Feb. 16th

Hello,
This past weekend was so fun at the Cape coast. It was so great to finally put some images to the things I have read about throughout my history classes throughout my life. We visited Elmina castle which was a major slave castle that housed thousands of slaves throughout the Atlantic Slave trade. It was so shocking to see how the castle was constructed. In the middle of the slave castle there is a church. This really made me sick to think about the injustice and lack of humanity that these slave traders were taken part in and then to see that the church in the slave castle. The church was reworking biblical passages to view what they were doing was okay since the Africans were seen as nothing more then primitive and that enslaving them would do good for these pagan thinking people. One thing that shocked me at the castle was the smell and stains that were still ingrained into the castles walls. The smell in the female dungeons were so much stronger then in the male dungeons because of the lack of hygiene and cleanliness that women were allowed. 


We also visited one of the slave forts with my history class this last week as well. We visited Fort Usher which housed enslaved people in the city of Accra throughout the Atlantic Slave trade and in the 1900's became a place were political prisoners were  held who fought against the British during their control in Ghana. 


I also visited Kakum National park which was so exciting. I got to climb on a canopy walkway which was so high up and was at the top layer of the trees at the rain forest. It was really neat because I was at the same level on the bridge with beautiful birds. However thank goodness I am not afraid of heights it was so high up that it was a little scary at times. We also went to a restaurant that was surrounded by crocodiles. I got to pet one which was really cool.


My favorite thing about the weekend was that I finally went to the beach. The sand in Ghana is really soft and the waves are really calm. I went swimming in the ocean which was really great. I also got to see the fishing community in Ghana. Fishermen in Ghana don't fish out in boats. They have canoes that they place very large nets in the ocean. They tie the net to a palm tree and then get a team of some 10-15 men and pull the large nets in. I was so hoping to get to pull a net in but it was too late by the time we finally got to the beach.


This week at school and in Accra have been really good. I have not yet gotten my dresses that I had made but I have bough some things of the streets. I also found this really neat NGO group called Global Mamma's that provides jobs to women in the city and in Local villages to create cloth and clothing items for sale and pays them at high wages. I also found a great little ice cream place (not as good as american ice cream places) by my hostel which does the job for a nice dessert sometimes. This last week it also rained quite a bit on Thursday which took me for a complete surprise. In Accra all the side roads and the places you walk are clay and when it rained it was completely mud all over the city. Which was really weird since in Ghana it is currently the dry season. 


This weekend I will be visiting the W.E.B. Dubois center which is so exciting because Dubois is one of the reason I decided to come and study in Ghana to begin with. He was a pan-africanist who decided that racism in the US was too much for him to life through. He decided to move to Ghana to escape american institutionalized racism and to continue his studies in race issues aboard. The center in Accra is a place for African Americans to "come back to Africa" and serves as a place in the city to discusses racism and race relations between Ghana and the United States.


I hope in the next couple of days to post again and to post some pictures from my past weekend.