Cape Coast Castle

After a night of hardly any sleep due to people singing halleluja and chanting around the corner of my hotel i was more than happy to leave Accra for Cape Coast. It is a beautiful area, think white beaches and palm trees... But it has a dark history. I found a cheap guesthouse just outside Cape Coast, away from the noise... I slept like a princess both nights. But first things first. After arriving i had a nice lunch and dozed off in a chair... Then i decided to go out. Whenever a guest has to go somewhere they call a taxi driver named Kofi (which means he was born on a Friday). He was a nice relaxed person, and a good driver! He brought me to an internet cafe and afterwards i went for a short walk to Cape Coast Castle. Today it is a World Heritage Site but once it is supposed to have been one of the largest slave-holding sites in the world during the colonial era. The Ashantes (ethnic group from the Kumasi region) traded Ghanaians to the British and in return they got alcohol and guns. The captives were placed in the castles' dungeons before they were placed on ships heading mainly to South America (Brazil in particular), but also North America to some extent. The Swedes constructed the original building in Cape Coast in 1653. However, it was made out of wood and they soon realised it wouldn't last in this climate, with the Atlantic at its doors... Today there is nothing left of the wooden building. Instead, there is a gigantic white and to me beautiful stone building. But knowing what has happened inside those walls sure removes the good feeling you may get when first laying an eye on the building. After the Swedes came the Danes, then the British in 1665. Before joining a guided tour i visited the museum where one can read about the origin and how the slave trade worked but also how it later inspired leaders such as Martin Luther King. Then it was time for the tour. It was... rich. Rich in information, rich in emotions and by just being in a place with such a dark past is overwhelming at times. It was approximately 15 persons in the group and i was the only white. As you know, being in Ghana has made me and my surroundings very aware of my skin colour. But the athmosphere walking around the castle, it got a bit difficult at times and i was close to tears several times. When we entered the last room, a dungeon, i saw the marks of the chains which the prisoners were attached to... The persons who had been placed in this dungeon would never get out of there alive. They were sentenced to death. No water. No food. The air in this small room (with only one small window facing the court yard) was very bad. Standing still. Today there was only one door to the room, but when the castle was in use for slave trade it had three doors. The air supply was in other words even worse then. And i was in there for less than five minutes... The guide was brilliant though. When standing in that room he suggested we all would take our neighbours' hands while taking 20 seconds to think about the people who had suffered in this place. Looking at the floor before closing my eyes i saw the chain marks.
We walked out, all taken by the tour. The guide finished the tour by stopping in front of a sign on the wall that in words recognise what has happened here in Cape Coast. He said: the castle is not here to create bad relations between people, it is here to remind us that we can never let such cruelty happen again. Ever. We thanked him.
I called Kofi the taxi driver and went outside to wait for him. I was approached by so many people, mostly young men and that is difficult as it is but after this tour it was too much. I came up with the brilliant idea to call Carles, and that did the trick. Kofi arrived and drove me back to the nice and comfortable guesthouse and i thought about my first day in Cape Coast.