Mighty Victory Hotel in Cape Coast, Ghana.

Day 11
I woke up to the sounds of a baby crying in the distance. Then, it was an older child crying louder. Finally, the sounds of a choir singing floated up the hill. Music. Sweet Ghanaian music!
It was a nice way to start a day that I knew would be a painful one at the Cape Coast Slave Castle.
Had a nice Spanish omelet with pineapple juice (so good and natural), with coffee. Talked more with Richard and Joyce before heading to the Cape Coast dungeon.
Getting your mind wrapped around the significance and gravity of this place is not easy. I first realized how huge the Europeans' plan was to capture, enslave, torture and transport so many of our people -- Afrikans who were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, princes and princesses, leaders and workers -- the best and the brightest that helped provide the country's strength and future.
This is the major focal point of the world's worst atrocity. It led to the murder of as many as 100 million Afrikans, by some estimates.
All these thoughts were juxtaposed against this architecture, these white walls and the constantly roaring ocean that had such a contrasting beauty. But one look at the stack of cannonballs as we entered the deck level of the castle took my breath away. I'll never forget that feeling.
My heart paused. The Maafa was already real to me, but never quite as real as it was to stand in the very footsteps of such tremendous human tragedy. Our guides showed us the dungeon areas, the small rooms with no light that were packed to the brim with Afrikans who endured this day and night for weeks upon weeks until they were ready to be shipped like cargo to the Americas.

Jacque Kofi photos
The deck of the Cape Coast Castle, top, and the males' dungeon.

The guide showed us the tiny room where they stuffed the most rebellious Afrikans and left them there until they died - no light, no food, no water.
Needless to say it was unnerving to see some tourists pay so little respect on the tour, acting as if it was just another tourist attraction and not a crime scene on a level the world has never seen.
We stood next to the cannons aimed at the ghosts of ships in the ocean. Finally, we walked down a sloping corridor of rooms where the enslaved were kept. It led to the infamous "Door of No Return,'' which marked the last stretches of the homeland that these enslaved Afrikans would ever see.
Years ago, a group joined with the Ghanaian government to put up a "Door of Return'' sign on the other side to symbolically welcome back their descendants and signify Afrika's resilience.
Part of the fort was turned into a museum with good information on the slave trade and some on pre-colonial Afrikan history. Somewhere along the tour, on a wall, I saw a plaque with a quote from Pan-Afrikanist Marcus Garvey that I had to write down:
"No one knows when the hour of Africa's Redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day, like a storm, it will be here. When that day comes all Africa will stand together."



Day 12

Kokrobite Beach rests a short drive from Accra. We looked forward to this place the entire trip because A. It was the beach! and B. It would be the most luxurious stay of the trip for us spoiled transplants. lol
The road to Kokrobite (pronounced Koh-kroh-BEE-tay) seemed long, winding and eventually made of dirt. We couldn't really see the ocean with all the trees and vegetation. I couldn't even tell which direction it was in. Anyway, the best thing about Kokrobite was this little restaurant owned and operated by a family led by a woman and her daughters.
They even reminded me of family. As in direct relatives.

Calabash, just a little dirt road jog from the hotel, was the place to be in Kokrobite (banana pancakes, anyone?)

Folks chillin' on the cliff at Kokrobite Beach.

The food was the best. The hospitality was even better. Each night there, after dinner, they moved the tables, turned up the music and we danced. Pretty much everyone. The radio station played American R&B jams and Ghanaian jams, too. It was cool to see their dances and relate them to dances back home. The Funky Chicken, etc. lol

The beach was fun. We jumped the waves and let them push us into the shore like kids. But the water and waves were too rough to really swim in. At night, the ocean roared constantly. Loud. Sitting on the cliffs, talking, looking at the stars through the clouds and pondering life was cool.

But waiting for wet clothes to dry out was a lost cause. It was so humid that after days of sitting outside, the clothes were still wet. That's an especially bad thing when you've run out of clean clothes. lol With the thick leaves, it was hard for much sunlight to get through.

More to come later.

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