Slave trade town that’s sure to tax emotionally
What you need to know:
The first reason is that the day planned for the trip will be too late for me to hand in this piece on time.
Second, I would like to walk through the village and get a feel of the place.
The final and perhaps most important reason is that I have visited the castle before.
Sudanese writer and inaugural Caine Prize for African Writing short story winner Leila Aboulela and I are co-facilitating this year’s Caine workshop with ten participants from different English speaking African countries. We are in Elmina, Ghana, a tourist town famous for its slave-trading.
St. George’s Castle is by the shores of the Atlantic built by the Portuguese with permission from a Ghanaian monarch. The castle was later taken over by the Dutch after they defeated the Portuguese and the Dutch handed it over to the British. Elmina was named by non Africans. One school of thought is that the Portuguese named it A Mina meaning “mine” and the name was later bastardised.
The second (and more convincing to me) is that the town was named El Mina meaning “harbour” by the Arabs. Our hotel by the shores is surrounded by coconut trees. Paradise.
On Sunday, I take time off from manuscripts reading and editing and decide to walk to the historic St. George’s Castle.
Caine director, Dr Lizzy Attree has invited all of us to join on the trip during the week but I opt out and prefer to do it earlier on my own.
THREE REASONS
The first reason is that the day planned for the trip will be too late for me to hand in this piece on time.
Second, I would like to walk through the village and get a feel of the place.
The final and perhaps most important reason is that I have visited the castle before.
I know what an emotionally taxing experience it is and it’s best the participants don’t see me bawling my eyes out again at the historical injustices that occurred there. So like the anti Liverpool person that I am, I walk alone.
The road to the castle is in a village that some tourists from the Northern Hemisphere might describe as idyllic but which I think is just a little resource embarrassed. As I walk, the residents seem to know that I am from out of town.
There is the chap who tries to sell me the latest season of Game of Thrones from a shop called We Grow from Grace to Grace Video Shop; a woman who attempts to sell me earphones for my phone from By Faith Phones; and a young man who invites me for some chop and a drink at The Truth Spot and Chop Bar.
For a while, I wonder what gives me away as a tourist. I am, after all, not dressed any differently from many of the women walking about. Then I realised what it is.
My bad habit of reading as I walked has given me away as a stranger. No one else is doing this. So despite my enjoyment of it, I put away Dinaw Mengestu’s latest novel All Our Names and decide to just be a Ghanaian.
There is safety in fitting in.
