Senase Homestay Day 1, Ghana

Once back to the ship at 3:30, I quickly showered, packed all my stuff and water for three days, and met everyone in the lobby at 4:30am. It took a while to get everyone together so we didn’t leave the ship until a little after 5am. With the 20-minute walk to the gates (which took much longer that early in the morning), we met our guide a little later than planned. Our bus wasn’t ready so we had to take two tro-tros to the Slave Castle. I thought piling 29 of us plus the guides and the drivers was going to suck. Little did I know this would be the easiest place I could sleep on the whole 14 hour journey that day. So we drove to Saint George’s Slave castle in Almina (or something…I couldn’t understand how he was spelling it).

The castle didn’t open until 9am regularly, but because we were supposed to be there at 6:30am and had a long road ahead of us, the manager came and opened special for us. He had been there since 5am waiting. However, with our late start and the travel time taking longer than expected, we didn’t get there unitl 8:30. Even so, the guide was so nice and welcoming. He was so thorough and told us everything he knew. Touring the Slave Castle was a really unique experience. Built by the Portuguese  as a warehouse and then later taken over by the Dutch, then the English, the European architecture was beautiful. It was a white building on the beach with exquisite detail all around. The black wood detailing offset it perfectly. It was such a strange feeling to appreciate such amazing craftsmanship in such a sad place. The whole atmosphere was subdued as we realized what had actually happened there. We saw where 100-150 women would be kept. There were no bathroom facilities, just cement, brick and stone rooms with iron bars on them. We also saw the courtyard where all the women were brought to be looked over by the governor. He would stand on a balcony above them and then pick out the one he wanted to rape. That woman would then be brought up the steep steps through a trap door to him. If she resisted, she would be shackled to a cannon ball in the middle of the courtyard and made to stand there in the hot sun or rain all day. If they women were captured with a child, they could only keep it with them if it was a girl. Little boys would be separated and then separated out with the other men and kept in separate barracks. As if they hadn’t gone through enough right? We also saw where the slaves were brought as they were taken to the ships. We had to bend down and go through the door they walked through into the last holding chamber before they went through the door of no return. The “door” was no wider than 18 inches. The guide explained that while held at the castle, they were only given enough food to keep them sustained. By the time they walked through that door, they were so think they had no problem fitting.

After the tour, our bus met us and we started off on our journey north. Once on, I almost wished we were back on the tro-tros. The seats were so close together even my knees hit the one in front of me. I don’t know how the tall guys on the trip even fit in there. The isle seat was pretty rough to sleep in too but somehow I managed to catch a few Z’s.  After hours of bumpy driving, honking and rough roads, we finally got to Kumasi. The people who bought drums got to pick them up while the rest of us did a little shopping. We had dinner there too and by that time we were all starving. The restaurant owner (I think?) made us a huge buffet lunch since we were so far behind in time. Ghanaian time is so much slower than regular time. If they say it’s going to take 3 hours to get there, it’ll take at least 4 and a half. We were coming to find this out very quickly. We were supposed to be at the village of Senase at 5pm, and it was already 5:30.  The drummers and villagers had all been waiting for us at the school since 3:30 that afternoon. After dinner we got back on the bus for another few hours and finally arrived at 8:30 that evening. Over 14 hours of traveling with a few stops along the way, we were finally there. We all figured we must be super close to the northern boarder, but didn’t realize we were actually still in the lower third of Ghana. In the states, that distance would have taken 3-4 hours total. We were pretty shocked when we saw the map a few days later.

When we got to the village the kids were all cheering and wanting pictures again. Since it was pitch black, every time a flash went off they would cheer and scream to do it again. It was soo awesome. Looking back at my pictures from that night, it looks like it’s snowing in all of them. I don’t know if it was from ash in the air maybe or just other stuff floating around but it’s pretty gross to think about what we were breathing in. They were all so excited though. We could only stop and say hi for a minute because Fred’s family was waiting for us at his house with dinner.

We walked on this dark path through part of the village to his house will all the kids still following us. When we got there they brought out chairs for us all as it’s customary to offer guests a place to sit and water. However, because we couldn’t drink the water, we had to as politely as possible refuse. Hopefully Fred explained why we couldn’t drink it well enough for them not to be offended. We also went through the traditional greetings. Every member of Fred’s family came through and greeted us all before we were served dinner. Dinner that night was a mashed leaf stew type thing on a bed of white rice. I don’t’ know if it was because of my cold or the fact that I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I ate it all. I thought it was pretty good actually. I guess my taste buds are growing up!

After dinner we were divided into our housing groups. Kim, Maggi, Colleen and I were put together. We were really exited to meet our family, but when we were shown our house, we got there and it was like a compound. We didn’t have a family-just a room. A blue, blue room. Blue carpets, blue paint on every surface, and a blue light. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. The “beds” were one-inch thick pads on the floor with some very questionable looking sheets on them. There was a two burner camp stove in there, and suitcases with piles of clothes in them from whoever lived there. No furniture, no pictures, nothing. Just blue.

Once we got over the initial shock of our sleeping accommodations, we decided to get ready for bed and use the restrooms. Ha. Restrooms. Yea right. Our landlady was asleep so we had to wonder around until finally this woman found us and led us to the toilet. And by toilet I mean shit-shack. It was this super janky shed made out of splintering boards and a slanting roof. You opened the door and aside from being greeted by the most unbelievable smell in the world, you looked in and saw a 6x10x20’ deep pit of poo. There were planks around the edges and then a couple across that you had to walk on, then squat. When we were walking in the lady goes “No no! Not there! You’ll fall if you step on that side!” Needless to say, we were a little nervous. Kim and I went in together so one of us could hold the light and they must have thought we were so stupid. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. It was hilarious. We took so long too because we were so nervous about falling in the death pit! Oh man it was too funny. I’ll spare the rest of the details but the accidental camera video (we were using a phone as a light because some how between the four of us, none of us brought a flashlight) is pretty funny.

Back in the room, we had to get ready for bed. Thank god Kim and I both had bedrolls to put down on the bed we were sharing. Colleen put down a t-shirt for her head to go on and then slept with her jeans tucked into her socks, and arms in her t-shirt. It was so funny. The rest of us kept on long pants of some sort and tucked them into our socks—we were scared of bugs that might be crawling around—and long sleeves too. Once ready, we had to decide between keeping the light on so we could see any bugs that came out, or shutting it off to sleep. Maggi goes, “Sleep, or brothel? Sleep or brothel?” That light was something else. Thank god the long day of travel wiped us out pretty good and we all fell asleep shortly after. Thanks to my cold, I was up throughout the night blowing my nose, but other than that, no major problems (i.e. huge bugs) kept us awake….until the morning.