I was in Ghana for five months last year, organizing a creative writing program at the University of Cape Coast and starting the Ghana Poetry Project, a nonprofit organization that encourages and supports contemporary African literature through activities that include readings and workshops. The more I explored, the more I was seduced by Ghana’s bright colors, spicy foods and intense rhythms. This is a country in love with music and dance — a preoccupation that shows not only on special occasions like the Oguaa Fetu Afehye, a festival that draws foreign visitors in September, but every day.

Though I could spend hours shopping, my goal as I walked through the market in Cape Coast that morning last August lay beyond the shops and stalls. I was on my way to the Cape Coast Castle, the last stop in Africa for countless, perhaps millions of slaves, a number we can never really know.

As I left the market behind, the traffic and crowds died off, and the closer I came to the castle, the more somber the mood felt. Ahead of me, visitors clustered close together and slowed their steps almost to a shuffle. Even the young men who had gathered at the castle gate to solicit donations for fictitious youth soccer teams spoke in hushed tones. I realized that I had just walked the same path through town that the captives took, force-marched and traded to the British for guns, liquor and other goods, and then funneled into ships.

After his visit to Cape Coast Castle last month, President Obama said that he was reminded of the Buchenwald concentration camp. It’s an analogy many have made; I have been to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and I, too, felt the similarity. As I walked through the arched gate into the long corridor leading to the castle courtyard, I was confronting the physical evidence of tangible evil.

The castle, an imposing stone fortress of ramps, stairs, parapets and holding pens, is a Unesco World Heritage Site and draws not only a steady stream of tour groups but also many visitors, including large numbers of African-Americans, traveling on their own. The castle boggles the mind with the businesslike efficiency of its neatly laid out spaces: the dark caverns of the men’s and women’s dungeons located deep within; the bright, airy residence halls on the upper floors for the administrators and paid workers; the high ramparts lined with enough cannons to repel an armada. Kidnapped Africans were held for months at a time in the most hellish conditions. Many died in dungeons so crowded that they could not lie down.

Those who survived left through the Door of No Return — a small wooden door built into a stone archway that led to waiting ships. I paused there, overcome by emotion. It was difficult, almost terrifying, to step through this door despite the fact that no slave has been forced through it for two centuries.

In the women’s dungeon, a windowless hole, a small bouquet of flowers lay on the floor below the single bare bulb now lighting the space. The utter emptiness and silence seemed to intensify the overwhelming feeling of loss. Visitors filed in but did not linger. Afterward, out in the courtyard, conversation ceased as all seemed lost in their private grief.

If you can return to the world of commerce after the castle experience, a small market tucked just inside the castle entrance provides a transition before going back out into the larger world — low-key shopping as decompression. A dozen vendors offer Ghanaian crafts and bargains. I was glad to return to my car for a quiet ride along the coast, retreating to the Coconut Grove Beach Resort just outside the town of Elmina, about six miles west of Cape Coast.

The Coconut Grove is one of Ghana’s premier resorts, and the prices seemed unbeatable: $150 (major hotels prefer payment in American dollars) a night for the executive suite with a bedroom, living room, kitchenette and a spectacular view of the gulf; much less for singles and doubles. At the beachside restaurant I ordered grilled local tilapia with a fresh pepper, tomato and ginger relish and banku (boiled corn dough). The restaurant at the hotel is one of the best in the country and features seafood caught daily. I watched the sunset on the gulf, surrounded by Western and African diners relaxing after a busy day on the golf course or around town. Out on the water, brightly painted dugout canoes cut through the waves on their way out to fish as they have done for centuries. I could just make out the hand-carved message on one of the hulls, “Nyame Yie,” or “God Is Good,” cresting over a wave.

As I walked along the beach the next morning, another guest galloped along nearby on one of the hotel’s horses. Its hooves kicked up sand at the surf’s edge, scattering white egrets to the wind. Even though I was only two weeks into my time in Ghana, I knew I had found a kind of paradise that I did not want to leave.

                                                
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