Ann's Visit to Ghana: Cape Coast

This was the last leg of my journey in Ghana. On Good Friday, April 2, I awoke at about 5am to the sound of drums from the nearby churches. We had coffee and packed up to go to Cape Coast. Patience helped carry our bags down the hill to the taxi station where we caught a taxi to Osien. We then caught a Tro to Koforidua and transferred to a Tro to Asamankase. Beyond that point, we weren't sure where we needed to go next, but the driver told a young man to take our bags to another station because we wanted to go to Cape Coast. I went and bought tickets to Agon Swegwu. We weren't absolutely sure we were on the right Tro, but my compass indicated that we were headed in the right general direction. Unfortunately, DeeDub discovered that she no longer had her cell phone. There had been some jostling around with people getting on and off the Tro, so she may have dropped it, or someone might have stolen it. At Agon Swegwu we got on a more traditional bus that we knew was headed for Cape Coast. From there we were obviously in a more developed, more tourist oriented area than I had been in up until then.

In all, it took us 6 hours to get to Cape Coast from Adjeikrom. When we arrived, we took a taxi to "The Mighty Victory Hotel." This hotel was very nice, with a small refrigerator in the room, air conditioning, ceiling fan, warm water, a large lobby and dining area. After a short nap, we made an appointment for dinner (lobster) and walked to a store nearby that sold wine. The dinner was quite tasty.

The next morning, we had breakfast and started out walking to find a cell phone store. We were too early and stores weren't open yet, but we soon found ourselves near the ocean, walking by what are called fish ovens. Dried fish are a big staple in Ghana and you see women with large bowls full of them on their head. As we went along, we spotted some brightly colored canoes in the ocean. We cut between some buildings to walk down on the beach. We walked by a couple of young men who seemed to be searing and scraping the hide off of what looked like a small pig (I didn't really want to look to closely). Once we got to the beach, we could see many, many people in fishing canoes. The oarsmen would paddle the canoes, catching waves, until they could get close enough that people could get out and pull the canoe up on the beach. I've posted a video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ6l4GnEj00. There you can get a better sense of the sounds and activity that surrounded us.

We soon realized that most of the fleet was located at the foot of Cape Coast Castle; a place that had been recommended to me by Kathy Moroney at Distinctive Destinations in Sacramento, California. http://www.distinctive-destinations.com. By the way, Kathy was enormously helpful to me in preparing for this trip.

Cape Coast Castle was one of the largest slave-holding sites in the world during the colonial era. It is a fascinating place to visit, but you can also see a lot of videos on YouTube that people have posted. 

So, even though it was already incredibly hot and humid, we decided to take the tour. This a model that

shows the layout. 

There are three dungeons where people were held in the most horrible conditions. They were dark, dank and totally stifling. The guide turned off the lights so we could get a sense of what it must have been like. I couldn't get a picture that really captured how awful it was.

Slaves were herded through "The Door of No Return" down to the beach where they were loaded onto canoes, probably not a lot different from the fishing canoes. Then they were taken to ships anchored off shore in which they would be taken to the Americas and resold. This was an amazing experience and profoundly moving. 

After taking a nap, we went to dinner at the Oasis Beach Hotel, which was the most tourist-like place I'd been to in Ghana. It reminded me of Jamaica. The next morning we took a taxi to Kakum, a national park where you walk on suspended bridges in the jungle canopy. The tours were a bit rushed and I understand you can arrange for early tours that would likely be more interesting: more time to look around and perhaps see birds and monkeys that were certainly not visible when we were among a large group of tourists. 

 

I started this draft in May and am just finishing it on June 29. I should not have waited so long; it's all that much more distant. However, I still think and dream about my trip and am so glad that I went. It was a huge adventure and one that DeeDub lives every day!

