Ghana- Day 1, February 6, 2011.

We arrived in Takoradi, Ghana early in the morning. So far, no port has been as beautiful as Dominica, but this was pretty rough looking. We were in an industrial port, so there was no need for it to look special. I had an FDP this day, so I had to wake up extra early to get ready and head out by 8. My trip was to the castles and slave dungeons. We rode on a bus for about an hour and a half, while our tour guide talked the ENTIRE time. It wouldn’t have been as bad if the microphone he was using actually worked properly. It sounded like one of those little kid toys that just makes you echo really loudly. He was pretty interesting though. I was in and out of sleep the entire ride, so I don’t remember much of what he was saying, but I do remember that he was acting out bits and pieces of Ghana’s history. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it was pretty funny. We passed a few fishing villages, they are very interesting. Lee (our tour guide) told us that the sea is a “she” and her day of rest is Tuesday. Fishing is not allowed on Tuesdays. I thought that was interesting.
We finally got to Cape Coast, where the first castle was. These castles held and “exported” 25% of the world’s slaves. This is where they waited to be shipped out to whatever country had bought them. Brazil had the largest amount of slaves. It was strange, because we just took the exact route that the majority of slaves took when we crossed from Brazil to Ghana… only backwards. There were all these dungeons that we walked through. Each dungeon held about 200 slaves. They were dark and extremely hot. Even with 30 of us in there for 5 minutes, we were miserable. The guide showed us the line on the wall that looked like a line we would draw on a building to show how far the water came up during a flood or something… only this was a line to show how far up human waste had piled up and solidified. The ground that we were standing on, he told us, was still covered in solidified human waste.
After the first castle, we went to eat lunch and move on to Elmina, where the second castle was. We got a tour, and it was pretty much the same story with a different lay out. We headed back to the chip, and I slept most of the way home. That night was my relaxing night, because I knew the next few days were going to be a whole lot of action and not enough sleep. It was Superbowl Sunday, so a lot of SAS kids were out watching it at the duty free shop (that we pretty much turned into a bar) right next to the ship. I stayed in and went to sleep, so that I could be well rested for my village trip the next day!