Cape Coast

As my classmates and I delve into the semester, with our first full week of classes, we have also been able to take an excursion to Cape Coast, a city west of Accra. We visited several different places during the excursion including a slaving castle, Kakum National Park, and part of a festival in Cape Coast. Here is a brief synopsis of each:

Cape Coast Castle:

We took a tour of this slaving castle that was part of a horrendous trade system during a period of colonialism in Ghana. We went down into several different dungeons where men and women were kept with little food, cramped space, and no real place to use the restroom except the place on which they were standing. The most disturbing piece of information gleaned from the tour was the fact that a church was built directly over one of the male dungeons; it is difficult to comprehend how the slave traders could worship God while below them people are suffering immensely. To add to our already mixed emotions, the area surrounding the castle was absolutely stunning with waves crashing on the rocks and huge palm trees with a beautiful sunset backdrop. 

Ko-Sa Beach Resort:

Our nice living situation for the weekend consisted of sleeping in huts and eating breakfast with a beautiful view of the beach. I fell asleep to waves crashing against the shore every night. A highlight of my time there was waking up around 5:30 AM to the roosters, but then walking out onto the beach and seeing a stunning sunrise.  This leisure morning was followed by an excellent breakfast of fresh fruit and freshly brewed coffee with is a rare find. We also met a man named Immanuel on the beach who showed us some of the sea life on the beach. He caught a few crabs for us and also some sponge, but my favorite things were the sea urchins he found. Holding a sea urchin was an interesting and fun experience because the spines on the urchin tickled my hand and actually moved around quite a bit more than I expected. Going for a swim was a challenge because of the rocky nature of the shore, but we did end up swimming a bit. The waves were huge and the water was fairly cold, but the feeling of waves curling and crashing over me was worth it!  

Small fruit bowl with mangoes!

Fresh brewed coffee

Kakum National Park:
The national park is filled with a vast array of wildlife (of which we only saw biting ants) and plant-life, but the main highlight of our visit to the park was the canopy walk. The bridge swayed as we made our way over each of the seven parts of the bridge. It was sweet to be seeing the tops of the trees but also still having even taller trees surround us and then break into a beautiful view across the canopy layer of the rain forest.

Fetu Afahye Festival in Cape Coast:

We experienced two different parts of this festival. The first part was orange Friday where people parade down the main street of Cape Coast to the center of town and there is much dancing and running and drumming and noise. The second part of the festival we saw was the parade of the warrior troupes and chiefs. This consisted of much more organized dancing and drumming. Each chief came in a palanquin carried by four men and the chief would dance to the music provided by their own drum group. 

As I experience more things, I hope I can become a true learner and leave the tourist side of me behind. It is hard to experience a moment and not want to take all of the pictures of one event and forget to be fully present where I am. I think the goal of every student studying abroad is to learn well through the experiences that are presented to them, and I am definitely hoping to reach that goal!