Ghana

A main street in Takoradi, the city in which the ship ported.

In our canoe, on the way to the "water village," with our tour guide.

The fishing village at Cape Coast.

Cape Coast Castle: This was the largest of the "Slave Castles."

At Elmina Castle: Through this door, slaves were led to small boats that took them to ships awaiting to take them to the Americas.  

Being in Ghana was an eye-opening experience. We hear about poverty, but it's hard to really understand it until we see how poor people live. I have seen poverty in Latin America, but here in Ghana it seems to be everywhere and at a worse level. Ghana has many natural resources - like Cocoa, Gold, rubber, manganese, etc - that are valuable on the world market. However, the country doesn’t process these things, where their value is greatly enhanced, and thus gets very little for its resources.  So, despite their resources, they are mired in poverty. We also went to visit two “slave castles,” Elmina and Cape Coast, where the Portuguese, Dutch, Swedes, and British kept slaves until they were sent to the Americas, including of course the 13 colonies. Over 60 of these castles existed along the “Gold Coast” of Africa where an estimated 10-12 million Africans of many tribes were enslaved, kept for about a month, put on ships, in chains and stacked upon each other, and then sent to the Americas to be sold principally to plantation owners. Many of the slaves did not survive the journey. We also went to a "water village," where people live in very “primitive” conditions, perhaps even poorer than most Ghanaians. No doubt, corruption and mismanagement exists in Ghana but, if they were able to process their own resources, they would surely be better off than they are now. Colonialism and slavery are over but the conditions that they created are still found in Africa.  The oddest thing I found (perhaps more insane than odd) was that while people are living in poverty, there is constant advertisement all over Ghana (in the form of nicely painted houses and stores) by three cell phone companies. Cell phones is perhaps the last thing that people in Ghana need, but they are being bombarded by cell phone ads. In a few hours,. we'll leave Ghana, where people were extremely friendly to us despite their poverty, and head for South Africa.