The Door of No Return

In all of the slave castles/forts, there was a 'door of no return'. this was the door leading the slaves out of their captivity in Ghana (in truly ghastly conditions - not even acceptable for animals) to the ship that would take them across the Atlantic and off to their new slave owners in N and S America. I didn't know, but most slaves went to Brazil and the Caribbean. i always assumed most of the slaves came to the US. just looking at these doors made me feel sick - knowing that thousand of scared humans were shuttled through and their lives were stolen from them.

The door in the top photo leads out here (the guy in the black shirt is standing at the door). This castle sits on a cliff, so the slaves would be shackled and walked down beach where the ship awaited them.

This castle was right on the water - you can see how close the boats are to the door

The door is at the center of the castle

A re-focus on work

Things are back to 'normal' now with our many visitors gone and Otto is back in school. I have been very busy at work. We just had our first (very successful) Embassy Health Fair.  These are a pretty common event at posts - but having never done one it was a lot of work. since i cannot provide health care services to our local staff, this is my way to offer them something health related. We focused on cardiovascular health - had some booths that measured height and weight for BMI calculation and did blood pressure checks. We had a local doctor (cardiologist) come by and give an excellent lecture on hypertension, which is a huge health problem here. The mission staff loved it and i feel really good about raising awareness for our employees. unfortunately i don't have photos - I was too busy working!!

I am getting ready to start training people in CPR. I got my instructor certification back in September, but it has taken this long to get all the supplies to teach. Lots of people want to take the class. I figure i will be very busy for the next 6 months teaching. One of my nurses was previously an instructor, so i will work with her and then she can teach as well.

Although i really miss being busy seeing patients (i am still only seeing 3-4 a day if i am lucky), I do see the value of health education and at least that way i am able to interact with lots of people.  I miss having colleagues around.  My staff in the Health Unit has been great with jumping right in and being willing to teach as well.

Otto and I will be going out to our 'adoptive village' next week for the first time. The Ambassador has a program that provides funding for small village self help projects. The Americans at post are then able to adopt a village and be the face of the Embassy to the villagers.  We will go out and talk to the leaders of the village to learn more about the project and make sure things are coming along to get it started (our village is getting a borehole/well). Then we will go back a couple more times to check on the progress and when it is completed we will be there to celebrate with the villagers. I am really excited about this and it will be good for Otto to get out to the countryside and interact with a different set of people. I will definitely get photos of our visits.

Here are some random photos to keep your eyes and senses happy.

Anomabo beach in Ghana. i miss the ocean!

Another interesting (depressing) bit of slave history. The stones used in this castle are from 3 different countries - 2 of them European. this is because the ships coming over had to be loaded with an equivalent weight for the trip back...so they loaded them with stones for building castles when they made the trip from Europe to Africa. It was all cargo to them...

The kids are always interested in us (well so are the adults, it is just the kids have less inhibitions).

Happy Holidays!

Another busy month, it is hard to keep up with all of our adventures and have time to blog on top of that.  Otto's dad came for a visit - he was here most of the month. Since he came last year after we had just arrived (and were not settled...and didnt have the car), we really wanted to show him the Ouaga - Burkina Faso we love. It was a great visit.

First we went to Banfora - our favorite 3 day weekend destination.  Dave likes rocks too!!

Breakfast at the Canne Sucre (sugar cane) - the hotel we stayed at.

Climbing at Sindou Peaks

Our new best travel buddy. Jackson LOVES to go on road trips. He is an amazing climber-hiker.

Then for our big vacation we took a road trip to Ghana. What an adventure that was.  We initially had grand plans of driving all over the country. fortunately some friends were traveling at the same time and had the even better plan of just hanging out at the beach. that was the ticket. from our beach resort, we did day trips. we visited a few of the slave forts/castles and got a lot of history about the early slave trade (depressing!). On the way home we did a short safari at Mole - a beautiful nature reserve.

