Cape Coast, Ghana

        This morning the four of us got up at 8 with plans to go to the gas station next door for breakfast and then head to the beach.  The other three still had to get work done for our biology class.  It turns out that nothing really opens up there until 9:30, so we just went straight to the beach.  A man came up to us there and told us his name was Mike.  He tried to tell us that he could get us a cab to go somewhere, but we said no.  We went to get breakfast at a restaurant, and the guy followed us there.  He sat down at our table and slept while we had our breakfast.  I got sausage and toast.  Toast there is buttered and put together like a sandwich after toasting.  The sausage was delicious; it reminded me of something that mom makes at home – kielbasa. 

After that, right next to the restaurant was a slave castle.  This castle was run by the English for 138 years, shipping slaves from Ghana to the Americas.  We got to see the dungeons where the slaves were kept.  The dungeon was no bigger than one of my classrooms, and they were meant to hold 200 people.  They could be kept there for 2 weeks to 3 months.  There was only light and ventilation that came in from two holes in the wall high up.  The men and the women were separated.  The children were kept with the women regardless of race.   Because of the children, the women’s dungeons were slightly bigger and had a larger window with bars on it for ventilation.  If women were unwilling to sleep with the traders, they were thrown into a room smaller than my bedroom with no windows and ventilation.  At any time there were 10 women in one of the cells.  The castle also had a cell where men were thrown to die.  They would be beaten as punishment and thrown into a cell with no ventilation and light for 2 days.  They were only ever brought out when they were dead.  There was a tunnel that the male slaves from dungeons were walked through to the “Door of No Return.”    Throughout the path of the tunnel, there were openings where traders could go with guns to keep the slaves in check.

The whole time that random man was waiting for us.  He seemed to be getting impatient.  We wanted to stop at some shops there, but the guy was no like “I’ll take you to my brother’s shop.”  We told him no and went shopping, and he finally got that we didn’t want him there.  He left us to go with other SASers that were being nice to him.  From here, Heather and I took a taxi for 2 hours back to the ship.