Dee Dub and the Fetish Priest Tuesday, June 15th

Several worried villagers arrive at 6:30 am to tell me the problem is not with the pipe. The problem is that we did not do the proper ritual before we began the work, and they will never find water until we rectify the situation. The fetish priest has told them he will perform the necessary ceremony if we give him 450 ghana cedis, a fowl, a bottle of schnapps, and lavender. Someone explains the lavender must be six blossoms. The committee chair, Mr. B, is a Christian and an officer in the local Presbyterian Church, but he says we must follow the local custom. If we don’t, and they don’t find water, then the
villagers will blame us. The shaman, Mr. M, arrives, there is much negotiation, and he finally agrees to 250 cedis. Everybody says the contractor must pay the money, because he should never have started the work without the proper libations being poured. I call Mr. A, owner of the company, who says he is a serious Christian and “…doesn’t hold with that stuff.” Just let him know when his men can come back to work.

Then everybody agrees that the NGO must pay the money. They had this same problem with another bore hole a couple of years ago, and the NGO paid then and should have known they would have to pay this time. I call Alex, the NGO rep who is working with me on this project. He says absolutely not, no way, no how. They have never paid for magic, and they never will. The villagers say not so, Mr. L, another NGO rep, has always paid the fetish priest for the seven years they were doing work here, but never told the NGO director. I ask Alex to check with Mr. L. Alex calls back, to say well, ok, but they’ve never paid more than 100 cedis (and this is all news to him). The NGO director authorizes 100 cedis, we hand over some money, the schnapps, and the fowl, but are stuck on the lavender. I have a spray bottle of lavender that a friend brought back from Rome, that I use when stuff in the closet gets just too musty. We spray me, the priest, everybody else, and I point out that it was made from real lavender in Europe, and he decides it will work. He will do the ritual at midnight tonight (Tuesday) and the crews can come back to work tomorrow. We’ll see, and that will be the next update.

Work Begins on The Bore Hole! Friday, May 28, 2010

They brought their equipment in yesterday afternoon, and started work this morning! Dozens of villagers come and sit for hours watching them work. The chief is being installed tomorrow, but they say they will continue to work. Even if there is a lot of traffic and activity down the hill in the village proper, they will be here. The NGO is still adamant that there will be no submersible pump, and the women must continue to carry water up the ladder to fill the polytank. The chief says we must trust the NGO, they know what is best for us. Just another form of colonialism as far as I am concerned, but nobody wants to go against their chief. The committee members are thrilled to see the work begin, and so am I.

The owner of the drilling company has assured me privately that he knows how to get around these NGOs, and there WILL be a pump. Says he has heard what good work the committee and I are doing, and he will be sure we get what we need. I’m not sure how that will work, but I’m really glad to hear it. I think he is a really good guy, I trusted his information a lot during the struggle to find a contractor, and I was really glad when they gave him the contract. (I heard that the NGOs reluctance about him was because they thought I was getting a kickback! They call it chop here, and it’s so common that it’s a regular part of the Ghanaian mindset.)

Big Delays on the Bore Hole! Tuesday. June 1.
One of the pipes has broken off in the ground, and they can’t get it out. They must wait for a different kind of pipe to come from the factory, so they pull their equipment off to another job. I think they are probably just juggling worksites, which happens routinely with contractors at home, so I am not too concerned. Mr. A, the owner, assures me it won’t be too long before the stuff they need arrives from the factory, and they will drill until they reach “ancient water”.

Monday, June 14.
Mr. A says his crews will return Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. He assures me they will install the underground plumbing to the two poly tanks, so there will be no need to retrofit. He also tells me not to worry, that everything will be the way we want it.

Vision Questors and Emergency Travelers June 8, 2010

Two newbie Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) came to spend five days at a working site, mine. They had been in country all of five days, and got here on their own via public transportation. Tro-tros, shared taxis, etc. So they got here early afternoon, and we walked around the village, brought home cold beer, had a proper dinner, and made an early night of it. They probably hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since they got here. Next day Grace, a runner who has done several marathons, ran early morning, while it was cooler, but she was followed by a whole parade of kids who were fascinated. Then we went to a nearby market town, checked out the (stone-age) internet café, ate Ghanaian food at a chop bar, and got totally soaked by a sudden rain. In bed by nine, but remember it’s dark here by 6:15.

