Topy Fiske on Ghana

This is a guest post by my cabin mate, the journalist Topy Fiske.

We were in Takoradi, Ghana, this week and visited Elmina castle (built by the Portuguese in 1482) and Cape Coast castle (built by the British in 1664), two hours away on the coast. At one time, there were 19 castles that were used as slave dungeons on what is now the Ghanaian coast, and most have crumbled into disrepair. The two we visited were grim. Worse than what you can ever imagine. I've seen dungeons and concentration camps before, but the horrific conditions in these "holding" dungeons supersede anything I've seen anywhere. The dead either were dumped into the sea or buried under the cobbles in the courtyards where large, unmarked graves still exist.

Above: Elmina, or "the mine" in Portuguese, was built in 1482, the largest and oldest castle in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Dutch  conquered it in 1637 and the British in 1807. Today fishing canoes come and go 

The anthropologist on board said at least 15 million people from the 16th through to the 19th centuries were transported to the New World via the Middle Passage, with Brazil receiving the most. In addition, at least 7 million people died during the voyage or while waiting for transport. Africans selling Africans; Portuguese, Dutch and British selling Africans; Arabs selling Africans; Africans trying to escape; indescribable abuses. 

Cape Coast castle carries a plaque noting that Michelle Obama's ancestors survived and passed through the "Door of No Return" from this very castle. This is the door through which those who survived this Hell were put onto ships in coffin-like spaces and sent to unknown places. President Obama and the First Lady visited this site in 2009, and another plaque commemorates their visit.

I'd like to share an inscription on another plaque that is imbedded into the walls of both places:

In Everlasting Memory of the Anguish of Our Ancestors
"May Those Who Died Rest in Peace
May Those Who Return Find Their Roots
May Humanity Never Again Perpetrate Such Injustice   Against Humanity
We, the Living, Vow to Uphold This"

In today's Ghana, the living conditions are severely substandard. Where to begin? Fifty-four countries in Africa, and this is supposed to be one of the best in sub-Saharan Africa. Broiled rats are sold for food in the market, and open sewers carry everything -- and I mean everything -- out of the markets into an open area near a lake used for washing and drinking. Vendors are very aggressive, and they continually touch you, putting bracelets on your arms, stopping you from moving ahead in narrow passageways, etc. Lots of pregnant young girls. Lots of people crowded into villages with mud huts and storage bins for housing. Lots of red earth. Lots of dust. Lots of women carrying heavy loads on their heads while swaddling infants on their backs. Lots of everything, including a new kind of servitude, economic as well, as oil companies and foreign investors reap profits from this mineral-rich country, leaving little behind. Even crew members say they don't like this port. Still, our tour guide was optimistic about the future and says that life today is better than it was 30 years ago.

This afternoon the temperature reached at least 105 Fahrenheit.