Kakum

Ghana has a lush, green landscape, but because people rely so heavily on wood and coal for fuel and cooking, it is largely deforested. So it was exciting to travel up to Kakum National Park and see the rainforest and towering trees. Kakum has a famous canopy bridge that rides 400 meters in the air! A series of boards on horizontal ladders are suspended from the trees by rope. I did my best to face and overcome my fear of heights, but I was only able to brave three of the seven levels. 

 The Canopy Walk

Bamboo

Ceiba Tree Roots

I look happy here, but in reality I am frozen with fear and recovering from a small heart attack.

If I could come here again, I would camp overnight or stay in the Kakum tree house so I could venture out at dawn. Early in the morning, there are a variety of monkeys and birds for nature lovers.

Cape Coast Castle

We had an extra day in Kumasi before traveling back south to Accra, so we altered our path and looped down to the Cape Coast. Even though it wasn’t part of my travel plans, I felt I couldn’t leave Ghana without visiting the infamous castle that links our two histories – the place where African slaves from the Gold Coast region were held before being shipped to the United States and the Caribbean. Nearly all slaves that arrived from Africa to the present-day United States can trace their origin to this castle.

Initially, the Portuguese, Dutch, and finally the British, came to the region to trade for gold and other raw materials and eventually began trading liquor, tobacco, and cotton to local chiefs in exchange for slaves.

Hot branding irons scarred the initials of the owners into the slaves’ chests or arms. Arms and legs were shackled together in groups of four to ten people.

This is one of the dungeon cells that housed 200 slaves for three months until they were sent by ship to the Americas. The captives were left in horrendous conditions, up to three feet of their own excrement, and many died while some committed suicide. An endless supply of humans was provided to fill the supply upon their deaths.

This is what a cell looks like on a bright, sunny day without my camera flash.

Ironically, a church was built by the British directly above the dungeons.

Present view of fishermen from the “Door of No Return” where slaves were marched to small boats that would shuttle slaves onto ships away from Africa.

Sankofa is one of my favorite adinkra symbols and one cherished by the Akans. Today I thought of its special meaning as I reflected upon the history of the Cape Coast Castle. The symbol represents respecting the past and traditions and literally means "return and get it," but according to many locals who tried to explain it to me, it is about courageously facing the past for good and evil, pride and regrets. One friend here said, “We remember our mistakes, and we don’t try to hide from them, but we learn. We move forward with our new understandings.”

Kumasi & Craft Centers

We traveled north to Kumasi to visit markets, the Asante Palace, and the Craft Villages around Kumasi.

Asante Palace Museum

Bonwire - the weaving center famous for kente production

Ahwiaa - the wood carving village

Ntonso - the Adinkra center

Traveling south from Kumasi on a beautiful day

Food

Food is sold at markets and roadsides everywhere, no processed foods. Fresh vegetables, grains, and fruits are bought from shops daily. Small antelopes and grass cutters are sometimes sold as bush meat by hunters on the roadsides.

Stews of various kinds make up a Ghanaian diet. Fufu, red red, cabbage stew and other popular foods are made with a comination of yams, cassavas, plantains, rice, and beans mixed with onions, vegetables, hot peppers and oil.

The majority of cooking is done over charcoal. Hot coals burn directly under the pot in this most commonly used metal cookstove. This picture was taken at Mpraeso during some pottery demonstrations, where a bunch of kids in the background were cooking a palaver sauce (a stew of tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, palm oil, and greens). It smelled so good – wish you could get that from the picture.

Palm nuts are roasted to extract palm oil for cooking.

This is a roadside palm oil factory.

One of the funniest moments I experienced in Ghana was in Vume, a couple days into my trip. I had heard many people talk about cassava as a popular food, so when one of the potters there mentioned this vegetable, I asked what it was. The potters, farmers, and children (there were about 30 people) burst out laughing for about five minutes. I guess it was the equivalent of a foreigner in the U.S. sincerely asking what a potato was. After we all had a good laugh at my expense, the whole community insisted on parading me a ways into the fields to pull a cassava root from the ground.

Ah, these plantain chips are going to be the food I miss most when I leave Ghana. I’ve eaten a bag of these just about every day here. The lighter ones (my favorite) are unripe (green), thin plantain slices fried and very lightly salted. The darker chips are ripe plantain chips, a crispier and sweeter version.

 

I have yet to master the art of drinking water from a sachet - wet splotches all over my shirt.

Tilapia is a staple here, smoked or salted for storage, then heated. Everyone here insists the head is the very best part.

Banku (a fermented corn meal pudding) is eaten with tilapia and dipped into sauce.

Chicken and Jollof Rice is served with Shito sauce (a spicy combination of crushed fish, oil, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and onions).

Mpraeso

A small city located in the mountains a couple hours north of Accra, Mpraeso is famous for its grinding bowls used throughout Ghana. The bowls are constructed with a wheel-like handbuilding method unique to the region.

 

Abena Fante, a Mpraeso potter, shows us her silvery polished ware and funerary figures.

Adjoa Effa, wedging and preparing the clay to make a grinding pot.

The potters of Mpraeso work on stone columns with bats, unlike much traditional local pottery created directly on the ground.

Spinning around the column, Adjoa creates a perfectly symmetrical piece, much like the potters wheel, with the human as the circling part and motor.

The rim is thick and sturdy to survive the grinding process. When the side walls dry a bit on the bat, the floor is added and shaped.

These are the Mpraeso potter's tools: wooden blocks, beans, corn cobs, beads, and rocks.

Beans and corncobs are scraped along the inside to create the texture for grinding food.

A set of glass beads is used to burnish the outside of the pot.

One of the potter's daughters demonstrated how to use the grinding bowls, much like our mortar & pestle, but the inside texture really crushes and brings out the flavor of the ingredients.

It rained all night in Mpraeso so we woke up to a foggy drive through the rainforest.