Cape Coast Castle

Another long day here in Ghana. Today was the day that Manny and I presented the school with all of the donated supplies that were collected last fall. A big thank you again to everyone at St. Paul's who donated. The teachers and children were excited to receive everything and desperately needed these supplies. It was a small thing done with great love by you all, so thank you again! For those of you who have been asking how you can help, do not fear! The school is so much greater and in so much more need than I had expected, so I plan to do more collections in the future. They especially need teaching learning materials, which are the materials used by teachers to present information (for example, the posters and pictures that you normally see hung up in classrooms). Because this school houses day care age through 8th grade (I made an error in an earlier post and said it went up to 12th grade), there is a great need for materials for all of these classrooms. I will let you know when I start collecting again.

After that, it was off to Cape Coast Castle with Manny and two of his sister's bridesmaids. It takes about an hour to get to, and the car ride was a little scary at times due to the fact that driver kept passing the cars in front of us and it's a two lane road. I felt like I was one pass away from a head on collision the entire time. But, I lived to tell the tale so praise the lord! Haha!

The coast is amazing. Beautiful, blue waters, but not very developed. Actually, not really developed at all. It's kind of strange to see given that the prime real estate in the U.S. is usually that which is in the coastlines. It was a beautiful drive with a lot of interesting sights to see along the way. At a toll stop, a bunch of street sellers came up to the car to sell their goods (mostly food and drinks). We bought some plantain chips for the equivalent of about $0.20. I also tried tiger nuts, which are a berry-type fruit that, when roasted, are eaten like nuts. They taste like a cross between almonds and coconuts. I really liked them. And the immature child in me found it hilarious that I was eating something by the name of "tiger nuts."

Once we got to the castle, we walked through the museum then were taken on a tour through the dungeons where they kept slaves before shipping them out across the Atlantic. It was a very eye opening experience. I am still trying to process everything that I heard and saw. The amount of
human suffering that occurred within those walls is unfathomable. To see how humans were treated with such disregard--worse than animals, really--is gut wrenching. I really don't know what else to say. It is such an important thing to see and to talk about.  I hope to write about it some more once I get home and have had more time to think about it.

Tomorrow is the actual wedding ceremony. It's the "modern" one, for lack of a better explanation.  I'm looking forward to celebrating with the family.

With this sheep, I thee wed

Today was a day of celebration! Manny's youngest sister got married, and I think everyone in town was there at some point. Today was what they call the engagement. It's the traditional wedding ceremony where the groom's family presents the bride's family with gifts. The bride's family has to decide whether the gifts are sufficient before they allow their daughter to be married. It was a very interesting ceremony, mostly conducted in Fante, so I wasn't exactly sure what was happening most of the time. Fortunately, the woman sitting next to me was able to clue me in on most of the presentation. And the groom's family is white and British, so at least I wasn't the only one in the room who had no idea what was being said. 😊.

The most interesting part of the day (for me, anyway) was the arrival of the sacrificial sheep. I was standing on the balcony watching the preparations down below in the yard when a car pulled into the driveway. Two men got out and opened up the trunk...and pulled out a sheep. A live sheep.
Apparently, it is part of the traditional gift to the bride's family. I didn't see it after that, but it may be what I'm eating for dinner tomorrow 😜

So, I just finished writing a fairly long post, but somehow lost everything after the last paragraph. I'm too tired to re-write it, so I will try to add more to this post tomorrow. I'm off to sleep now. I won't be counting sheep, though! Ha!