Elmina

So we took a trip to Elmina Slave Castle. Forgive me if some of this is old news to some of you, but with my American education, I didn't know a lot of this and I am assuming some of you don't as well. 

So the Elmina Slave Castle is located at BEAUTIFUL Cape Coast here in Ghana. We took a 2 hour bus trip to Cape Coast 

and stayed the weekend at the Coconut Beach Resort 

while we were there, we spent a few hours at the 

Elmina Slave Castle.

 

                      

A brief history: the castle was originally built for commerical trading purposes between West Africa and Europe. The Portugese were the first to show up, calling the shore "elmina" referring to it being a gold mine, and the country the Gold Coast because of its abundance of gold dust

[Below] actual shackles and branding iron

One of the most disturbing aspects of the castle was seeing where the women were held. They would confine 100-150 women in this small, damp, poorly lit dungeon. We were there for about two hours and two people almost passed out from the heat. Standing in that room in 2009 had one of the worst smells I've ever smelled in my life. It's like you could smell it in the walls and the floors. Millions of African women forced there for months at a time, rotting in their own vomit, feces, menses, and God knows what else. And the heat. It was so HOT in there. I really can't imagine anyone surviving the combination of these things nevermind the spiritual and emotional distress they must have been under. As if all of this was not enough to blow our minds, 

the tour guide showed us this stair way. This was a link from the female slave dungeon upstairs into the governor's house. He would stand on a balcony overlooking the women and choose whomever he pleased to be raped next. The women were repeatedly raped by the other soldiers that lived and worked in the castle as well. And if they refused 

they were chained to this cannon ball outside in the center of the castle, stripped naked, and beaten into submission 

this is about 50 of us standing in the largest room of the female dungeon, and we took up about half of the space ourselves. We could barely imagine what it would feel like with 100-150 people, in the heat...

these are inside and outside photos of the Room of No Return

which led to the outside and obviously, the slave ships.

With a twist of cruel irony, Elmina is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. It's right next to the water and it has an amazing view of Cape Coast. It's like a cruel joke that so many people were tortured and killed here. 

I had an overwhelming sense of humility while standing there. I also seriously lacked I would be strong enough to endure all that these people had to endure and live to tell about it. I thought about the reality of my own freedom and opportunity that I have my ancestors to thank for. People were taken from their homes, beaten, raped, starved, tortured, murdered. It's crazy. It's one of the greatest crimes against humanity this world has ever known. I wish everyone could travel back to Africa - members of the diaspora and non-diasporic people as well - and see for yourselves. It's different than reading about it in a book or watching an adaptation of it from a movie. In America we usually glaze over the Africa part of slavery and focus on what went down when the slaves arrived in the Americas, but we're effectively cutting out a chunk of our history. Black people should feel what it feels like to stand in that castle as a free person knowing that a few hundred years ago, it wouldn't have been possible. 

Did you know that Jews were among the first to finance the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade? Yeah, neither did I. We had a guest lecturer in one of my classes who actually teaches at NYU in the History Department. He gave the entire history of Jewish involvement in the slave trade. It was fascinating. His name is Richard Hull and he's coming out with a book in a few months. We asked him why so few people talk about this subject and he said that he thinks that people become uncomfortable with inverting the traditionally historic view of Jews as victims. During the slave trade, many Jews were  victimizers not victims and lots of people are not comfortable with that. He wasn't even comfortable releasing this book at NYU until he was tenured. NYU has a heavy and active Jewish community. An interesting topic to say the least.

12-14 million Africans arrived on the shores of the Americas

[that does not include the numbers of illegally (undocumented?) imported slaves]

1/3 died in the castles, traveling, or in raids

1/3 died on the ships 

1/3 survived the entire ordeal and most of us are their descendants

 

I'm no mathematician, but that means that AT LEAST 36 million Africans were victims of the slave trade, 24 million of which lost their lives before reaching their intended destinations. 

Genocide - the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. 

Legal definition found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

sukuu = school 

Time Well Spent

So I haven't written a post in about 2 weeks. What's sad is that the reason hasn't been because I've been really busy. Quite the contrary.

I've had almost too much time on my hands. It's like a running joke throughout the program that we all don't know what to do with all of this time we have. Americans like to make believe that our lives are so busy and overcomplicated that if we ever got a little more time, we would get sooo much done. Yeah, alright. I sometimes wonder if the 5 hour time zone difference between Ghana and NY is just God adding 5 hours to everyday here. Some of us have likened our study abroad experience thus far to being on an extended vacation. We have to attend classes every now and then and do the required work for each course, but for the most part, our time is free.

And it's not the same free time that you would get living in NY. We learned very quickly that Ghanaian time is not what we are used to. To put it a little more plainly, a Ghanaian professor told us: You all go by the clock, we go by the time. It's both funny and true.

The thing about time is that it's independent. You can't speed it up. You can't slow it down. No matter how much we may like to.

Time is humbling when you think about it. It governs our entire lives. Our sense of appropriate time delegates when you'll graduate, when you get married, when you grow up. We are completely powerless to its influence. We like to think we are in control of things. We make plans and stuff like that when really, nothing is promised. Certainly not tomorrow. When your time is up, it's up. And that's that. It doesn't matter if you haven't finished your exam, crossed the finish line, or filed your taxes. I've never been more aware of how cultural time perception is. In NY my mind was buzzing 24/7. I had trouble adjusting to the slower pace of Upstate NY whenever I'd visit home. Imagine moving to a place where people really don't consider time a priority. Life is too important to be rushing into things. Savor every moment. Or as some Ghanaians put it, "God's time is best. What's the rush? God will make it happen."

In a class discussion about development and advancement, someone asked if the African ethos is conducive for development. It's easy to say yes or no depending on your opinion, but the truth is it depends on what you consider development. Should Africa strive to be more like the US or other countries in the West? Maybe it's our definition of development that needs to change, not the African ethos.

Quote of the day: "So.. I've been spending a lot of time alone and... I found out today that... I don't like myself."

You learn a lot about yourself and the world when you just shut everything off -- no BlackBerry, no iPod, no TV, no radio, no laptop, no nothing -- and experience life. I used to find that taking a walk (without my iPod) and just letting my brain sort things out would be really therapeutic. Or even just laying in bed an hour or so before I was actually sleepy and thinking myself to sleep rather than letting an episode of Family Guy do the job.

This Sunday will be a month that I have lived in Ghana. So far, I've learned a lot of things, but right now the biggest lesson is in time. It makes you question what is necessary. NY seems like another life I used to live. I'm not saying I'm going to get back to NY and throw away my TV or start walking around wearing a dashiki. [I've actually already pre-ordered about 3 pairs of Dunks and a Crooks & Castles sweater] But I will re-think the way I spend my time. Life is too short (or too long) to be spent not living it. If that makes sense. 

eye = fine