Elmina Castle, The Fort, And The Cape Coast Castle Restaurant

I woke up early enough to go to the Ocean View internet cafe. They had a hard time getting their system up and running. Finally the guy just had to unlock a computer for me to use unclocked. I didn't abuse it. Sadly, their computers don't work with my email client so I can read but not respond to email. Elena, I got your email and I'm delighted you are having a good time in Nepal. :-)

It took me a long time to find the shared taxis to Elmina. My search was compounded by a huge NPP rally right about where I was looking (their elections are soon, too). But after some searching and asking around, I finally found the taxis. I arrived at 9:15. They wait until there are 4 people and then head to Elmina. We left at about 9:25. The cost is GH¢0.65. Cheap.

The guy in the front seat was going to the fort. I wasn't sure why. I arrived in Elmina in the shared cab. I wanted to stay in the cab until the end so that I could see where the cab back to Cape Coast took off from. The driver showed me the front of the church and said it leaves from there. I got out and he started shouting "Cape Cape Cape" from his window as he slowly made his way down the street.

There is a fort and a castle. It isn't obvious which is the fort and which is the castle. I assumed the one on the hill was the castle and the one on the water with all the cannons was the fort. Wrong. Oh well. I got 2 egg rolls on the way to the castle. They weren't that good. The meat pies are much better but there aren't as many meat pie vendors in these parts.

As I approached the castle, a guy came up and introduced himself. A guide, I presume. He asked my name. I told him. M-A-R-K? he asked. Yes, that's right. I often ask people with unusual names to spell them so it didn't strike me as odd. Actually, it strikes me as odd whenever I ask someone to spell their name. I think I'm the only one who ever asks people to do that. I don't know why. Maybe a holdover from Japan where people always want to know the Kanji that makes up a person's name. They then either write in on their hand or say a common word that has it. Anyway, it is usually important to me to know how to spell a name. Though, yesterday, I didn't ask Sara if it's Sarah or Sara. Sara is one name I usually let slide without asking. Ann/Anne too. Anyway, I told him I didn't need a guide. He said OK and told me to remember his name (I had already forgotten) and went back to where he came from. That was easy. Guides aren't usually so easy to shake.

So I went in and paid my GH¢7 and got rushed off to a tour that had just started. Mostly whites--several cute girls. The tour was interesting. It was calculated for maximum provoking of white guilt. We started out in the women's slave dungeon where women were kept awaiting the ships that would take them to the Americas. There was a staircase. The guide said that was the staircase the governor used to take up the women he raped. Then we went to the male slave holding area. Again, pretty bleak. Then we went to the "room of no return" which had the "door of no return"--the last doorway the slaves would ever traverse in Africa before being loaded onto ships. The guide did a little prayer for those who didn't make it.

So far, is wasn't too bad, but the next part of the tour, the guide sort of laid it on with a trowel. We went by the grave of a Dutch governor whose epitaph talks about how good a man he was (signed by a Dutch Protestant minister) even though there were slaves being shipped from there. We went to the prisoners' cells. First we went to the white cells for whites who needed to be punished. Well ventilated and relatively well lit. After that we went to the African "condemnation cell" next door over which there was a relief skull that didn't look particularly original to me. We went in and they closed the door so we could see how dark it was. The guide told us that they would place up to 30 men, who didn't understand why they were in the castle and fought to escape. They would let them starve to death and wouldn't open the door until every last one of them was dead.

We visited the Portuguese Catholic church (the guide said that the Portuguese "claim" they are Catholic) which was used as a junior officers' mess by the later Dutch and British holders of the castle. Of course, the guide pointed out the location of the slave dungeons in relation to the church. Next we went to the officer's mess which is right above the women's dungeon. So the guide reinforced how the officers ate and were jolly there while just under them the slaves were being kept. Then it was off to the board room. According the the guide, the main question to be asked in the board room: "How can we get more slaves?" Then off to the Dutch Reform Church room where there is a Psalm embedded into the wall that apparently says that God lives ONLY in this room. No where else in this castle--just in this room. Next we went to the governor's quarters. First we saw the governor's balcony across from the Dutch Reform Church. And what was this balcony used for? Why, for the governor to choose which female slaves he wanted to rape, of course. The guide pointed out that the church windows across the way had to be closed so that God couldn't see what the governor was doing. Next, we went into the first room of the governor's rooms. The first room had a trap door. This is above the female slave holding cell and the wooden staircase we saw in the first few minutes of the tour leads to this trapdoor. This is where the soldiers brought the women to be raped by the governor (and occasionally partook themselves). Next we went to the rooms where the governor lived, and raped the women. And with that the tour was over.

First, I want to stress that I don't deny the horror that was the African Atlantic slave trade. It was dehumanizing and among the worst crimes perpetuated by one set of races on another set of races. The chattel form of slavery where the people who become slaves have no human rights is the worst form of slavery. But that said, I just find it hard to believe that the abuses described by the guide was a normal part of life in this castle. I will definitely reread Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade. He draws on pretty much every fragmentary piece of primary source material there is and describes the trade in detail. And Elmina is a huge portion of his book. Maybe the type of atrocities described by the guide actually happened and if they did, I'm sure I'll find it. But otherwise, I can't help but think it is speculation. I doubt if the Ghana tourism board found the trap door and stair case or if they did, it was after the castle was remodeled long after the slave trade ended and didn't serve that purpose at all. I hate to doubt their scholarship, but until I see letters or diary entries that substantiate these claims, they are just too much for me to believe. Frankly, the tour cheapened the experience. The reality is horrible already. They don't have to stretch the truth to make it sound worse.

