"Life is Hard"

The fellows are in their placements all over Ghana. Filled with new tools and AfriLEAD positivity. The AfriLEAD team was taking a break after the Foundation Learning in the Young Managers Program while the fellows were just starting their new placements, I took a trip down to the Cape Coast area of Ghana with my fellow Canadian, and great travel partner, Larissa. She arrived in Ghana the same time I did. I wanted to know more about the history of Ghana and also explore some coastline.

The first day we decided to take a 40 min walk along the beach to the Elmina Castle. I didn’t know that the beach would be the public bathroom. It can be washed away with the tide, so I can understand. For us, it’s a beautiful walk. We came up into a village of houses of mostly broken boats and tin roofs. A local boy led us out to the street, I’m sure we weren’t the only tourists to take this route. I felt stupid and embarrassed, to infringe on people’s privacy and life. But as always, Ghanaians are always welcoming or well, just look at you thinking, “Why don’t you just take a taxi?”

We made our way to the Elmina Castle. This is the gateway to slavery in Africa. In the Canadian education system, you are just not taught about this part of history. Is it because we think we were not a part of it? I’m not sure, as this is not true either. A little history on the Elmina Castle; it was built in 1482 by the Portuguese. The Dutch captured the castle in 1637. It was at this time, came the Dutch slave trade with Brazil and the Caribbean. As we were guided through the castle the first place we went to where the women slave dungeons. There was a staircase that led straight up to the governor’s quarters, so he could hand pick the women captives from above to be his concubine. The chosen were washed down, given a bit of food for strength and handed over for his pleasure. The other slave dungeons were the same, holding as much as 200 captives at a time. Then they were take in shackles to the “Door of No Return” which was the portal to ships awaiting to take them in a journey across the Atlantic. Most of them would not make the journey even if they made it past the slave dungeons. I looked through the “Door of No Return” of what would’ve been their last glimpse of Africa as they stepped on to a ship headed for the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean or America, the only thing I could see of what now was beach full of fishing boats was brightly colored fishing boat that that had the words “Thank God”. I stared out this doorway with hope and sadness at the same time; this is the thing I see in what was such a horrible, unimaginable life. The castle was sold to the British in 1872, along with other Dutch owned castles. Slavery was outlawed by the British in 1807 so it was not used to transfer slaves.

We also went to the Cape Coast Castle, the Portuguese first built structure in 1555. The Swedes built a permanent fort in 1653 and named it Carolusburg. The Danes, the Dutch and the local Fetu chief of the time each captured and held the castle until it was finally captured by the British. Each male dungeon could hold 450 male captives and the female dungeons would hold 250 captives. On this tour one moment I remember is the place of worship was on top of one of the male dungeons. To think of the inhumane atrocities taking place below. I had read somewhere, that all was forgiven since the reason for building the castle was for trade in commodities and not slaves.

The Cape Coast and Elmina area is a beautiful place to visit. We were staying at an off the beaten path place called the Stumble Inn, it was beautiful, quiet, eco-resort where the ocean breeze took away the heat of the hot sun.

I posted this photo on Facebook of the beach taken the day I arrived. A dear friend commented, “Lucky!” After spending time in Ghana and the visit to the two slave castles, I agree, “Yes, I am lucky.” As I was speaking to one of our fellows from the YMP on just life in Africa, he said, “Life is hard”. I said nothing. I couldn’t agree nor disagree. I could only listen. I mean; life is hard for me. To do anything that is what we know as a pretty easy task in Canada is not easy in Ghana. His words stuck with me, I thought about them often. It wasn’t a complaint, it was hope, it was proudness. Life is hard, but it won’t keep them down, it keeps them rising. I am inspired by the YMP fellows, they struggled their way through university, have bachelors and masters degrees. Left families to be in this program, not for only them, but for Ghana because life is hard and they want to make impact, these are our change makers.

I will end this post with a sunset, as the sun goes down the sky changes colors, the changes will reflect the end of the day and that there is always tomorrow. I would also like to thank Melo, one of our YMP fellows and my good friend Joanne for inspirng me on this this blog entry.

#ewb #afrilead #inspire #makingimpact