Happy Canada Day

Well as of today it’s been exactly a month that I’ve been in Ghana. To me that’s pretty crazy. In some ways it’s gone by really fast, and in other ways it feels like I’ve been here forever. The latter is probably because in some way, every minute of every day feels like an experience. Nothing feels like a routine yet, even going to work every day still feels kind of new every morning.

So this past weekend was definitely the biggest weekend I’ve had here so far. While everybody at home was celebrating Canada Day on Sunday, July 1^st, Ghana was celebrating Republic Day. While I didn’t see any sign of real celebration (suggesting maybe it’s kind of an arbitrary day for a holiday here), it did mean we got a three day weekend because Monday was a national holiday. So myself and a group of 9 others set off for the weekend.

The plan was to leave on Friday night after work but fatigue and a conference running late meant that we left Saturday morning instead. The weekend was to include a visit to Cape Coast, Elmina Castle and then Kakum National Park.

We set off in a tro-tro to Cape Coast by around 9:30 or so. You get tros like that, for distances like the two and a half hour drive to Cape Coast, from Kaneshie Market. Even being at Kaneshie on a Saturday morning is crazy enough. I’m really not sure anything I’ve ever encountered has quite as pungent (or repugnant) an odour.

Then the tro ride is kind of crazy. I’ve developed a bad habit for ending up with the truck’s wheel taking up my leg room. Long story short, I spent two and a half hours watching my feet lose all circulation as they were forced to be curled back under my seat.

Cape Coast is one of the most famous sites in Ghana. It’s a huge castle where the British (and others) held and then shipped out West African slaves as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It’s also placed in an amazing spot right on the ocean, making for some breathtaking pictures.

Seeing the castle, with the held of an extremely good guide, was kind of eerie if nothing else. What I can’t get over is how people, colonizers I guess, could do this to other human beings. The even worse part is that the most logical answer is that they did not consider the West African slaves to be human at all. All in all it was upsetting and memorable for sure.

That was our Saturday. Between the tro-tro ride, finding our guest house, the Castle and eating two meals at a restaurant (it takes forever…honestly, Ghanaian sit down restaurants take forever), we filled a full day, and amazingly, I went to sleep at about 10PM. For those of you who know my sleeping patterns, you’d be amazed at my schedule here. I almost never stay up past midnight and am awake by 7AM every weekday morning, and even on Sunday morning.

Sunday we left early to go to Elmina Castle. While Cape Coast was spectacular and is a bit more name-worthy, Elmina is perhaps more spectacular. It’s billed as the oldest European building outside Europe (and south of the Sahara or something). In short, on Canada Day, the celebration of our independence in 1867, I walked around a building built in around 1482.

Elmina as a castle wasn’t more amazing than Cape Coast. The building itself wasn’t that amazing, though it did have a sweet bat cave that you’ll see a picture of in my facebook albums. What was amazing was the view of the surrounding area that you get. You are surrounded two thirds of the way by this amazing beach and ocean and palm trees. The other third is the town of Elmina.

Now the town itself was pretty cool too. From the castle it looks like total chaos, with a mix of street vendors, wandering kids, goats and just normal Ghanaians out for the day. What’s amazing about it is that the town still has some of the colonial architecture, with the classic shutters on the windows of most buildings. It was kind of surreal. I’m not sure how many towns in Africa are that photogenic. Check out the pictures for sure, and I have a few videos I’ll try and find a way to get up online.

Our last destination on the weekend was Kakum National Park. Now this I wasn’t quite as keen on. Kakum is a rainforest about an hour past Cape Coast. What we were doing was going on a night time nature walk to look for animals, sleeping over in the forest and then doing this canopy walk early in the morning. I got worked up in advance because people talked about how many (very poisonous) snakes were in the forest, among other wildlife. I don’t like snakes, particularly not when they’re known to crawl along the forest floor, the same floor we’re going to be walking along, sometimes in the dark.

The nature walk was kind of a disappointment. We saw the eyes of a couple antelopes apparently, or at least according to our guide, but that’s it. We expected a little more, though it was still nice.

To sleep over, we were on these planks of wood with an aluminum roof and a mosquito nest. It was three or four us to a plank. I expected not to sleep at all, but did ok. Again, aside from lots of geckos and lizards, no major signs of wildlife. But the entire idea of staying overnight was to be able to do the canopy walk really early in the morning when things were most peaceful and we might see some wildlife. That….didn’t quite work out.

Apparently because it was a holiday, all sorts of school and church and recreational groups showed up at the park early in the morning. So the canopy walk was anything but a quiet experience. It was still interesting though, so it’s all good.

After that we headed home. I was glad to get some food and a shower. I hadn’t showered in a couple days and felt beyond gross. Even though it was only three days, it felt like such a lengthy trip. I got a nice little sunburn to boot.

Nana’s back in the office this week. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, but I guess it’s fine.

I hope everybody had a great Canada Day. I walked around all weekend with a Canadian flag tag on my backpack. I got a lot of positive reactions because of it too!