My only regret is that we didn't get a chance to go rock climbing. There is an active group in Accra that i found about on the internet. They meet every Sunday to drive 1.5 hours out of the city to a developed crag (there are 2). Sundays were our mandatory travel days and because it was xmas week, no one was around/available to meet us there during the week. Probably a good thing in the end for my shoulder at least - which is much better, but not 100%. 

The true adventure was the drive. It was long, their towns are much bigger than ours in Burkina and their people are a bit more aggressive. We did get 'arrested' once (better than our travel buddies who got arrested twice) - but it was mostly an attempt to hassle the foreigner and try to get a bribe from us. And of course as with all of developing Africa, the roads were often horrible (under construction or pot-holed).  i will let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Good bye Burkina (fortunately only for a week). We had such a great time traveling with our friends from the Embassy (the couple is also in the bike group). They have 2 girls a bit older than Otto, but they get along fine. It was fantastic to share the week with them - driving, exploring, playing games, sharing meals and laughing a ton. Ghanaian English is not the English we are used to (or were hoping for!). Many times i think they had no idea what we were saying. some funny quotes - when asking about the difference between menu items, we were told, "It's the same...but different" and when we asked if bread came with breakfast - they said, "No." So we asked what it came with and we were told (straight face and all), "Bread, eggs, coffee and fruit." These are memories i will keep with me because as is the case with Foreign Service, both of our families will be going our separate ways this summer. I love them dearly.

This was probably my favorite of the forts we saw. Fort Amsterdam. It has been partially restored and there was a very knowledgeable caretaker who gave us quite a bit of history with the tour. It was beautiful. Perched on a cliff overlooking the fishing village and coast.

Cape Coast Castle. this is the most well-known and touristy. The Obama's visited here in 2009. It was impressive. There was a great museum with lots of history in the castle. The dungeons are all intact and so painful to view. How can people treat others like that. I can't even imagine treating an animal like the imprisoned Africans were treated.

All the castles were just off the coast, so had beautiful views (and all we saw butted up against a fishing village). interesting bit of history. most of the captured and sold slaves came from North Africa and certainly N of the coastal countries. This is because the Europeans had to live side by side with the Ghanaians and even needed them for protections. So the Coastal Africans actually worked with/for the Europeans and were part of the slave trade business - crazy!

Fort Williams - about a 15 minute walk from the resort where we stayed (Anomabo). This just blew me away to see. All these fishermen working next to a castle...just going about their lives. The only disturbing-disgusting thing about this is that the inhabitants of these fishing villages use the sea and shore as their personal outhouse. the only problem is there is not pit or privacy. There were human feces ALL OVER the beach. The resort we were at was protected, but walk 5 minutes down the beach on either side and there were fresh piles of shit and it wasn't uncommon to see people squatting - they weren't shy at all. We figured these villages have probably been doing this for 100's of years.

Future fisherman.

Hiking in Kakum National Park. Alyson shyly hiding behind Otto. We skipped the canopy rope bridge walk because there were hundreds of other people there all doing the rope bridge walk and we could hear them screaming from where we were on our hike. Not a great way to see birds and animals - and it was about $25 per person to walk across it!!

Otto and Dave got into the beach thing no problem. Dave bought these machetes so they could cut open a coconut...just like the natives!

Camp Fire at out camp at Mole National park. Definitely a highlight. We were going to stay 2 nights, but left after one because the staff at the park had major attitude. The camp site was run down and dumpy...but they still charged us $25 for primitive camping. The last straw was a large (and scary in my opinion) baboon that kept stealing food off guests breakfast plates. Took food off Otto's plate twice - just jumped right on the table and wasn't one bit afraid when we tried to scare him away. And then we we asked the restaurant to replace the stolen food (they were doing nothing to shoo away the beast), they charged us for it.  We will take our business back to Burkina where people are so nice, friendly and helpful.

Mole itself was far from disappointing. We got to do a walking safari. The park is beautiful. We walked around for 3 hours with a very knowledgeable guide. and yes, were were this close to a bull elephant. i was very nervous at first, but our guide had been working in the park for 15 years and knows the individual elephants, so was able to teach us his cues. Very cool.

If you notice the hole in his ear - it is from fighting with another male elephant

Christmas eve - back at home.