More sight seeing around Cape Coast

The few days of settling in and relaxing that our host recommended before we start work has turned out to be longer than anticipated! We are now hoping to have our ‘orientation’ meeting next Tuesday after which we can hopefully start our placements.

So in the mean time we have been making the most of the free time and doing more sight seeing.
Yesterday we went to Elmina where there is another historic castle, from where slaves (even children) were exported in the Transatlantic slave trade and were held there in equally horrendous conditions as Cape Coast Castle.
We learnt that one third of those held in the castle died, their bodies were just thrown into the sea. Another one third of them died in the ships and were just thrown overboard.
It’s shocking and sickening that only the remaining one third survived the ordeal and reached the ships’ destinations to begin their lives of slavery.

Elmina itself is a very lively fishing port with lots of hustle and bustle, on a strip of land between the edge of a lagoon (used for salt mining) and the sea. Hundreds of people (mainly women and children) walk around the streets carrying goods on their heads ; water, smoked fish, charcoal, plantains, soft drinks, oranges, actually anything! Some teenage boys (with more energy and heat tolerance than us !) were playing football on the beach amongst fishermen repairing their boats and nets etc. (sorry not sure how to rotate pics yet!)

On Sunday we experienced out first Ghanain church service. We attended the Anglican cathedral where Rev Kofi de Graft Johnson (our host) was preaching.
We had been advised to go as smartly dressed as possible, which is the culture here (so definitely no shorts for Steve !).
However, that morning we experienced out first tropical rainfall here. And boy did it rain !
We are living at the top of a hill with a track road of red earth and had to walk down the very wet, muddy track to get to the main road to get a taxi into town. We realised we would inevitably get seriously muddy so we had to modify our Sunday best … Steve, wearing shirt and tie, rolled up his best trousers and put his flip-flops on ! Vicky, wearing smart blouse and black skirt swapped smart shoes for pink plastic flip flops and off we went ….
However, with every flip and flop of the sandals another red splat went up the back of Vicky’s legs and skirt so by the time we got into the taxi we were in a right mess (for some reason Vicky significantly more so than Steve !).
So we spent the 10 minute taxi journey frantically trying to wipe mud off our legs, feet and from between our toes with wet wipes. Yak !
We had of course taken our smart shoes with us so by the time we arrived we looked reasonably presentable….
Although we arrived 5 minutes late, we were one of the first to get there. In fact people were still piling in 40 minutes after the service was supposed to start.
We have since learnt that when it rains in Ghana life just stops and restarts when the rain has finished.
Anyway, the service was interesting! It was a very high church service with a lot of sung liturgy which we struggled to follow, but everyone else seemed to know it all off by heart. The songs were a mixture of traditional Anglican hymns accompanied by the organ and lively African songs sung to African drums (at which point the entire congregation seemed to turn into a dancing gospel choir! It was like being transported into a scene from "Sister Act").
The service was held in Fante and translated into English but it was still hard to pick up all of what was said. There were four (yes 4!) different collections throughout the service. Luckily we had been forewarned about this and had plenty of smaller notes and change on us. All in all the service lasted 4 and ¼ hours.
We stayed around at the end to chat to two other volunteers who were at the service. It turned out that one of them is a medical student at Oxford who is from Derbyshire and will be working at the new Derby City Hospital from this summer. Small world !

At the weekend we also visited a visited a series of canopy walkways suspended over the rain forest in part of Kakum National Park. It was amazing. Good to get to the other side (!) but a unique experience all the same. We are told that the rain forest is being cut down at a rapid rate and we saw evidence of this on the journey up to Kakum, where you can now see lone rainforest type trees protruding through areas of cultivated palms (presumably what was at one time rainforest).
There wasn’t much sign of wild life on the canopy walk. This may have all been scared off by the crowds of visitors squealing and chattering in front of us. However, we did see a snake coiled up in a tree near the visitor centre.

On our way back from Kakum we stopped for lunch at Hans Cottage, a small restaurant on a lake. We both tried Kenkey a local food made from ground up maize and water. Not like anything we have ever tried before !!!

All around the lake were hundred of little yellow weaver birds which we watched making their nests.

In the lake surrounding the restaurant were a number of crocodiles, some of which had come out of the water onto the restaurant terrace for an afternoon sunbathe!

Alarmingly the restaurant also offered pedalo rides on the lake. With Steve.s history of capsising we decided that this was not a good idea!

Whilst we are still enjoying running water at home, we now have no electricity !
We aren’t sure how long this will be for, by the sound of it this can occur for a few hours or a week or so. Anyway, we are going into town for some more candles to stock up !