VACATION: Cape Coast/Elmina

IRB submitted, we departed NHRC 6 am on Thursday, abuzz with excitement and hope. 30 hours later, when we finally reached our hotel in Cape Coast, I cried a little while eating a cheeseburger. The time in between was harrowing and hopefully something I’ll forget as I age. Mostly it was my own fault- I thought I could avoid African bathrooms by not drinking any water for 20 hours, but this just sort of made me hallucinate. This problem that was complicated by the fact that, when hitting a pot hole jolted me out of my malaria-medicine-nightmares, we were crawling along a one-lane dirt road in the jungle in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. And the fact that Irish Mary warned us never, under ANY circumstances, to take a night bus, because they’re frequently attacked by highway bandits. At any rate, we made it there safe and sound and bandit-free, although we estimate that the journey would have only taken 5 or 6 hours on I-95.

So worth it, though.

After a solid meal/nap/shower in Cape Coast, though, we were ready to enjoy our vacation. Cape Coast is a really interesting beach town about three hours west of Accra. It’s arguably the most touristy destination in Ghana, and even Obama has been here! He came in 2009 with his family (Michelle traces her African heritage back to the Cape Coast area), and the town has never forgot it. A big Obama billboard greets you on the highway, and his face shows up on the sides of shops and stalls everywhere. Culturally, Cape Coast is all over the map. Armed with bikinis and sundresses, we were a little concerned when we had to walk through a Muslim market filled with burqas and veils to get to our hotel. Inside the walls, however, the sounds of Muslim prayer on loudspeaker mixed quite hilariously with the American and Ghanaian clubbing music (including one of our favorites, “I Need an African Man.”) Most of the guests were European backpackers or Peace Corps, although the hotel club and beach were frequented by the many Cape Coast Rastafarians. Rastafarianism is basically Afro-centric Christianity, which I only add now because I didn’t know that before and it puts a lot of conversations I had in context. Most of them work as artists or musicians, which actually works well in Cape Coast because tourists are willing to pay for the Rastas’ African artwork. This was an actual conversation that occurred:

Eye Man: The Moon is very happy tonight.

Melissa: How can you tell?

Eye Man: The wind is happy, so the Moon is happy. We call the Moon Eye Woman because she is in the sky with her children, the Stars. The sun is Eye Man.

My new best friend!

Eye Man is probably my favorite person in all of Ghana. He owns a small shop in town where he paints, but he also plays the drums and raps on the side. His hope is to work his way to Accra selling paintings so that he can record some of his music in the city. His real name is Emmanuel, and he is hands down the happiest person I have met in my entire life.

Cape Coast is also home to the Slave Castle, probably the most famous tourist attraction in all of Ghana. Because so many different countries fought over the Gold Coast (the old name for Ghana), the castle changed hands pretty frequently. However, during the height of the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, the British were in control. Slaves were trafficked to the coast from inland areas, like Navrongo, and were held in overcrowded, pitch black dungeons with no ventilation or waste drainage for up to 2 months waiting for slave ships to arrive. The castle is frequented by descendants of the African diaspora from the Caribbean and the Americas, many of whom leave flowers or wreaths at a traditional African alter erected inside the final dungeon in the 19th century. Set against the ocean and palm trees, the whitewashed castle was absolutely gorgeous, but a really sobering experience compared to how much fun we were having in Cape Coast.

Slave castles like the one in Cape Coast are a frequent sight along the coast of West Africa, and there’s an even bigger one just a few miles down the coast at Elmina. We were forced to evacuate to Elmina after a scarring bed bug encounter at our $8/night hotel in Cape Coast. It wasn’t so bad, though, because our new hotel was pretty amazing (with a pool!!) and it was nice to see another town. Despite the close proximity, Elmina had a totally different character than Cape Coast. It was much less touristy, with fewer restaurant and hotel options, and much more of a fishing town. It was also one of the poorest areas of Ghana that I’ve seen so far, with houses made of nothing but palm fronds and mud. We were in Elmina just long enough to celebrate Lyubov’s birthday before heading out to Accra.