So my cell phone rings at 10:30, which seems like the middle of the night, and Osa is calling to tell me I have a visitor. He is bringing the visitor up the hill. I’m thinking it’s some crazy friend who came to surprise me (I can always hope), but it is five women loaded down with produce and other market goods. They had purchased goods at a village beyond us, on a very treacherous road, and were on their way to Accra when their vehicle lost its steering and went over the side. They made their way, carrying all the market goods, a couple of kilometers to town, where someone took them to Osa who then brought them to the guest house. Great hubbub on the porch outside the room where the newbies were sleeping. The women were telling Osa what happened, and he was translating for me in English, but everybody was very voluble and Osa kept saying how lucky they were to be alive. It was Grace that saved them, he kept saying, great Christian that he is. Only by Grace are they alive, and etc. Meanwhile PCT Grace, who doesn’t understand any of this, hears a lot of shouting and hears her name over and over. She is afraid she has broken some taboo of the village and they have come to complain. She ran in shorts, could that be it? Maybe she said something wrong to one of the children? Osa and I scramble around to get mattresses so they can share one room; they were pretty traumatized and didn’t want to be separated. And probably had enough money for only one room, since they were on their way TO market, not from. But we finally have them settled in for the night, and the newbies creep out to find out what was going on. Great confusion, many explanations, and much laughter. Poor Grace, however, has pumped so much worry-induced adrenaline that she can’t get back to sleep, the roosters start right on time, and soon it’s time to get started on the rest of the quest.

We go to the Bead Market in Kofaridua, visit the living quarters of another PCV and another village where jewelry is made from the beads, have chicken and real vegetables for late lunch, and call it a day. (But it was a 15-hour day, at least, and all done on tros.) Next day they did bucket laundry, some Peace Corps home work, and Osa took them on a three-hour Cocoa Tour. Everybody got overheated, which only confirmed their love for the bucket bath. Patience made us a splendid dinner of Ghanaian recipes that Westerners like, and the next day they headed out on their own to make their way to the PC Training Hub in Kukurantumi.

Update for June 20, 2010

Because I write this stuff sometimes and can’t get to the internet, I am posting several today. I hope. So they will be new, but should have a title and a date so you know what you’re reading. Hope it all works. Cheers, dw

Back to Nature April 2010

It may be that the wonderful feelings we experience about that nature connection are a Western luxury. Wasn’t there a guy, maybe Maslow, who said you can’t appreciate nature, or any other kind of beauty, until your other needs are met? I sort of remember a triangle, with food, sex, shelter, comfort, etc., tapering up to the top. But I always thought he missed the point, because the cave paintings to me represented a basic need for art that I think is universal. My time here in Ghana has made me re-examine all of that. I was immediately surprised by the lack of landscaping, color, etc., in a place where I expected to see a profusion. Maybe I expected it to be more like Jamaica, based on climate, British colony, etc., But it’s not. (On the other hand, because of that British influence I expected good gin, excellent tea, and tonic water. Not happening here.)

It may be cultural, but I just can’t figure it out. For about seven to 10 minutes at a certain time in some evenings, the light changes everything into this luminous glow that is like nothing I have seen. And I thought the violet glow from the sun setting behind Haleakala was as good as it gets. There are sometimes sunsets visible from my porch that just take my breath away, but people don’t understand what I am excited about. There is also their curiosity about my home, and they sometimes overlap. For example, a genuine question, Do you not have sunsets in your country? And, Is this moon the same one you see at home? There is a huge lack of knowledge about just basic geography, but there seems to be something else in play as well.

Some of the Peace Corps art teachers have given a good example. They announce this is individual or independent art time, give a kid blank paper and paint or colored pencils, and wait for the result. There is none. The kid explains, but you didn’t tell me what to draw. Our teachers are absolutely the best, and they are making changes and modeling different ways, but they have all commented on the same experience.

