African dancing workshop

Attempting to keep the rhythm....

The head drummer with a Djembe drum

….. So many emotions and experiences in the past three days in Ghana.  I have fallen into bed each night exhausted and too tired to post to the blog.  We are now getting ready to leave port on our way to South Africa, so I am taking some time to post a few thoughts:

On Wednesday I participated in an African drumming and dancing workshop in Takoradi.  In the morning we saw a performance by a combined group from Accra and Takoradi, and then we split into two groups to learn drumming and dancing.  I enjoyed the drumming, and I tried the dancing….*smile*  We also were able to talk with the performers and some neighborhood children who wandered in…. The joy of the music was in such contrast to the conditions in the neighborhoods.... There is a lot of poverty here, but people seem to be doing what they need to get by without complaining.  Everywhere you go there are people hawking whatever they can make or find to sell…

Thursday was a much more somber day.  We visited two of the castles that for four hundred years were used to house slaves before they were put on ships to go to the New World.   Elmina castle is the oldest and largest of what once was a chain of slave castles along the west African coast.  Learned a lot about the origins of the slave trade and the brutal conditions under which the slaves were held.  It is an eerie feeling to stand at the doorways of the two castles where the slaves left to board the ships.  President Obama spoke here a year ago, and there is a plaque commemorating that event in the Cape Coast castle.  People here are enthusiastic about Obama and the US…  The current President of Ghana is John Mills, and I saw an election poster on the side of a building that had photos of Mills and Obama with the words “Mills and Obama, a leadership team we can trust!”   

On Friday we took a tour of the Kakum National Park, two hours from Takoradi in the central region of Ghana.  It is one of the few remaining sections of rainforest in the region.  Walked along the suspended canopy walk 40 meters above the ground.  However, we did not see much wildlife, since most of the animals are nocturnal.  I would have liked to spend more time in the park and learn more about the ecology of the area, but it was a fairly brief visit.  We finished the afternoon with a walking tour of the city of Elmina.  Fishing is the main activity in Elmina, and there are hundreds of brightly colored  small boats in the harbor. 

Ghana has been much more joyful and welcoming than Morocco, despite the incredible poverty here.  Many of the students on board ship participated in service projects at orphanages and schools during the visit.

This post is getting a little long, but there is so much to say.  More later….