The Gold Coast

We had nearly a week after departing South Africa to make our way up the west coast of Africa to Ghana. Historically, called the Gold Coast the country renamed itself following its independence from Great Britain in the 50's. This is a pretty poor nation with a wealth of natural resources that don't seem to trickle down to the common citizen. I have a great deal of affection for the culture and people of Kenya so I was looking forward to seeing their compatriots on the other side of the continent. Ghana didn't have nearly the appeal for me. While we admittedly were in areas where goods were for sale, I found most of the folks we met to be pretty aggressive and insistent that we spend our money with them. Twice we had cab drivers try to cheat us and at one point in Accra we actually had a guy follow us for about twenty minutes trying to sell us his artwork. He proceeded to wait outside of a shop that we spent a good twenty minutes in, and then he followed us back out again. Even when we made it clear that we didn't want us following us, he continued to harangue us and got pretty angry that we weren't showing him "respect". Apparently in this situation, respect means giving him money. It was uncomfortable and left a bad taste in my mouth. The other merchants we encountered weren't quite as bad, but were still quite aggressive. With all the poverty, it's easy to see why people might be motivated to get all the tourist dollars they can. This is one side of the visit, but there was plenty of good in the visit however which I'll describe here:

We arrived in the port city of Takoradi for the first two days of our visit.  On our first day I was the "Bus Lesion" for a trip to the Kakum National Park to the north of the city. The trip involved a two and a half hour drive through dry scrub and settlements. As we gained elevation we saw increasing greenery and banana and coconut plantations. Reaching the park itself, we found a small group of thatch roofed buildings with an entrance station. There was no visitor's center to speak of, but there was a small shop allowing the students to immediately start shopping. This park is in a tropical

A walk in the woods

rainforest and has a series of seven hanging bridges suspended about a hundred feet above the rainforest floor. This allows a person to experience the canopy of the rainforest and get an idea of just how thick and extensive the forest is. The bridges are about eight inches wide and are quite securely fastened. Each bridge has chest-high nets and hand lines to hang on to making them quite easy to traverse. Many of the students however found it quite challenging to look down on the high drop and deal with the bouncing and swinging of the bridge. I happen to be a bit of an acrophile and I had no trouble with the height or movement of the bridge. If you've ever done a ropes course, these bridges would seem like a sidewalk. The walk across the bridges was fun, although with fifty-five some students in our group hooting and hollering, you can hardly say that the experience was a solitary one. With all the noise, any birds and mammals were long gone.

Just hanging out

We did however discover a very cool green tree snake that seemed unfazed by our traffic. Following the rainforest trek we bussed down to a local restaurant and had a nice local lunch. Like East Africa, the food was heavy on meat and thick sauces. The vegetarians in our group didn't love the offerings but I found it plenty tasty.



Takoradi was our first port in Ghana. After a bit less than two days the ship transited to the slightly larger and much busier port of Tema. This port was closer to the city of Accra, which was a bit of a draw for the students. Also, several of the Field Labs for courses were in this area making the logistics easier for the busy Field Office aboard the Explorer. On our first day in Tema I took the ship's shuttle into Accra where I had a nice lunch with a few friends and looked around the shopping district. Accra didn't really speak to me and I was most looking forward to our next day which held all sorts of potential for adventure.

Our plan for the next day? One of the Professors aboard, Dr. Laycock who teaches Comparative Religion has a colleague who has worked in Ghana for nearly two decades. His colleague had arranged for a small group of our faculty to meet a group of leaders from the local religious community - a group of Fetish Priests, apparently the term they prefer over "Witch Doctors". This religious tradition is the West African faith system that shares common roots with the various aspects of Voodoo that developed from slave communities in the New World. We had no idea what sort of experience we were going to have - all we knew was that we would pay a small fee, part of which was going towards the purchase of "Aromatic Schnapps", which would be used in the rituals we were going to attend. We were to be picked up the following morning from the port and brought to Accra to meet the group of Priests. Just going to a voodoo ceremony paid for with alcohol - what could possibly go wrong?

Our group was met by a van outside the port gates and we piled in and headed along the coast towards Accra. Along the way we stopped at a coffin-building workshop to admire the "fantasy coffins" Apparently, this is something of a tradition in Ghana. People will commission a coffin to be built in the shape of a tool, an animal or some other thing that symbolizes their life. A fisherman might be buried in a giant fish, while a carpenter might choose a hammer. We saw both of these along

Yes, this is a coffin

with a six-foot long semi truck, a large vegetable and a movie camera. The strangest was a giant spider. When we asked our driver who might commission such a thing he just shrugged and said "maybe Spiderman?". There were five or six craftsmen in the shop and they seemed a bit bemused by the group of white tourists wandering through their shop taking pictures. They were quite friendly and smiled as we complemented on their craftsmanship. They were quite frankly the nicest people I had met in Ghana - they didn't try to sell me anything.

