Road to Ghana

There were two things about leaving Cape Town that were hard: 1) Getting back to work after 8 days off is always a bit of an adjustment, and this would be no exception, and 2) We would be leaving the temperate climate of South Africa and making our way back to the equator. 

This leg of the trip had plenty of fun things scheduled that made it SUPER FUN: 

First, and most certainly least: a lifeboat drill. It wouldn't be ship-life without the monthly drill.

We are getting faster!

There was also a wedding onboard!  Okay, not really, but a funny little joke spiraled into a full blown ceremony.  You see, one of the things you can sign up for when you are a staff, faculty, or life-long-learner is to host a "ship family."  This means that college students who are looking for "ship parents" can sign up and be matched with older adults to have an occasional "family dinner" and basically have some community outside of their peers if they want.  The "bride," in this case, had not signed up to be a ship parent and, after talking about her regret with another staff member, was invited to join the family of the "groom."  

Did I mention we don't have internet on the ship?

Ender was also invited (as a member of the health team) to dine with the captain during this leg of the voyage. He met with his team in the "captain's garden" where a 3 course meal was catered by the ship's head chef.  

Ender's highlight of this leg, however, was performing in the Voyage Talent Show, a story which deserves its own arc: 

A few days after they first announced how to sign-up for the talent show (this was shortly after leaving Kenya), Ender wandered past the sign-up and saw that only one person had signed up.

 So, despite having no desire AT ALL to perform,

 he begrudgingly added his name to the second line. 

The talent show was honestly so awesome. Every type of voyager performed.  We saw ship kids, college students, staff, faculty, and Lifelong Learners sing, play instruments, tell stories and read poems, do magic tricks, tell jokes (while giving a haircut),  rap, and dance. The tone ranged from funny to serious, dramatic to silly.  There is a lot of talent on this ship.

 

You may remember from our last blog entry that Ender sought out a costume shop in Cape Town where he bought an important accessory for his talent show costume. The accessory was a crown.  The other costume piece he needed but did not buy in South Africa was a cape (ironically not for sale in Cape Town), so he had to turn the Dhoti he had bought in India into something regal.  

Up until this point of the voyage, only a small number of people knew Ender, but after that night he was recognized by everyone, everywhere we went. Even the crew had watched the talent show from their cabin televisions. 

You can see the whole performance by  clicking here: 

He celebrated in the Chappy with a round of...hot dogs. 

Our friend Tristan held another concern, this time on the big stage! And this time, uninterrupted by a natural disaster.  


One of the things we love about Tristan is that he talked Jacob into watching "Firefly" a sci-fi TV series that we have been trying to convince him to watch for years, but that he had no interest in until this cool college student talked it up. So one afternoon Jacob and Ender joined a small watch party for the first episode. 

This leg also had a DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) day to read "The Door of No Return," a novel based on true stories of Ghanaians who were captured and delivered into slavery. We read this book to prepare us for visiting "Slave Castles," colonial dungeons where human beings were kept until they were forced to board slaver ships. It's a difficult, but fast, read, and did a lot to prepare us for the place we would soon arrive. 

 

Ghana

Ghana, or the Gold Coast, was a challenging port to navigate. Somehow the internet in the entire country was working at minimum capacity which meant none of our cell phones were working very consistently. We were quite spoiled up until this point to be able to use maps to locate restaurants and ATM's, and use apps to order Taxis and Ubers. In Ghana, there was a shuttle arranged that could take us from the ship into Accra (about an hour away from Tema where the ship was berthed).  Once in Accra, we were told to make our way back to the drop off point when we wanted to return to the ship.  

Osu Castle

In Accra we made our way to Osu Castle: a former slave Castle that later became the presidential palace of the first democratically elected president.  There must have been several tour groups because when we walked up, independently, to take a tour, the tour guide told us "we were late." Since we had no appointment and were not with any group we weren't clear on how it was possible to be late, but the tour was rather rushed.

