Cape Coast.

Last weekend Myself and two other volunteers went to Cape Coast. It is about 120km North of Kasoa where I am based. I went there is style. Tro Tro. This meant being squeezed up against other people for just over 2 and a half hours. In this time I have never seen so many diversions or pot hols. Though it all added to the ride.

Cape Coast was once called the Gold Coast and was once the capital of Ghana until 1876. The place is emphamis (hope that is spelt right) for many things. One, that it had the first university in the country. Two, is the great views and golden sands (these however are very very dirty and smell sooo sooo bad). Three, sadly for the base of the largest slave trade in the world.

THE SLAVE TRADE
The slave trade which is also known by many other names was resonsible for about 60 million Africans being removed from thier homes. Of this less than a 1/4 made it to the new lands. They either died on thier way to the dungins (they had to walk), in the Dungins or on the ships. This means that about 12 to 20 million slaves made it to thier new lands which were all around Europe, some to USA, and South America. This would take about 5 weeks and it was not unusual to lose about 50% of those abroad. Chiefs were involved in the slave trade by offering not only their slaves from war but also their own. In return they got 1 gun for every women and 3 for every man that made it to the Dungins. The slave trade offically ended in 1807 by the British. It took several more years however for all other countries to follow suit.

CAPE COAST CASTLE

Cape Coast Castle which was orginally built for the purpose of transporting gold was built in 1662 by the Sweds. It then changed hands to the Dans in 1665. The British then had it after this and manage to secure it until 1876. The place held about 1000 slaves at anyone time. They came from Mali. Burkina Faso, Tago and many many more. The castle held about 5,000 slaves annually. The castle had sections for women and men. Both were very dark and had no toilet facilities. Put simply it was just damp concrete. Here the salves would have to stay for up to 3 months while they waited for their ship to arrive. While inside they were chained to about 20kg balls ( I know that is not the right word, my mind has gone dead). They were feed about once or twice a week. It was common for the women to be rapped by the General who was there. He would stand on his balcony and get the women to stand outside. He would then choose his woman. She was cleaned and given some food so that she would not collapse. AFter this she was often rapped a further 10x by members of the Generals staff. She would then be put back in the Dungin. When the shipped arrived, all surviving slaves were made to walk to the "Gate of no Return" It was not until 14 years ago did the decendent chiefs of those invovled in the slave trade make an appology. A plark on one of the walls now indicates this.

ELMINA CASTLE

Elina Castle is about 12km away in the town of Elina and was built by the Portregues. The town is a fishing town and has about 20,000 people. The castle is much older and was built in about 1490(I know it is over 500 years old and the oldest building in Africa anyway and it was started in 1481). It also I think looks a lot more like a traditional castle. This castle too, went through many holders in its time. The slave trade history is very simular. From what I saw however the coniditons for the slaves were worse than those at Elimina. One of the differences were was that if a female slave got pregnant and had the child she would be put up in a nice place and looked after by Dutch when they were in control which is now an overpriced resturant.

THE RIDE HOME
Never try to eat on a sunday in Cape Coast. Nothing is open as everyone is at church. In the whole day before tea I had about 400ml of water, a frozzen yoghurt and that was it. So this made the journey home a lot harder to handle. It took us about 30 mins plus some to find the right station to go to, as everyone was telling us a differnt place. then we got our tickets (which is strange as we have never had tickets before). Found out the tickets was for a tro tro that was way to full so we did not want to get on. Our tickets were just taken away from us, with ous standing there. Lucky the person who did this simply on sold them to other people and we had to go and get more tickets. somehow for the same price we took a bus back. It was comfortable and even had a tv which they played two African movies. Pretenter 2 and Choice. Both of which I would be happy never to see again. But at least now i can say I have watched African movies.

But yeah. Cape Coast overall was interesting. It was very dirty and depressing looking often. I changed my mind on liking it over the 3 days we were there. Kakum (Protected forrest) which I have not writen about was fantastic as I loved walking on the canopys 300 mtrs above the ground. If ever in Ghana it is certainly a must.

Edit from Heidi

Hi everyone, it's Heidi here. You may have noticed that I've been tootooing with Kylie's blog - just making some stuff a little better.