Anyway, after the tour, I checked out the museum and then the restaurant attached to the castle where I had nice beer. Two girls came and sat at a neighboring table. I think they were German.

I left the castle grounds. The guy who I easily shook off as a guide after he asked the spelling of my name shouted to me. I waved and carried on. He ran up to me. "I have a present for you" he said presenting me with a clam shell with "To: Mark" written on it in blue magic marker. The marker was still in his hand. Ah, so that's why he confirmed the spelling of my name on my way in. But I know the "give present--leverage reciprocal obligation" trick. I started encountering that one at the beginning of my trip in Dakar. I refused to take it. He tried to get me to take it again, but I was having none of this trick. Then he whipped out a piece of paper for his school soliciting donations. I didn't take the time to read it so I didn't see if they had a "help the local destitute" clause. I refused to make a donation to his school. Boy oh boy. If guilty white people are easy pickings at Cape Coast where African middle men shared the blame for the slave trade, imagine the easy pickings in Elmina after hearing about the governor's rape-orgy.

Next I headed up to the Fort St. Jago. I am out of shape so I was tired when I reached the top. The guy from the taxi was the door man. He charged me GH¢4 which I'm not convinced is the correct price but could be. The fort is really just an empty fort with nothing worth seeing inside. There are no descriptions, no anything. You just look at the views through the holes in the wall. Then you're done. So, I went back down and went to the church. A tro-tro was there. The guy shouted "Cape Cape Cape". I got on. We were a third full and I thought we'd have a long wait, but they pick up people along the way, so they don't wait until they are full. We left right after I boarded. I got back right around noon. So I did Elmina as a morning trip from Cape Coast.

I went to the Castle Restaurant and ordered a beer and a cheese burger. During my first beer, a family came in. Not sure what country. They fit the profile of many families here--old parents accompanied by smokin' hot daughters. They were blonde and maybe 19 or 20. The one with the long hair kept looking at me. I had my Cormac McCarthy La Route out where they could read the title. I don't suppose Cormac McCarthy impresses women. I guess it shouldn't. Women have no more business reading Cormac McCarthy than people under 30 have reading Joseph Conrad. The parents each had a beer and the daughters had Coca-Colas. They all ate. Then they left. I ordered another beer.

A pretty white woman came in. She sat at the table across from mine. We were facing each other. She specifically avoided any eye contact with me at all. Why? Why would he sit across from me facing me and then totally avoid eye contact. She looked out at the ocean. She looked at everything except me. She was a bit older--maybe her 30's but she was also drinking a Coca-Cola. I was trying to work the courage to talk to her. After all, I avoid eye contact with women I like when I'm out. Then some food came. Ah ha! She knows this place--she didn't get a menu, read it, and place an order--she ordered immediately upon entering. She's a local expat. She ate moving her eyes from the food to the ocean making sure they never got anywhere near me. Talk to her or not?

I decided to read a couple of paragraphs in La route. Her Coke was half full and she was only half done eating. It was the paragraphs where he lays out the contents of his wallet, including the picture of his wife, and leaves them in the road. Then later, he wishes that he could have kept part of her with him.

I looked up after reading those 3 paragraphs. The table was empty. No half drunk Coke, no plate, no pretty white woman in her 30's. I looked behind me to the road leading from the restaurant. Not there. I looked at the register area--there she was settling her bill. She then left. I was disappointed. I ordered another beer.

Soon after she left, the two smokin' hot blonde girls who were with their parents before came in and sat at her 2 seat table. The one I could see--with the short hair--had beautiful shoulders, black bras straps, and a white Lululemon style shirt that said GinaTricot where the Lululemon logo would be if it were Lululemon. They were there for about 20 minutes when their mom came in. I felt sorry for them. It's not like the place was crawling with hot men they wanted to impress, still their mother isn't exactly the type of mom a 20 year old girl points to and says, "that's what I'll look like in 20 years." I'm sure they wanted to enjoy their time sans parents. Then their dad came and they settled the bill and left.

That's when I noticed a girl--about 25 sitting alone facing the ocean just watching the surf beat against the rocks. She was there for a while. I read a bit and sipped my beer and tried to figure out what to say if I worked up the courage to talk to her. I settled on this: "The amazing thing about the surf is that as soon as one wave disappears, another one is there to take its place. And each one is a little bit different so it never gets boring." I was rehearsing that in my head. I didn't know what to say after that, but the few times in my life I actually got the courage to talk to a woman in a bar, she has always worked with me to make it as unawkward as possible--which is a nice feature of women in bars that I never take advantage of. I am no good at it. After all, what do I know about this woman other than I'd like to sleep with her? Nothing. I know exactly that one thing about her. Anyway, as I was trying to figure out how to get the whole line out under with the nerves of trying to deliver such a line, she got up and went to settle her bill.

Fuck, I'm such a loser. Sometimes I think I deserve to die alone.

Sunday, October 19, 2008 20:30 Ghana local time