee and eggs never tasted so good. Even if it did come with a huge helping of butter on a side of bread. Whatever. We devoured it.

Aziz's friend David who gave us his truck

 After getting some fuel in our tanks, we all felt better. We stopped at Kumasi Zoo (the one Jonathan mentioned was the sad and depressing one-he was right) and made the only contribution we could, which was to buy some plantains for the chimpanzees. It was roasting hot and hardly any of the exciting animals were out. We left after about an hour. We did see some nice animals though.

The next several hours were lost in towing our old heap to the auto mechanic, waiting for hours while they wouldn’t give Aziz a straight answer on whether it would get fixed or not, what day it would be done, etc. Aziz worked so hard to let us have the car for the weekend. He really went out of his way to apologize and try to make us comfortable.

So late this afternoon we finally got going, in David’s truck (Aziz’s friend who works in Kumasi Hospital), and this time, the 2.5 hour trip only turned out to be 5. And this time, we found a decent hotel (where we are now), and although it is too late to see anything today, we showered, (which felt amazing!) We were so dirty and dusty from the ride that Elan’s white shirt was dark brown and my once clean hair was greased back on my head. We had dinner in the restaurant downstairs, and are now looking forward to a good night’s rest. Tomorrow morning we are planning to wake up early, eat breakfast, and hit the road for our sight-seeing after all.

Road Trip...from HELL (Part I)

Friday we attempted to leave Tamale and drive down to Cape Coast, do some sight- seeing, then eventually head to Accra. At least, that was the plan. The day didn’t start out so bad. First of all, we went to the airport to pick up Jonathan’s brother, Daniel, who was coming down to visit during Jonathan’s last week in town. That part was great, because Daniel had also secretly brought Jonathan’s older brother Elan, as a special surprise. Okay, okay, I knew about it, but I get so excited about surprises that I had to make it a point to not say a word! It was great- J was totally surprised, and the 3 Schwartz brothers had a great reunion.

By the time we got back toward our house, toured the hospital, said our goodbyes, and loaded the car and got going, things were getting late. The first disappointment was when we learned that Hamza would not be able to accompany us on the weekend trip, due to space restrictions in the car. It was very disappointing, as we initially thought we had the right size vehicle arranged. Plus he had taken the day off work to come with us. In any case, we regretfully said goodbye to Hamza and hit the road in what I found to be a jalopy. It was 6 people to a pickup truck with one bucket seat in the back. We loaded our luggage in the back and Aziz, Bertina and I squished in the front, while Elan, Daniel, and Jonathan squashed in the back. Not that it was difficult to deduce what a lemon it was—there was one broken window roller-downer, which we all passed around and shared. The front seat would involuntarily slide back and forth with speed bumps. Our ‘tarp’ was a garbage bag which flew off shortly after departure. Nonetheless, off we went.

The only sight we saw that day- the center of Ghana.

We weren’t 2 hours down the road before the first breakdown happened. The truck had sputtered the whole way so we didn’t think anything about it at first, but then we saw the smoke coming out of the hood. We pulled over and learned that the radiator pipe had a hole in it and that the head gasket was about to blow. Thank God we had Elan, a professional motorcycle mechanic, who knew a lot about cars- he’s the one who coaxed Aziz into letting the engine cool down before we poured water in and tried again. For that matter, thank God we had Jonathan’s other brother Daniel, a Rabbi. Cuz prayer is the only thing that got us through that. Also, we discovered an auto shop about a half mile down, which gave us some special glue to patch the hole in the radiator. A temporary fix, perhaps, but we wanted to get going.

So we finally get the car started up again, but we had to make several stops. For example, when it suddenly began raining, we had to grab our backpacks/computers out of the back and bring them in—which is also how we know the tarp was long gone.  Anyway, about an hour later, the smoke and strange noises started again. This time, when we poured water in, the car was so hot that it evaporated right out. At one point, the water came shooting out of the pipe and splashed my hair and dress (I regret that I was just telling Bertina I miss hot showers). Anyway, after another hour of tinkering with pouring water in, and eating some of Daniel’s strawberry-banana cookies that he was brave enough to buy from a roadside stall, we got going yet again.

The next 2 breakdowns are kind of a blur. All I know is that I saw a lot of smoke, the engine blew out LONG before we actually stopped the car, and what was supposed to be a 4 hour drive had become a 12 hour one. When the car was officially pronounced dead, Aziz tried desperately to hail us cabs to travel the remaining 25 minutes to the hotel in Kumasi (since we didn’t have a prayer of getting any further than that on that night). We had trouble because once the drivers saw we were not locals, they multiplied the fees x3. We finally got into the taxis, got to our Chinese hotel, and learned that there were no rooms available.

The Ghanian lady working there talked to Aziz, and finally admitted there was one. Being as it was after 1am and we were beaten down, we asked her to let all 7 of us take it. We get to the room, which might not have been bad if it didn’t smell of poop. Also, the sink wouldn’t drain. We walked about a mile before finding a convenient mart that sold some old yam chips and cold water. That was dinner. So we gave up and called it a night. The Schwartz brothers kindly insisted on taking the floor, while Bertina and I slept on the bed. (Which I later learned from Elan had a gigantic blood stain on the bottom mattress.) Luckily HIV can’t live outside the body for too long.

Dinner

Brainstorming how to catch a bus to Accra the next day