Ghanaian Conversation

Speakeasy in Kumasi

“Hello. How are you? I am fine? Coming from where?”

“We are from South Africa”

“HOH? But, you are white!”

“Yes.”

“Hmmmm.. I am a Doubting Thomas.”

“What if people thought, because you are black, you must be from, say… Nigeria.”

“Hmmm.. Still. I am a Doubting Thomas.”

(later… )

May I ask you a question?

Sure.

Do you know this David Cameron of the Great Britain?

We know of him.

First and foremost. Why on this earth would he now say he is comfortable for one man to go into the bed of another man….

(At this stage we bolted. It was about to become trickier than an Al Qaeda red zone)

Green Turtle Lodge

Consider the scene. Two South Africans, a Dane, a British couple. Drinking beers, playing board games on a palm-fringed beach, chatting idly about nothing in particular. Enter a lady. With a hat. A whitened face from sun block and a one-piece swimming suit from the past.

“Mey Ai Ahsk all ov yoo a question?” (Experience counts for nothing, it seems)

Together: Sure. Go ahead. Why not. Of course

“Vot did you learn about ze Holocaust?”

Dumbfounded. The Dane, quite rightly, turned tail and was on the horizon soon after. I followed him very quickly. The British. Long live the consensus-seeking, gracious, self-deprecating British! They stuck it out to the end. McAlpine stayed to watch. This was a scenario fit for a farcical script. Whoda thunk  it actually plays out in West Africa.

Longdrops near Cape Coast

Reagan!? (American. North Montana, at a guess)

Yoh! (Lowness of the pitch suggests Reagan is male, also Stateside)

There’s a bigass fuckin cockroach in here (suggests Reagan is outside, guarding the cubicle entrance!?)

Shut Up!

Seriously, it’s frickin bigger than the one in my bed last night.

Well, don’t stink the place out too much, I wanna have a look.

I’m literally standing on the toilet right now.

Well, don’t freak out.

You know what I’m really looking forward to about home.

Real toilets?

Nah. Real toilet paper.

Ahhh Yeah.. Angelsoft!

Reagan!?

Yoh!

I didn’t wipe too good cos of this frickin cockroach.

*I have only included all this ghastly detail as a testament to its credibility. In the depths of depravity I can’t even imagine concocting something like this. It was gruesome enough hearing it. There was also a cockroach in my cubicle. I bowed my head to it. I hoped to both acknowledge its thankless station in the world, and thank it for colluding in whatever its friend was up to next door.

Fort St. Antonio, Axim, at 500 years the second-oldest slave fort in Ghana.

Seth Quayson, son of Kingsley, is the keeper of the keys at this most harrowing of places.As palm-nut vultures encircle the ramparts and sweat droplets gather as we stand in the dim, mildewed ‘waiting pens,’ Seth conjectures thus:

‘On the day that Ghana achieved her independence, a great whale died and washed up on the beach right behind Fort St. Antonio. It was too big to move. After many months the decomposition was finished and this bone was rescued. This bone, from Independence Whale, is as old as Ghana. That is why I have placed it here close to this tomb for the Dutch Governor who fell from those stairs above us that lead to his bedroom. He had not seen his wife in such a long time that when her ship was sighted on the horizon, he grabbed his telescope to look. He suddenly felt so near to her that he decided to take a big step onto the boat but of course he fell to his death. This is very sad but also a good learning experience for when the British claimed this fort sometime later they installed these stair rails. It was about that time that the island over there got its name – “Beaten by the Dwarfs.” You see, they are amongst us, but Christianity has chased them away to the edges, to the islands. Everyone thinks the dwarfs are here for mischief or bad luck but, in fact, what they are doing is a kind of a test. They are happy to be your friend and share their power if you are willing to play with them and not to just be so serious about life. They are just what you imagine and there are some powerful people in this village who are just relaxed. There are women who are wlaking on water and a man who helped to rescue his friends outboard motor that sank. He spent two hours underwater, but he found it. But when you don’t believe, or you are resistant to play with them they will just beat you. With sticks. People who don’t believe in ghosts will go to a graveyard and they won’t see anything. People who do believe, I don’t think they will go to the graveyard. So I have conducted an experiment. I have left a bottle of Coke at the Point of No Return and the dwarfs have come in the night and enjoyed some of the Coke without removing the top. And let me now show you what I mean when I say the Point of No Return.’

Seth led us through the tiny male and female holding pens that would hold 200 ‘souls.’ Each chamber then narrowed into a passageway where the slaves would be assembled and informed their day of reckoning had arrived and they could finally embark on a journey to a better life.  ‘These passages are inhabited by bats now,’ they won’t harm you, ‘it is because of all the old souls that you will have that feeling of being heavy.’

Eventually, a ladder leads into the dark tunnel that would lead the souls straight onto the waiting ship, concealed behind the island. ‘When the last of the souls climbed down this ladder they would remove it and so they either climb on the ship or stay forever in the darkened tunnel below, and this is what we mean when we say this place is The Point of No Return.