Cape Coast Weekend Trip

Last night, I came back to my first water outage. I don’t know if that’s the right phrase, but when I returned to my building, it was to find that there was no running water. So, I filled a bucket from the tanks outside and used that to flush the toilet and take a bucket-bath. It’s surprising the small amount of water that is really necessary to bathe. Running water is one thing I will not take for granted again (to be added to the previous list).

In other news, CIEE took us on a trip to Cape Coast this weekend. On Saturday, we left campus at 6:30am aboard a very fancy bus. Cape Coast is so beautiful, with coconut-tree-lined beaches and magnificent ocean views. We saw a group of fishermen pulling in their net, and they let us help them for a few minutes. To do this, they have a rope that goes out to sea, and you can’t see where it ends. There are about 10 of them, singing and clapping a rhythm, and they pull the rope every few beats. Literally, they pull in the net an inch at a time. The rope is wrapped once around the trunk of a coconut tree and some men are sitting on the ground, keeping it tight around the tree after each pull so that the net won’t pull the other men out to sea. My hands were sore after only a few minutes, and they told us that it would take another 3 hours or so before it is completely pulled in.

Saturday, we went to Cape Coast Castle, which was where Europeans kept African slaves before shipping them off to Europe and the Americas. It was a sobering experience, and the place was so hard to see. There was such beauty there, but there was such cruelty as well. We went on a tour which took us into the dungeons for men and for women. Directly above the men’s dungeon was the castle’s chapel. The dungeons were crowded, dark and poorly ventilated. There was also no sewage system except trenches in the floor and a box. We also saw the “Door of No Return” which opens up to the sea. Slaves were led through tunnels to this door, and then they were loaded on ships and sent across the Atlantic Ocean. Seeing this place was a difficult experience for me, and I only wonder what people today can do to rectify the injustices of the past and make sure they aren’t repeated in the future.

On Sunday, we went to Kakum National Park, and I saw my first rainforest. We went on the “canopy walk,” which involves rope bridges between trees, high up in the rainforest canopy. It was amazing. I’d like to go back with a smaller group of people because 50 students can be pretty loud. We didn’t see much wildlife, but perhaps we would with fewer people. It’s about 3 ½ hours from campus, so some of us could plausibly go as a day trip.

Today, it’s back to classes for me, and running water.