History, life and petty thieves...

Hey guys. Well, I can't say I'm having a GOOD time yet, I'm still finding my feet here. But I think its getting easier, I enjoy my placement and that's one of the biggest things. Its probably fair to say Charlotte and I have had most of our problems at Salima's house, where we're living for the duration of our placement...

I'm disappointed to say that it appears we've had some of our stuff pinched and/or moved around while we've been there, which is quite disturbing. You pay alot of money to come here, so you expect that your stuff will be safe but apparently where we are its too much to ask. Charlotte has had it worse than me in a way - she's had money and tampons stolen, as well as coming home to find the lids from her body sprays had been removed. Me? Well I was getting dressed one morning a couple of days ago, and my bra didn't feel right. I was twisting the straps this way and that, trying to get it right, and then I realised that they were on back to front :/ now I'm pretty sure I didn't change them around in some wierd delirium, so the only explanation is that the daughter (or the mother) had been playing with it while I was out, god knows why. She's really quite snakey the daughter, Chas and I wouldn't trust her as far as we could throw her. We've had to lock our stuff up before we go in the mornings, its really quite a pain. You gotta do what you gotta do but really, a bra? Anyway the little whatsit has left for boarding school now, hooray!

On a different note, I'm really getting sick of the  obrunbi thing too. People seem to think its harmless but the point is, I wouldn't walk around the streets of Launceston shouting 'nigger' or 'black fella' to every African that I saw. The only thing I can think of is that there is little education or public awareness here among those of 'lower socio-economic status,' those who seem to say it the most. And kids! We were walking along the beach at Cape Coast on Saturday and these mankey little kids run up to us shouting 'obruni, obruni!' I turned to one and said very sharply 'Do not call me obruni. It is a very bad word!' Said child looked severely chastened, I'm pleased to say. Maybe I taught the awful thing a lesson! 

I don't class all kids or people as awful, of course I don't. Some are really lovely, funny and friendly. But when your walking along the beach, the last thing you want is 20 kids bearing down upon you calling you obruni, demanding money and grabbing at your clothes, arms, whatever. 

Speaking of those people here who you would class as poor, I can't help thinking that it must be a terrible life for some people here. NB I will stop ranting soon, I promise! Sitting in a tro on the way back from the office in hot, hellish traffic, you see people standing in the middle of several lanes trying to sell you all manner of things, from apples to superglue, bike tyres, tv antennas, chocolate, razors, even a baby goat the other day! The poor little thing, here was this guy holding out this gorgeous little baby goat with every intention of throwing it through someone's car window for a few Cedi's (Ghanaian currency)! I couldn't help myself, I cracked up. A day later I saw a guy in Osu holding out two fluffly, adorable white puppies for sale. The poor little things, they looked so miserable. I really wanted to pat them but then I remembered what my doctor told me about rabid dogs, and I thought I'd better not. They didn't look rabid. But you wouldn't know here.

On Saturday Charlotte and I made the trip two and a half hours west of Accra to a place called Cape Coast. Cape Coast could be really beautiful, if it wasn't for the rubbish and pervasive smell of s&%t in the streets. The one place it really was beautiful, and its a paradox I know, was at Cape Coast Castle, a former slave fort and owned throughout the centuries by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Cape Coast Castle is one of the forts along what was previously known as the Gold Coast here in Ghana, and it dealt primarily in the incarceration and transportation of Africans as slaves to North and South America and the Carribean. They were often captured as a result of inter-tribal warfare, or rounded up by the whites and taken to the castle, where hundreds, often thousands of them at a time were kept in dungeons, lying naked, in their own sweat and filth for weeks on end. At the end of their incarceration at the castle (men and women were kept separate of course, with the women often raped by the 'settlers' and forced to bear their half African babies in the heat and darkness of a stinking dungeon) they were forced to march, bent double and chained, through a tunnel, then through the 'Door of No Return.' The Door of No Return was just that - a passage through which they walked from the tunnel and straight onto the ships bound for the other side of the Atlantic. At that point they said goodbye to everything they had known, their families and tribes, to be packed in as human cargo to make a journey that would take weeks and weeks, to work as slaves under white owners in the New World. And it would take a good few centuries for the native Africans to be recognised as citizens in their own right, to be able to vote, go to school, and gain equal rights. How anyone could treat their fellow man in such a way as to deprive them of all their civil rights, to treat them as little better than animals and to send them off in these disgusting ships is beyond most of our comprehension. The whole experience for me was truly horrifying. 

Well I think that ought to do for now, I feel that all I've done is rant! Ghana, from what I've heard from the other volunteers, takes a while to grow on you. I'm over the culture shock (this place has given me more of a culture shock than anywhere else I've been!) and luckily Charlotte and I make each other laugh, cos I can tell you if you don't laugh here you cry ;) My placement is great and I'm learning alot, but I'm really loking forward to Stu getting here - it can't come quickly enough for me :) anyway more soon, and I'll try not to leave it so long next time. Cheers everyone :)