Following the coffin shop, we piled back into the van and continued our way towards Accra. As we got closer to the city, the traffic became thick and soon we were in stop and go with more stop than go. The heat was pretty intense and with no air conditioning, we had every window in the van open. All along both sides of the street and between the rows of mostly stopped cars wandered vendors. These folks were dodging between the cars with fantastic piles of goods balanced on their heads, selling to the autos as they inched through traffic. We were amazed by the incredible balance and the sight of all manner of products for sale. As we sat there in traffic we began to compile a list of things that would fill several different kinds of brick and mortar shops. Here's our list:

And she has to dodge motorcycles!

tissues, toilet paper, paper towels
papaya, Mentos, peanut cakes
windshield wiper blades, phone vouchers, cell phone covers
small bags of water, roasted ground nuts (peanuts)
bathroom scales, giant Jesus paintings
jump ropes, watches, bobble head dogs,
plantain chips, veggies/potatoes, banku, sugarcane, coconuts
belts, wallets, purses,
movies and dvds, sandals, sunglasses
laundry soap, air freshener, brooms and brushes
sliced bread and tubs of butter
some sort of fried-dough looking thing

All of this, just over the course of four or five miles. No need to stop at the store on your daily commute - it's no-stop shopping!

Eventually we made it through the traffic and entered Accra. Our van drove down increasingly narrow streets until we were deep into the part of town the tourists don't visit. We stopped in front of a narrow alley and were greeted by seven men dressed in traditional West African dress. These were the Fetish Priests. After a brief introduction, they began a welcoming ritual that involved chanting with a call and response that revealed the deep roots this culture shares with the slaves brought over to the New World centuries ago.

Welcome to Accra

The ceremony involved something that they called "libations" which was a ritual spilling of spirits (alcohol) on the ground and then filling a small cup and sipping from it. The entire ceremony lasted about twenty minutes, concluding with each of us being brought forward to sip from the cup. The libation was a clear liquid with the same smell and I imagine the same taste of lighter fluid. The ritual concluded, we were beckoned down the alleyway into a courtyard which was covered by a small tent with a ring of chairs under it. Three drummers were set up on one end and they began beating out a complex rhythm. This was the beginning of a second ritual that involved several of the Priests standing and dancing within the circle of chairs. We were each, one-by-one brought up with one of the Priests and encouraged to copy his motions. Following this, the drumming stopped and we were welcomed and introduced to each of the Priests. They explained the meaning of the various rituals and then explained that we were going to go visit a series of shrines holy to their faith. As I understood it, each shrine has a powerful totem which symbolizes (or perhaps embodies) an entity that allows the worshiper to communicate with God. Kind of like praying to a patron Saint to communicate your prayers forward.

We piled into the van, this time accompanied by one of the Priests while the others disappeared into another vehicle. Our van was led through a twisting maze of narrow streets with crumbling buildings and slow-moving people peering at the strange group of white people. We eventually stopped and were led down a narrow alley to another small courtyard where again plastic chairs were set up. Here we met a Priestess who explained that this was a fertility temple where women would come to have a pregnancy blessed or pray for a healthy child. The Priests called the place a "temple" but it looked for all the world like a mostly empty space that was being used to store old fishing gear. There were no idols, no images on the walls or any other indication that this space was used for anything of spiritual significance. In fact, we eventually were brought to four separate shrines, each in incredibly poor surroundings with nothing to indicate that they were in any way holy except for a small beehive-shaped mound in the threshold where apparently they make weekly offerings of cheese, butter or yoghurt. The actual "fetish", the symbol of the temple was kept behind curtains and we were not permitted to view it. At each temple we were either given small cups of the sour Schnapps to sip, or presented with chanting and call-and-response that we had observed at the beginning. Interestingly, at each site there was a local man who was not introduced video taping our visit. Following each Temple visit, we were asked to pose with the locals for a group photograph. They seemed very happy that we had come and spent time answering our questions at each site. It was quite fascinating, strange and vaguely off-putting. I imagine that from the outside any religion looks pretty strange to those not used to it, but this was so far outside my experience that I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.

I understood that this religion was connected to the voodoo of Haiti and the Sanataria of Cuba by an ocean a few hundred years, but really don't know more than that about the roots of this faith system. I know nothing of voodoo except for movies that portray it in relatively unfavorable light. Here we were being presented with fertility temples and offerings of welcome to outside visitors - not exactly the dark rituals and dolls with pins sticking in them that Hollywood portrays. However we did get a glimpse at something perhaps a bit darker. One of our group asked the Priestess at the fertility temple if the temple was used for anything other than blessings for unborn children and she was told that yes, they also did death curses here. Wow.

After several hours of touring the different sites, we were brought back to the first courtyard and brought inside the building. We were offered drinks and a simple, but very spicy/tasty lunch of chicken and rice with potatoes. There was one final short ceremony and each of us posed for an individual picture with the head Priest who gave each of us a small carving as a thank you for coming. We then piled into the van for the long ride back to the ship. This was an educational experience unlike anything I've ever experienced. This day will stick with me for a long time.