Comments
You can now comment on Kylie's posts, which is a great way to keep in touch with her. Down at the bottom of any posts, you will see a link that says "add a comment". It will take you to a page where you can add your comment. Click the circle that says "other" and enter your name (and webpage if you wish). At the bottom before you press 'publish' there will be an image with letters and numbers on it in green writing. You must enter this code into the "Word Verification" box before your comment will be published. This is so that Kylie does not have to moderate all her comments, and so that you will not be seen by blogger as a spammer. It's really simple, just type in the code exactly as you see it, and then press publish. The only downer with these comments is that you cannot link to pictures, which is a downer when you want to do what I've done below.

If you have your own blog, there is also permalinks there so you can link to your site. (if you're a blogger, you will know what I mean - if not don't worry).

And you can also email kylie's posts to anyone you know who might be interested - just click the envelope at the bottom of the relevant post.

And last but not least, Kylie take care of yourself, send us lots of emails and post lots on your blog, let me know if you want me to host any pictures for you, and also

Lots of Love
Heidi :0)

GHANA FACTS

Since a lot of people have been asking me general questions about this country that I am in, today's blog will be focussed on covering basic facts that I hope you will find useful.

Firstly, Ghana is in West Africa it is surrounded by the following countries

• Cote de Ivorie on the left
• Burkina Faso above
• Togo on the right

This can be seen in the map above.

Ghana is 239,000 sq km. This makes it a little smaller than New Zealand. It has however a population of over 22 million people. The country is dived up into 10 main regions which you will be able to see the main three regions on the map above. Accra which is the capital is the most densly populated area with between 4 -5 million people.

Ghana became a domocratic country in 2000 after years of dictatorship. The country became indepent 49 years ago on March 6th. While this is the case there is still a lot of curruption that goes on. They currently have 200 members of parliment.

This is the Ghanian flag

The main source of income is Argiculture which makes up 40 percent of the domestic economy. The largest of these are gold and cocoa (though I have seen no trace of this yet). The currency in use here is the cedi. There is 9000 cedi to a US$. For this you can buy about three bottles of 300ml coke, or 27 plastic bags full of futered water for example.

The offical language is English. There are two main families of Ghanain langauges. The ones spoken mostly around me is Twi (pronouced twee) which is spoken in the south of Ghana. Here are some phrases that I expect you to learn (he he)

• wo te sen? - how are you?
• Bra - Come here (said to children)
• Koh - Go away (said to children)
• Mede as - thank you

Hope this basic information helps. I promise to tell you more at a latter date.

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

As yu may know Ghana is a very religios country. This can be seen with the many many churches that are around and also in shop titles, on taxi and Tro TRo. To let you get some idea of what I mean here are some that I just found on my way to Accra today.

• The Lord is my Sheppard Engineering
• If not God Forex Beuru
• Everlasting Taxi
• Innocent Blood Tro Tro
• Beleive in Jesus Ltd
• Jesus Cares Motors
• King of Kings Motors
• In God We Trust Motor
• Jesus brings life hair saloon
• If not God Pharmacy

Not quiet in the same category, but still interesting was the "Dont Mind Your Wife Cafe" which I saw at the International Trade Fair.

So maybe if we start running out of names at home (NZ) we could borrow some of these, what do you think?

I'll continue t o update you on interesting titles throughout my stay here.

Transport and Roading.

BASIC TRAVEL 101

The key way to drive in Ghana is to use your horn. This is done to tell pedestrians to get out of your way and to tell people your are passing them. There are no passing lanes in Ghana that I can see, so you pass whenever you think there is room while using the horn. This makes driving an adventure wherever you go.

If you do not have a car of your own which most people don't there are three main ways of travel apart from your feet.
Tro Tro (minivan type of thing) which is the easiest to access most of the time and very cheap (no more than 2000 cedi (about 20c USA) to go more than 5km. While there are certain stops for this, there are no signs, so you have to be a local to start with so you know where to catch them and need to pick up the correct hand signals to use which indicate where you want to go. Being Oberne (white) however helps as they will stop nearly anywhere for us.
The next is the bus. This is used mainly between areas and costs 1000 cedi to (just over US$1). On here it common for there to be someone selling something (anything) and they talk and they talk (though not in English so I have no idea what they say). Having church on the bus is also common and nearly everyone on the bus joins in at the end with a prayer.
Then there are taxis who will never admit that they do not know where they are going. They range in quality though none has seat belts. The rates are agreed upon before you go anywhere which is great! The drivers like home will never admit if they do not know where they are going, so your short trips can end up being quiet a bit longer.