This past weekend, CIEE visited Cape Coast. We left Saturday morning – first stop was a fantastic lunch. From there, we could choose to visit only one of the two slave castles – Cape Coast Castle or Elmina. I chose Elmina. Elmina was one of the major exporters of slaves during the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. This castle in particular was erected by the Portuguese. The Dutch then seized it and used it for the slave trade, after which the British took possession of it. The experience was overwhelming, and it is difficult to put the rush of emotions into words.
The male and female quarters were separated. The room where the women were kept had this unbearable stench about it – the tour guide said it was remnant of the time when the castle was in use. The room (which was rather small especially considering the number of women that were stuffed in there, really dark, and completely enclosed) housed upwards of 100 women at any given time. The room had one small hole in the wall where food was passed through and, mind you, this hole was connected to the magazine which stored all of the ammunition and etc. If there was an explosion of something went wrong in the magazine, it would result in disastrous consequences for the women. The women had to do everything in this room while crowded together, from eating to bathroom to menstruation – it was this combination that was the source of the stench in the room. The smell was present even hundreds of years later. The women were also consistently raped by the guards and men that lived in the castle. If the women misbehaved, they were punished by being chained naked to a cannon ball and just standing there while the guards and everyone could see them. If you closed your eyes, you could still feel the tremendous pain and humiliation of the thousands upon thousands of women that were at one point or another held captive there.
We later moved onto the men’s quarters which directly led to the door of no return. This was the door that all of the Africans had to pass through in order to get on the slave ships. Although the water had receded by this point in time, the ocean used to come up directly to the door. These were the Africans last steps on their continent before forever leaving. That thought was… just mind-boggling. I started shaking just imagining all of the souls and people that passed through that door. As I tried to put myself in their position, it was simply overwhelming. My heart ached so much for the Africans who were sold into slavery as well as for the Europeans and Africans who lost their humanity and committed these monstrosities.
After visiting Elmina, we went to the Coconut Grove Hotel. It was ridiculously beautiful. The sand was the most amazing I had ever been on, the water was so warm, the view was breathtaking, the showers were actually warm – simply put, we were all so spoiled that night. I did not want to get into bed. I stood at the edge of the water basically the whole night after dinner. Cathleen and I tried to wake up for the sunrise and we made it out of bed; however, it was unfortunately too cloudy to see a sunrise. Nevertheless, we were more than happy to be awake early to just sit on the beach a bit longer. We slept for maybe 4 hours that night – the beach was simply too beautiful to be wasting time sleeping. Cathleen and I were the first two at breakfast – the food was delicious. We had cereal. We were super spoiled this weekend.
We then traveled to Kakum National Park and took a tour along the suspension bridges. The view of the forest was breathtaking. It was also so wonderful to be breathing such fresh air. Lunch was served at the Hans ____ Botel. This was wicked cool because we got to touch crocodiles. Yeah, I pet a crocodile. It wiggled its butt under my hand! (I may have screamed a little at this moment…)
The rest of the week has been rather uneventful. I did get a drum! I got to choose the two Asante symbols I wanted carved on it, so it will be ready to pick up this Sunday. J Donty, the salesman, is also giving me a free drumming lesson when I go to pick it up. How I am going to get the drum back home is still a question up in the air, but it will happen… somehow…
On another note, this upcoming weekend promises to be a very exciting one! I can’t wait to tell you all about it! J
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