Cape Coast, Ghana

5/10/09
And now, on to other things... like... GHANA!!!  I love Ghana!  I LOVE
Ghana.  Ghana is soooo nice.  I loved Kumasi (most beautiful batique
fabric EVER and I went crazy buying it), and now we're in Cape Coast
and I LOVELOVE Cape Coast. It's only been a few hours, but so far so
good... And Green Turtle Lodge, well... I can totally see why one
would love Green Turtle, but I for one was not smitten.  I love the
ocean, so of course that was a good fit, but the unfortunate truth is
that the whole place is infested with, try to guess---- rats.  Yep.
Rats all over, everywhere. At night, in the afternoon...I was on a
towel in the shade reading with John, and suddenly John yelled OH MY GOD
THAT IS DISGUSTING, which of course made me leap up in fright-  turns
out there was a giant rat (dead) stuck headfirst in the sand with its
legs sticking straight up in the air, right next to me.  Didn't see
that...


But other than that- the food there was absolutely mouthwatering
(papaya/peanut/cabbage/green bean salad!?!?!) and the staff was superbly
nice and helpful.  The British owners were home- she's having a baby-
so the Ghanians were rocking the place.  Very fun!  It rained the whole
time, so no sunburn, not even a tan.  But it was still a good time.  I
was glad to get out of there this morning and head east to Cape Coast,
where we'll spend a couple of days before heading home.


We decided to stay a few extra nights in Cape Coast, so the grand
total will be 4 by the time we leave.  It's a cool city-
bustling and full of life, but not too big.  Ghanians are SO friendly
and outgoing- everybody tries to show you around, ask you your name,
sit down and talk with you.  It's fun.  Gets to be alot if you're out
by yourself (like I was yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours),
but mostly it's just great.  Yesterday we spent almost all day at the
Cape Coast Castle, which was used for holding people as slaves until
they were shipped to Brasil, Jamaica, and the US.  There's a good
museum there, where we spent all morning, and we got a tour in the
afternoon.  I had a lot to think about, and felt a lot of different
things being there- anger, disgust, shame, guilt, grief.  I am pretty
sure the public school system didn't teach me what I should've known
about all of this.

Cape Coast Castle: where slaves were held before being sent to the New World

Dungeon at Cape Coast Castle