Thursday, October 27, 2011

Birds, school children, palm wine, monkeys and missing cidis

I woke up to birds chirping outside my window the last two mornings. Birds chirping and the morning sun peeking through my window to catch my eye and call me out to the beautiful day. The birds probably chirped the mornings before. But for a week or so there, the mucus clogged my ears and clouded my mind's sharpness to notice.

But a few days in Big Milly's Backyard took care of that. If ever there was a backpackers' beach resort, Big Milly's in Kokrobite is it. Accommodation, restaurant, juice bar, alcohol bar, all contained within a compound that opens out onto the beach. All purchases are made using a tab system and tallied at the end of your stay. One need not leave the compound except to swim or walk the beach (which I unfortunately discovered eventually turns into the village toilet if you try to walk far enough...). We checked out after three nights and nearly four days to a tab of 266 cidis, about $175 U.S.

After a night of storms, the air was fresh and cool. We started early to catch a taxi back down the dirt road to Barrier - which as far as I can tell is named after the toll booth on the main road - where we would catch a tro tro to Cape Coast, we hoped.

We caught the first tro tro that passed in a matter of minutes. It was going to Takoradi, as shown by hand symbols I don't yet understand and the driver calling "takoradi, takoradi, takoradi" like he is a helicopter about to take off. And he drives like that too - about to lift off. Takoradi is past Cape Coast, so it looked like this tro tro would be our chariot for the day. And it was relatively empty. So we rode in peace, space and coolness on paved roads for a while. We passed a village flooded from the previous night's rain. The news suggests there may be more.

About mid-way through the three-hour ride, we stopped long enough to pick up a full complement of passengers. So, we rode, knees pressed against the seat in front of us, one foot on the wheelwell, for an hour or so. I kept my nose close to the window like a dog and only adjusted my legs enough to keep my foot from falling asleep.

We arrived relatively effortlessly at the Mighty Victory Hotel in Cape Coast by 1 p.m. in time for lunch an a visit to Cape Coast Castle. Ironically, it is perched between Forts Victoria and Williams, as close as two forts in West Africa will get to my parents' names (Victoria and William Hamilton a.k.a. Tony). Cape Coast is a small city, the first British colonial capitol of the Gold Coast. Its streets are filled with short-legged goats, chickens, and uniformed school children, girl and boys with hair cut short. Within an hour in Cape Coast, I had already seen more schools than I had so far during my entire time in Ghana. It is an interesting legacy of colonialism. Slave castles and schools. And architecture crumbling at the edges.

Cape Coast's castle is stately, white with blue trim. Cannons protrude on three sides like porcupine quivers. The tour that come with admision is lackluster. It reminds me of bad history teaching - where the focus is on memorizing a bunch of dates rather than telling and understanding a story. The entrance to the male slave dungeon i flanked on either side by a plaque. The first is powerful. It has six lines on it that place the reponsibility on we, the living, to protect humanity from ever repeating such atrocities. The second is disappointing. It was unveiled in 2009 when President Obama and the First Lady visited. It essentially amount to "Obama wuz here" scrawled on the wall in permanent marker. Yes, it is a marble plaque. But the message only says he came. Nothing more. Surely, it isn't his fault, but the plaque disappoints. Where the tour and Obama plaque lack, the museum makes up. Although nothing groundbreaking, it tells a coherent story from ancient Africa through slavery and the diaspora to the modern day.

I withdraw money fromt he Barclay's ATM, only to find that it gives me half of what I ask for, and half of what the receipt says it gave me. Discovering the discrepancy, I hurry back to find Julius, a friendly security guard. Explaining my problem to see if I can make it his problem too, he listens carefully. Since the bank is closed, all he can do is tell me to bring my passport and receipt and ask for Elizabeth in customer care when the bank opens tomorrow morning.

So, I listen for the birds' chirp and hurry down there at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. Elizabeth is there as promised. And friend and helpful. She seems matter of fact about the whole thing, leading me to believe this happens fairly often. When I ask, she says it has happened before. She says they don't count the money until Monday. But when they do, they will check for my discrepancy and pay me the difference. We will see when that day will come.

Today, rain chases me back to the hotel, making the fifteen minute walk twenty minutes of running and pausing under tin awnings to see if the rain will let up. It doesn't. It clears a half an hour after I put on a dry shirt, just as it had appeared half an hour after I put on my first dry shirt of the day. So we head on to Kakum National Park - a semi-rainforest with a canopy walk between towering trees one hundred feet up. After the treetop walk on suspended bridges, we do a tree bottom walk on sand, stone and slippery soil. The guide shows us plants of all purposes, from furniture to fetal health, perfumed mosquito repellent to rubber and snake bite cures. (The cure is that you chew and swallow a thorn which makes you vomit the poison from the snake). Roots form snakes and walls. Some climb back toward the sky. The roots of the sugar plum tree reach for, but are still a meter short of the ground. They will be there soon. A cricket taps a bottle, or so it sounds, to a distinctively West African rhythm. And butterflies coast through by the dozen. 600 species of butterfly live in Kakum. We probably saw a dozen species.

After two hours of hiking, we pay one cidi for twelve ounces of fresh palm wine. It naturally ferments in the tree an must be drank within 24 hours of when it is tapped from the tree. It tastes like Ms. Annie's corn wine with fewer ingredients, and a touch more sour. Halfway through the bottle, our guide points out a sound in the woods. As one who has been asking her to identify every sound I heard in the woods for the last two hours (and she did readily), this is welcome instruction. "Kakum," is the call. The park is named for it. It is the call of the colobus monkeys native here. Unfortunately for us, it is a warning call that there is danger nearby. Danger, a.k.a., us. So, no monkey sightings today. But we do see crocodiles and goldfinches at the touristy Botel (hotel on a man-made crocodile pond) on the way back to our less touristy hotel.

I return to my room to find two missed calls on the cell phone. It is Elizabeth from Barclay's. "We found your money. I told the woman you were traveling. Can you come pick it up tomorrow?"

"Perfect. Thank you! I will be there at 8:30 when the bank opens, just like this morning."
School children

Canopy walkway
The roots

Random tourist posing with sleeping crocodile

The powerful plaque

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