Elmina and Cape Coast Castle

Hello, friends! Today started week #2 in Ghana, and I am still enjoying myself. On Saturday, I went to Elmina Castle and Cape Coast Castle to learn a little about the history of Ghana. The castles I am referring to are historical landmarks that stand in memory of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Ghana was one of the main countries where African men and women were taken from their homes, imprisoned, tortured, and worse. Once captured, the African men and women were placed in dungeons in these castles to wait upwards of three months on the ship to the New World. While waiting, women were picked over and raped by the governors of these castles. If they were found pregnant, they were actually taken out of the castle to give birth, and these mixed children were given homes and schooling. In these dungeons, there was little light and ventilation. If anyone tried to escape, they were taken to an even smaller room with even less ventilation where they were not given food or water. Once they entered these rooms, there was no coming out alive. With minimal light, many of the slaves would become partially blind during their wait. On the upper level of each of these castles was a church where the Portuguese, Dutch, and British would try to convert Africans to Christianity. This was one of the hardest things to fathom. Why would an African choose to believe in a God that those who had imprisoned them were worshiping? Why believe in someone who was allowing this to happen to them? After a long wait, there were passageways underneath the castle from the dungeons that led the slaves to the ship where they would never return home. This was called the "Door of No Return". Once they entered these castles, the men and women had two ways out with the exception of those impregnated by the governors. Either they died in the castle or they left never to return home again. You can see from one of the pictures below, the outside of one of these doors was recently labelled the "door of return." Ashes from some of the African descendants who left Africa never to return to their homeland were brought back through that door to symbolize that what happened so many years ago would never happen again. Saturday was definitely an eye-opening experience, and one I will never forget. It shed light on the slave trade from a different perspective that is not often taught appropriately in the US.
The Beautiful Atlantic Ocean atop Elmina Castle

"Door of Return" to symbolize the horrible things
that occurred would never happen again

"Door of No Return" where so many Africans left to never return
home again

Dungeon where 100+ women were kept with
minimal food and no bathroom (floor was littered
with blood, urine, feces, and vomit)

Atlantic Ocean (from Elmina to Cape Coast)

Beautiful Elmina from atop Elmina Castle

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Limited Resources

Image
Hi all! Miss you all so much, but I am still embracing the new experiences and journeys halfway across the world. This week I started my rotation at the hospital. I will be doing one week of Internal Medicine and two weeks in the Pediatric ward. I posted a picture below of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. It looks much smaller than it is. The main hospital which is what you see holds the Accident and Emergency Ward (A & E ward) and outpatient services. Behind the main hospital are the various wards. There are male and female wards, a children's ward, surgical wards, OBGYN ward, and a delivery suite. I have shadowed residents during rounds where the disease processes have ranged from Deep Vein Thromboses (DVTs) to Malaria to HIV to Meningitis. Africa overall has a lot more communicable diseases than we actually see in the US. For example, during my year and a half of clinical rotations in the US, I have never actually seen meningitis. There are 4-5 cases in the hospital in Cape...
Read more

Final Reflection on Ghana

I have been back in the US for four days, and I wanted to do a final post on my experience in Ghana. My month spent in Cape Coast was life-changing and eye-opening. The organization that I went through, Child Family Health International (CFHI), works with their students to help us understand how healthcare is delivered in our host country. Instead of going for a week and providing medical care through a volunteer organization, we work with local physicians in the hospital to experience healthcare delivery on a day-to-day basis. As you know from my previous posts, seeing the healthcare disparities in Ghana and in many African countries was heart-breaking. I have spoken with many of my friends since returning about my experience, and whether they come from a medical background or not, they realize the differences in healthcare delivery and resources. No matter where I was working in the hospital, all of my fellow physicians knew exactly what they should be doing. The problem in Ghana is ...
Read more

More Hospital Medicine

Hello, friends! I am almost done with my third week here in Cape Coast, Ghana, and it has been a very eye-opening experience. Last week, I shared a little about the differences in medical care here in Ghana versus the US. I wanted to share a little more about the hospital system here in Ghana to provide some additional perspective. The wards are set up in each building with male and female medical and surgical wards being separate. These wards consist of three to four large rooms with 6-10 beds in each room. There are 2-3 isolation rooms in each ward for those patients that have some kind of infectious disease process. There are private rooms available for an additional cost, but usually patients who want these go to the private hospital rather than the public government-funded hospitals. One of the buildings holds the ICU and dialysis unit. The ICU has five beds. Patients who require an ICU stay usually have to wait due to limited availability, but they are also required to pay up-fro...
Read more