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Ghana doesn’t flinch from its past, and is creating a new future with forays into eco-tourism — tours to remote villages and dense rain forests, as well as the more prominent of its national parks. Maya Angelou, who lived several years in Ghana, has described it as a place “improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.”
Elmina is a small town with a long history: founded in 1471 as a Portuguese gold trading port, it was taken over by the Dutch in the 1630s. It, too, has a horrifyingly efficient slave castle — St. George’s Castle, which is twice the size of the one in Cape Coast and stands like a giant immobile obstruction on the shore — the oldest colonial building still standing in sub-Saharan Africa. The imposing moat around the land side looked like something out of a movie, and the Dutch Reformed chapel directly over the women’s dungeons suggested a kind of brutal indifference to the captives that was still manifest as I stood in the church. Included with the price of admission were an excellent guided tour and a very good museum focusing on the history of the Akan and Fante people who originally settled this region.
Fort Coenraadsburg on St. Jago Hill, reachable on a steep path above the castle, was built in the 17th century by the Dutch, who had begun exporting slaves, to provide elevation for big guns. The aim was to protect Elmina from invaders — primarily from the English, who would establish themselves at Cape Coast Castle just a few miles away. In the early 1870s, the Dutch sold the fort at Elmina to the British. There’s not much to see now inside the fort, but the bird’s-eye view of the entire village, framed by the Gulf of Guinea, is worth the hike.
The oldest building in the village itself, the Bridge House, was built in the 17th century for the Ghanaian mistress of the castle’s Dutch commander and survives as an affordable guesthouse and restaurant offering fresh seafood prepared in a spicy Ghanaian style. I found an open table on the patio and ordered the hkatenkwan, or peanut stew with redfish and fufu, and ate it the traditional way, tearing pieces of the dumpling-like fufu and using them to scoop up the stew. From where I was sitting, I could see fishermen repairing nets and preparing for the evening’s work.
On another day, Elmina can offer more to see, with its colonial architecture and its elaborate concrete shrines called posubans. Many were originally used as storage houses by local militias called asafo companies — now civic organizations — and survive as shrines to the companies. The one dedicated to Asafo Company Five is two stories tall with several life-size carved statues on the first floor and a sculpture of a ship with three sailors on the second. Local fishermen consider the shrine sacred and perform ceremonies and leave offerings at its base. I followed the road to several more shrines, which were just as elaborate.
About an hour’s drive north of the Coconut Grove, there’s a sample of Ghanaian eco-tourism at Kakum National Park. A canopy walkway, 1,150 feet long and swaying 131 feet above the forest floor, is suspended among seven trees and broken up by a number of viewing platforms. It’s a breathtaking experience, especially early in the morning, before the crowds arrive. More than 200 species of birds have been sighted in this forest; I glimpsed an amazing yellow-casqued hornbill. Numerous monkeys seemed to fly as well, swinging in the trees.
But for a more social kind of exhilaration, you can return to Elmina, where every day at around 5 p.m. the Butwaku dance and drum ensemble, a small local troupe, holds open rehearsals in the west wing of St. George’s Castle. When I visited, three drummers were set up on one side of the room with two tall, slim kaganu drums, a squat, round kidi drum and a gangkogui, the cowbell-shaped instrument. Once the drummers began to beat out complex rhythms, which seemed more like a conversation than a musical performance, four dancers — two men and two women — moved into the center of the space in a liquid unison, swaying and stomping.
Their first dance was an asafo warrior dance that follows a pattern of call and response. The drummers beat out a rhythm, and the dancers respond with their own movements, swaying and stomping, a back and forth that can last until dawn at festivals. At this performance, it was followed by a social Adowa dance, traditionally performed by women. One of the dancers grabbed my arm and pulled me out to dance. I did my American best, which guaranteed a good laugh for everyone.
For tourists with the time and inclination, the Butwaku group offers dancing and drumming lessons; anyone can sign up for just one lesson or a series of them. No matter where you go in Ghana, you will find traditional dancing and drumming. It seems no occasion, public or private, occurs without these performances. Whether it’s just one drummer with a small kaganu sitting on the side of the road beating out thunderous rhythms that take a lifetime to learn, or a dozen drummers with a full array of drums made with animal skins tightly stretched on a wooden base, music and drumming is at the core of Ghanaian society, and dance is its expression at its purest.
Back in Cape Coast, I saw a drumming and dancing show at the Oasis Beach Resort, a nightclub where the food is good but the sound system and bar are a more compelling draw. As the sun set, I sat at a table under a thatch canopy. The bar filled up with Westerners, Rastafarians and Ghanaians, and bottles of local beer and shots of Mandingo, a red, syrupy aperitif, flowed freely.
As darkness settled, the drumming and dancing performance, with athletic young men dressed in brightly patterned chief pants and young women wrapped in large bolts of traditional handmade batik fabrics, evolved quickly into audience participation. No invitation was necessary. Diners just pushed back their chairs and joined in.
Ghana is like that. Traditional boundaries of performer and audience are often ignored, even in the most formal of occasions. Eventually, the D.J. spun the rhythms of hiplife, an African fusion of highlife and hip-hop that is more Gnarls Barkley than Snoop Dogg, with lyrics sung in Akan tribal languages. The crowd clapped and laughed and spun as though time had stopped and this moment would never end.
The heat, along with any worries, vanished into the clear, star-filled night.
By LABAN CARRICK HILL
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