Since I have been at site I have seen few if any birds or butterflies, but that is changing with the season. I recently saw eight butterflies in one day, and each of them was spectacularly different from the others. And there are now more than 100 small yellow birds in one palm tree outside my front door at six every morning. I just stand and gawk, and people going to fetch water ask what I am doing. I point out the birds, and the response is a Ghanaian version of, “Yeah. So what’s your point?” And the last two weeks I have seen things starting to bloom, so there are big swaths of color where there were just various shades of green.

I get letters from hikers at home about the fall colors, or from kayaking friends about being on the delta with the herons, and I get a visceral kind of jealousy. It’s not that there isn’t beauty here, there is, but maybe there’s just no one to share it with. In the way we would share at home, as we both or all experience one of those moments. A single heron, or a flock of geese heading south, or the way the trees on some Sacramento streets explode with beauty in the spring and fall. I remember when I was on campus, I would have a severe attack of hyper-aesthesia at the way the fall colors blended with each other as I walked the quad.

Maybe this business about being one with nature is hard to get to if the regular experience is one where you are losing. The ants, the termites, the mosquitoes, the house that’s melting in the rain, the crop that is failing because now there is no rain, etc. I know at home we think farmers have a special bond to the land, and I still think so…even in the days of agri-business, but the guy picking grapes for minimum wage may not think so. I just don’t know. But I wish you were here, and we could have a real conversation about it all.

When Christo wrapped a lot of the Napa Valley in white parachute silk, I took Kelley out of school and we drove to see it the last week when they were taking it down. We were stopped on a dirt road at the end of a long driveway, and the farmer walked down to get his mail. He was a lot like my dad, dark from the fields, not very communicative, eyes taking in everything. We howdied and shook, and I asked what he thought of the fence. He had started back up the drive, but he turned around and said, “Well, I thought it was pretty stupid.” Long silence, then , “But I sure am gonna miss it when it’s down.”

Enough for today. The whole point of a blog is to be here now, not come back and edit, and polish, etc. Have a good day. And enjoy the sunset.

Update to Nature, Late May

Things do bloom here after all, and it is wonderful. Even the plain green stuff has new growth of brighter crisper green, and there are blossoms in trees and plants that I thought were dead. The rainy season isn’t here yet, but it’s on its way. The nights are really sticky hot and new insects are making themselves known. But so are birds, and butterflies, and millions of baby chicks. They are so adorable when you watch them follow the mom around and learn how to scratch for food; but then you just turn around and they’ve turned into teenagers, and they leave their mess all over the front porch, and make noise when you’re trying to sleep.  And baby goats! They wrestle each other like puppies, roll around, charge after each other, butt heads, etc. And so many different markings I have never seen. Pinto goats, striped goats, grey speckled goats, etc. There are some brown ones with sorta pointy ears, and once in a while I will see one almost hidden behind a shrub and for a split second it’s a deer and I’m back in Volcano. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s a trip.  

There are lambs as well, but the sheep here are big with really long skinny legs and look more like ponies than the sheep we know. Their wool is more like dreadlocks that have never been groomed, and some are black with that really bad henna job on the ends. Not good.  And they lose each other all the time so they are constantly crying for a mom, or a baby. Not like those cuddly things in the hills around Stinson. And somehow I don’t think I would ever want to eat one of these, although I have no compunctions at home. I remember when we would be driving to the Coast, and Sheila would get all mooney, and “Oh, nushka, look at the babies!” and Annie and I would go, “Right. Let’s eat ‘em!” Not here, but I have learned to make a good pasta sauce from tinned mutton. The food nazi in retreat.

Early one morning though, when I was at the beach, I saw a man washing a flock of sheep in the ocean. One guy kept the rest of the flock off to one side, and the other man would pick up a big sheep and carry it out into the deep waves. Some were fairly passive, but some really struggled to avoid the water. There was no stopping him, he was big and strong, and he kept each one up to its neck in salt water for a really long time while he washed away at it. Go figure.