The air fought against my lungs with viscous arms, hot and humid. My shirt sweat-soaked in the dark and dank of the underground. Over a hundred men were held in that tiny room, weak, suffering men whose abduction and detention only ended with a life of subjugation. The infamous gate of no return weighs heavily on you as you look out through it and see the ocean. 12-25 million West Africans were taken across an ocean no different from cattle, branded , shackled and packed like books on shelves in the bowels of ships…Never again ( insert quote) is etched in marble on the wall…Never again, we vow.
The cape coast fortress is a somber place, if there was ever a reason to hate slavery would be it. Walking among the remnants of imperialism brings with it a deep sadness and acknowledgment of the creased foreheads and exasperated gasps of local visitors, who in another time may have been there under very different circumstances. But despite the slavery, despite the history of fighting, the Portuguese, the Swedes and the British, the most common phrase I have heard in my time here is “You are welcome” “Akwaaba”, followed by “we are the same blood” upon hearing I’m South African.
I hadn’t done much research on Ghana and was told two things before I came here, first, that it is a land of friendly people, and second that the beaches were great. It was pronounced by a french man and so I thought he’d said “Bitches”; he is right on both counts I suppose. In Accra I was bathed in the beautiful smiles from women with heavenly bodies. Disco lights and cold star beer help you get used to the lack of body space as you move from sweaty embrace to sweaty embrace. You spent a lot of effort trying very hard to keep up with the panoply of gyrations and undulations going on with their hips that you seem not to have been given in the womb, never mind taught how to use. I lost Sebastian at some point, but what a party; stumbling home through a slum area at 3 in the morning by myself after my taxi drove into a ditch I eventually found my room, my mosquito net and my early wake up call from March… although for a while I did contemplate curling up next to one of the homeless chaps who I chatted t for a bit…welcome to the MAPA project!
We got the cars, two beautiful lands cruisers… I’m in the old girl, the big petrol guzzling beast, which when she changes into third you can feel the planet warm up, but what power! We are now learned scholars of satellite modems and have looked for spark plugs and shopped, packed and repacked. We met the last crews, full of knowledge and advice, hopefully in 12 weeks I’ll be handing over with similar nostalgia and just as many stories. The last two days have been a bit of fun, getting used to the cars and finding our feet, our plan and our supplies. After hearing the stories from Mike and Mark we’re in for one hell of a ride! Ghana has given us a welcome and warm reception, we’re happy and raring to get some mapping started, so here we go off to map wild areas in African hinterland…life couldn’t be better.
Chris.... excellent man....just excellent!!
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