12 Days in Ghana

After lunch, I decided to use the outdoor shower. It was definitely an adventure. While showering, I was staring directly into the power of the ocean and it left me wondering about the secrets it contained. Again, my eyes noticed the Elmina slave dungeon and traced a path across the open water searching for the trails left by slave ships as they carried off our ancestors.

I wondered how many of our brothers and sisters were at the bottom of that sea, choosing death over the inhumane circumstances. Part of me was hoping that the ocean would whisper something to me, let my ancestor’s voices come alive in the ocean’s roaring winds. My mind continued to ponder these questions until I noticed the darkening skies.

You don’t realize how vulnerable you are until you’re standing naked looking at an ocean whipped into a frenzy by storm clouds. I quickly finished my shower and returned to my chalet. I got dressed and left my screen door open to catch that ocean breeze. The clouds cleared up, and I laid across my bed to do some reading. I read about half a page before I was knocked out. There’s nothing like a little jet lag and ocean breeze to put you to sleep.

Preparing for the Dungeons

There were only five of us in the dungeon, and we were sweating. Could you imagine 500 of us crammed in there at one time, no light, nowhere to lie down, no toilet? You went to the bathroom right there on the floor. I could not imagine the pain, the fear, the utter desperation that they went through. The floor that we were standing on was actually years and years of compacted waste and skin cells from our ancestors. This was deeply disturbing.

As we walked through with our candles lighting the way, we were encouraged to call out names of ancestors who’ve passed on. I started off by calling out my grandfather’s name, Nesbie Gaines, who had passed away the year before. Soon everyone did the same. In a strange way, you really felt as though you were connecting with their spirits.

Yao was deeply moved by everything. Strangely enough, that was his first time visiting the dungeons. Monique had tears streaming down her face and Lavelle was so moved that she couldn’t speak. As we walked along the dark paths that our ancestors took, we reached the infamous "Door of No Return". This was the last door our ancestors walked through before they were crammed into a boat bound for the Americas.

The curators here had done a wonderful reversal of this. The outside of the door was labeled "Door of Return". We triumphantly marched back through the doors, symbolically allowing our ancestors to return to their homeland through their children. As we came back through the door, we sang a joyful song celebrating our ancestors’ return.

After we went through this ceremony and ended up on the outside of the dungeon, we were again swarmed by the same children who hit us up before. This particular dungeon sits in a fishing village, so it was not uncommon to see children playing in and around the dungeon. The children also know that this is a prime area for American tourists and that many are emotionally vulnerable after the dungeon experience.

As we exited the dungeon, the children addressed us by name and again asked for our addresses. Once again, we politely told them that we would contact them via One Africa. We all realized that this was something we had to get use to while in Ghana.

Another tragedy in all this was that many Ghanaians were not really aware of what really went on in the dungeons. Amissane explained this to us and mentioned that he had taken it upon himself to learn more about slavery after witnessing visitors break down in tears as a youngster. He went to the library and it was there that he learned about it. But the average Ghanaian was not taught this in their normal school curriculum. He told us that for the most part, slavery was glossed over like some insignificant blip on the radar screen. Slavery’s legacy has unfortunately left people on both sides of the Atlantic with a fractured knowledge of our history. Hopefully, more and more Ghanaians and African-Americans will strive to seek the truth about our past so that we can enlighten others. We must establish a reconnection!