Gotta go to Ghana

After 7 weeks of 'understanding' French, we arrived in Ghana, our first English speaking country in West Africa. Amazingly, we now pretend to speak French when we're trying to avoid hawkers...

Accra was beautiful, but incredibly expensive. After two days of used-book shopping in the capital we took off for Cape Coast, home to one of Britain's most important coastal forts in Ghana. The fort in Cape Coast bears the same name as the town, and we visited it as the sun was setting, giving us a stunning view of the coast and the town itself. The castle is a large white-washed fortress that is located on the rocks along the shore, loaded with canons and look-out points that hint at the former territorial claims fought over by the British, Dutch and Portuguese. Despite the grandeur of the place our guide was out of place as he thought he was in drama class (overly-theatrical and flamboyant, when I thought he should have been giving the straight facts), and I did not take much away from the guided tour. These forts were initially designed for the storage and shipment of goods, but as plantations began in the Americas slaves became the main export from these forts. As we were taken through the old dungeons that housed the slaves until they were bought and shipped across the ocean, I had to shudder at the thought of what had taken place within those walls for centuries. I felt as though I should not have been walking through the place - as if I did not deserve to walk within the walls as freely as I did. Although we were only shown the rooms pertaining to slavery we were allowed to walk around the fort after the tour. The fort was its own community complete with primary school, church, post office and medical services. The church was built directly above the slave dungeons, creating a heaven above/hell below situation on Earth. The use of Christianity to legitimize slavery was the topic of an essay I wrote in third year, so I won't bother venting here. It is amazing how people can twist the teachings of their religion to feed their own agenda. It is too bad we never seem to learn from past mistakes.

The next day we took a ride to Elmina to see St George's Castle. To give an idea of the age, it was built by the Portuguese ten years before Columbus discovered the Americas. It was the largest of all Ghana's coastal forts, and the most important in terms of slavery. It is believed that 12 million slaves passed through the fort over 300 years, only 4 million of whom actually made it to the Americas. The other 8 million died from any of a numerous reasons: the squalid conditions; death at the hands of soldiers; and suicide (slaves would starve themselves to death or jump out of the smaller boats that were delivering them to the larger boats while still in chains). The death of created little worry among the Europeans because the slaves were all profit. The guide here was fantastic, and the tour took in the entire castle. It was a similar setup to the first one, with the church right next to the dungeons. I took away a startling amount from that tour and was extremely glad we decided to go.

After the castles we headed up into the country, stopping first at Kumasi and then Tamale. Kumasi is the center of the Ashanti culture (the most influential tribe in Ghana). There we visited a culture grounds that was a bustle of activity. Within the grounds there was an Ashanti museum; a reggae ceremony complete with music and prayer happening; a live performance in the open-air auditorium; plus it was generally a great place to hang out and soak up some culture. Kumasi is also the place where I fell in love with Ghanaian cuisine because I searched out a great food stall and had an excellent lunch with a few local boys of the same age. I have turned Heather and Matt on to the 'red-red' and jollof rice with guinea fowl or gizzard (not the greatest meat, but no meat here is great). We also met a couchsurfer from Kumasi named Bright who showed us around for a day and had us trying 'fufu' (cassava and yam) and 'banku' (fermented maize) - local dishes that are unlike anything we know in Canada. He was excellent and showed us a side to Kumasi we otherwise would not have seen.

Tamale served as the jump-off to Mole National Park, where we camped for two nights. The campgrounds were situated over-looking a watering hole that was occupied by elephants more often than not. We went on two walks with an arm ranger that allowed us to get within 20 or 30m of wild elephants, an unparalleled experience. As we watched them bathe we couldn't help but notice that they are much darker than we thought, nearing black. The grey colour we often see them appearing as is due to dust and mud they rub on themselves to stay cool. Really, they are nearly black - charcoal grey at the lightest. The young elephants were the most entertaining to watch, as they constantly tried to climb on one another while bathing. I could picture my brothers and I wrestling in a similar manner when we were younger (actually, not that long ago). After watching the elephants for an hour or so each morning we retired to the lodge pool, where we fended off baboons from stealing our pineapples (we had to chase one down at one point) and watched the elephants from a distance - all the while keeping cool; not an easy task in Ghana. On the first night I sat over-looking the savannah in the dark. I was treated with Hyena barks, low growls in the distance, sounds of a struggle in the watering-hole (I think the crocodile won), and an amazing feel of nature at work.

We are now headed back to Kumasi to spend a few nights with a local man we met on Couch Surfing before heading back to the coast to check out an eco-friendly lodge we have read about. It's called the Green Turtle Lodge and can be checked out at www.greenturtlelodge.com