The tour included the room Queen Elizabeth II stayed in while visiting the members of the Commonwealth. 

The high window on the right is the Queen's bedroom.

The point of the tour, of course, was to witness the conditions in which humans were enslaved and trafficked during the transatlantic slave trade. 

We didn't take pictures of the dungeons, but this image from Wikipedia is of the room we saw.

You can see the thickness of the castle walls

We visited the dungeons and saw for ourselves a "door of no return," an unassuming exit from the dungeon to the beach where slaver ships would wait to take them away. They said many of the prisoners were from inland and had never known the ocean which created panic when they first saw it. 

Kaya Tours

The next day we booked a day tour. Kaya Tours picked us up just outside the dock and greeted us with welcome sashes embroidered with "Akwaba" or "Hello." We were surprised but felt very fancy. 

Our guides were wonderful and chatted with us the whole way to our first destination.  They were eager to share anything they could about the culture in Ghana. For example, they told us that everyone has more than one name, but one of their names is the day of the week they were born.  

We asked them if the goats we happened upon were stray/wild goats or if they had an owner, and if so, did they ever get stolen, and how did the goat owner, or the goatner, get the goats back when he needs them? Apparently they do have an owner and they do occasionally get stolen, but for the most part they were allowed to roam free in the city until sundown and at that time they knew where they lived and would return on their own. 

Our first stop was a Botanical garden way up in the hills near Accra. The botanical garden was the original location that non-native trees imported during the colonial period were first planted. 

Here is the "Tree of Life" (still in progress)

Everyone spots the lizard

Her name is Renee and she works as an accountant but her real passion is crochet. 

Then we met this tree skeleton. It had been infected with a parasite that surrounded it and took all its nutrients until it died inside it while the shell of the parasite remains. 

These are sobering thoughts. 

The Brazil Nut. 

Cocoa Farm

Our next stop was the site of the very first cocoa trees brought to Ghana in 1879.  140 years later and they are still alive and producing cocoa beans today!

The farm is no longer producing for commercial farming so we didn't get to see what mass production looks like but we were shown the process of harvesting cocoa, from start to finish.  

First you have to pick the cocoa fruit.  If you don't pick it, it just stays in the tree. Forever. 

Once you get it on your table, you threaten it by showing it that if you can cut a leaf, you can cut a cocoa fruit. 

Just kidding. He's just making a little place mat. 

But he does cut it. 

Once you get it open you expose the part that looks too much like a brain. 

Then you pop one of those seeds open

And let it dry for a few days, covered in the leaf. 

Until it reaches a dark brown. 

Boti Waterfall*

*waterfall only available seasonally

The "waterfall" hike was really hot, but scenic, which is good because we came when the waterfall had run dry. I'm sure it would have been cool, but this way we could see the neat grotto behind the waterfall. That's probably where the treasure is buried. 

The hike away from the waterfall was all uphill and wore us out.  Poor Florian came close to passing out; luckily one of our friends is a ship medic, but unluckily we were busy looking at lizards and didn't know it happened until later. 

Once we reached the hotel where we would have lunch, we were ready to relax and enjoy the rare wifi signal we were able to get at the hotel. 

The food was delicious and plentiful. After the meal someone from the restaurant asked us all to fill out comment cards. We all wrote some rendition of "the food is amazing, but way more than we could eat."  After collecting our anonymous comment cards, the restaurant manager returned to apologize for how much food was served and to tell us most people like the larger portions. We really felt like we failed as Americans. It was way too much food though. 

After the tours our guides drove us back to the docks.  When they dropped us off we told them there would be a shuttle along soon to pick us up but they refused to leave until we were aboard the shuttle. Despite it being a gated area, they felt it was too risky for us to wait alone. 

This was definitely the highlight of our visit to Ghana. Fun times with good guides and new friends. 

We didn't venture out in Ghana much more other than to visit a grocery store to stock up on chips and soda for the longest sea leg yet to come: 10 days at sea until we would reach Morocco.