The Door of No Return

There has been more of a gap than usual between this blog and the last one. Perhaps any readers of the blog are glad of the rest from my long entries but the last week and a bit have been eventful so it’s going to be long again I think!

Last Saturday we set off from Sogakope before 6.30am and made the 7 hour disjointed tro-tro journey to Cape Coast, just a little west up the coast from Accra. We had heard from other English volunteers staying in that area that there was to be a huge festival and that all the locals were talking about it. We knew exactly what they meant as soon as we stepped out of our taxi in Cape Coast, which had reached a stand still in a traffic jam of people. As soon as we got out we were swept up by a huge dancing, singing crowd making their way down the main street. Hundreds of people quickly turned into thousands as the whole festival came more into sight. Each local tribe was dancing around their chief, who was being carried on a bed and paraded down the street. In Ghana, everyday can feel like a mini-festival with music everywhere you go, dancing, singing and smiling, so when they actually do a festival, it is a serious affair! There were groups of young guys dressed in brightly coloured outfits dancing crazily to drumming, stilt walkers and people dressed in masks and pretty scary looking clown-like costumes. We pushed our way through the very hot, sticky crowd taking lots of pictures and waving at the chiefs and finally made it through to where we were having lunch. It was a good vantage point to see the festival trail off from the main road and we had some pretty good veggie food.

After lunch we walked towards the sea and found our hotel- Oasis. There were more white people in that hotel than I had seen in the whole of my time in Ghana. Our accommodation for the night was a pretty nice beach hut and there was a bar in the centre of the complex. After dumping our bags, Jonny and I set out to see the castle near the hotel.

Cape Coast castle was used by the British as a fort and a centre for slave trade. We were two of only four white people in a big tour group of Ghanaians and felt suitably ashamed of our ancestry as we were told the history. We were taken into a dungeon where male slaves were kept; two hundred men in a 30x20 foot room with no natural light and a dirt floor on which they defecated and slept. The men were kept here and sold for gold to other African nations and European countries to build forts and palaces. The women’s quarters were much the same; however their role was not for their strength but to be selected by the European rulers for sex. We were told that Ghana has many lighter skinned citizens now due to the mixed blood introduced by the Europeans during this time. When pregnant, if the women were to stay at the fort, they were allowed to keep the babies and the children would be schooled at the fort. However, if the women were sold and had babies during the long sea journeys, their children would be tossed into the sea.

The men and women were captured from around Africa and brought to the fort through ‘The door of no return’. There now lays a plaque of apology from the local chiefs for their part in helping the Europeans operate the slave trade here. The door has officially been renamed ‘The door of return’ by way of invitation from the Ghanaian government to welcome all those men and women who were sold as slaves and who may be related to those, back to their native Ghana. There is also a plaque of remembrance laid by Barack Obama during his 2009 visit to Ghana. Notably, there is no plaque laid by the colonial slave traders.

After that sobering experience we stepped out of the fort and into a procession of police motorbikes. We found out they were the escort of the President who was due to pass any minute. Rather than taking their role very seriously and dutifully scanning for danger, the bike riders were standing up, dancing and doing tricks on their bikes for the crowd. A procession of about twenty Land Rovers passed with stocky, suited bodyguards hanging out the windows with standard issue Ray Bans and serious frowns. In one passing car I caught a glimpse of President Atta Mills waving his handkerchief at the crowd. After all that excitement we went back to the hotel and caught up with all the other volunteers. A boozy night with some very welcome nice food was accompanied by African drumming, dancing and a magician performance. We bid the moonlit Atlantic Ocean goodnight and slept well.

The next day we rose early again and made our way to Kakuum National Park. The introduction at the gate claimed that elephants, baboons, antelope etc. were native to the park so I was very excited. However, we didn’t see any animals other than a huge colony of bull ants crossing our path in the rain forest. I had made the stupid decision to only wear flip flops so had to take a run and jump through the carpet of biting insects. If you put your foot down for a second they will swarm your body and bite everywhere. We trekked for half an hour and came to the famed canopy walk. I was worried about Jonny, who’s sacred of heights, on the hundred foot high rope walkways through the trees but as always, it was me who was in fact a lot more scared- even after a skydive! The sights were fantastic up there but I was a little distracted with looking at the holes in the rope nets on the sides and what seemed over-relaxed way the suspension ropes had been tied around the trees. But we survived and had fun!

To get our animal fix, we went along to a nearby monkey sanctuary which is run by a crazy Dutch couple. They gave up their lives in Holland because of the (in a Dutch accent) ‘f**king taxes and crazy government’ and have built up an amazing animal sanctuary. I have seen a few monkeys being walked around on leashes here and thought they were pets, but the man at the sanctuary informed me that they are actually for food! So the couple save many monkeys, along with tortoises, parrots, snakes, alligators and Civet cats and release them into the wild when ready. The endangered Civet cats are famous for eating raw coffee beans which are then collected, post digestion if you get what I mean, and sold for thousands and thousands of pounds in the most expensive coffee in the world. Jonny and I have said that we will definitely try it at some point, somewhere in the world. We sat and chatted to the couple for quite a while and they very kindly fed us Dutch fried meat balls, which were great, before setting off on our long journey back home.

Last Monday we moved back into our guest house as the English kids have gone home. Jonny and I have continued our work at the orphanage and so on Tuesday I went to do mask making with the kids. They loved it and made some great masks so I will be doing a lot more creative work with them I think. Unfortunately, illness struck Jonny on Tuesday night and after an entire night of going to the toilet around twenty five times, despite Immodium and rehydration salts, he was pretty weak. We took him to the local hospital and after a couple of hours wait, he was admitted into hospital. The hospital was very basic with no food, minimal staff and slightly questionable hygiene (trails of ants ran up and down the walls) but the nurses were kind and after a night’s stay for both of us and Jonny taking 6L of water in a drip, he was much better for our next weekend adventures- which I will save for my next blog!