Dont Let it Rain on Your Parade, part 1

It has been a while since I last posted, for various reasons. One of which is that I was sick for a while, from our Cape Coast adventure last weekend. More on that later. Another reason is that I sat down to write this post three times, and every time the power went out in the middle, which wipes all my writing away, of course. The trials and tribulations of living in Ghana. So. This is my adventure from last weekend, in which I return to Cape Coast, meet some chiefs, get wet, get sick, and walk through the top of a rainforest. Probably will be LONG. Oh, and rated R for some violence, death, and blood, but as tasteful as possible.

Cape Coast is a three hour bus ride from the University, through and hour and a half of really bad traffic and an hour and a half of absolute beauty. The last twent minutes is right along the coast, complete with palm trees, surf, quiet beaches, and all the greeners and picturesque villages you could ever want. We (the sixty or so people on my program) made the journey in two buses, which only left an hour late for the trip, surprise surprise. We arrived in Cape Coast at about noon. Let me set the scene: the city's main landmark is the huge eighteenth-century slave castle/fort/palace built by the british, which I explored on my previous journey here. To get to the castle you have to drive through narrow streets lined with little stands, shops, and chop bars painted in bright colors or not painted at all. It was raining off and on, so everything was splattered with orangey-red mud, including vehicles, children, houses, dogs, feet. Behind the shops, climbing up the hills like ivy, are red-brown paths, rendered impassable by the rain, which lead to houses that lean and huddle together, wood slats sodden, and roofs (made of tin, tarps, used umbrellas, or anything that might once have repelled water) dripping. Wet trash, mostly black plastic bags (called rubbers, tee hee hee) and wrappers from sachets of water, sort of oozez along to clog drains and ditches and get tangled around everything. [side note: it is most unpleasent to feel clammy damp used plastic clinging to your ankle. Trust me on this one.] Women still sell things, piles of fruits and veggies stacked hopefully on tables, brightly-wrapped heads bearing loads of rolls, water sachets, fruits, anything saleable. And across the street from the castle is a trade-faire set up for the tourists, selling african jewlery, clothing, food, etc. We went to Cape Coast because the last weekend in August is the Cape Coast festival, which is huge, massive, incredible, and starts on Friday with a sacrifice, which we arrived in time to see.

We disembarked after our busride in front of the Castle, and fought our way through vendors and hawkers and beggars and children to the front gate, entered, and made our way down to the main courtyard. Where we found a brown and white speckled bull tied to one of the rusted canons by his impressive horns, a little white sack of coins tied around his neck, aparently unaware of his fate. We stood around for a minute, some people wearing shocked looks ("How can they kill such a poor, defenseless animal? Is it going to happen here? So barbaric!"). After a while we started walking around, looking out over the castle walls to the ocean, slamming up against the rocks right below us, supporting the very vulnerable-looking fishermen further out on the water. It made me miss Santa Cruz, in a strange way. I realized that almost every day for the past four years I have looked out at the ocean at some time, and then I was away from it, and in Cape Coast I could look again, reach for the horizon, and meet no resistance. The peace and restfulness in that expanse of something is hard for me to describe, but it felt good to be back on the coast, looking out over the water again and just letting my mind drift. Like the ocean, though, it slammed back against the rocks when my stomach started to rumble, and I joined the group of people who were going to explore the trade faire in the hunt for lunch.

When I got back to the castle courtyard, the bull was gone, so I found a group [it is an unspoken rule that obrunis can not go anywhere in groups of less than three or four, and that no group bigger than one can make any sort of decision. You do the math on our efficiency.], and we proceeded to follow in the wake of the sacrifice-to-be, which had been led up a hill, through a square still filled with dancers, drummers, vendors and trash, and on down the main strees of the city (lined with wood and concrete buildings), which still sported the remnants of a small parade. We fell into step behind a chife or some Important Person, who had his own umbrella-bearer (for ceremonial purposes, as I will go into later). He led us to a big teeming crowd all gathered around a shrine. One of our student guides, Paul, was with us, and he made sure we watched our belongings, as this was the biggest weekend for pickpocketing all year long.
The shrine is a wooden enclosure, carved with designs and painted white and black, the colors for celebration and mourning. There is a hut/roof thing over one end, and a very large old tree in the center, which was also draped with white and black cloths. Inside, above, and around the shrine was crowded the entire population of the Cape Coast region or province, all here to witness the show. People sat on the walls and the roof, and loitered around outside, craning necks and sitting on shoulders to get a glimpse of the goings-on within. Every child in Africa was tugging on my sleeve or my skirt or hanging on my arm, trying to get me to lift them up, or maybe just for the novelty of touching an obruni. I was about four people deep, so maybe eight feet away from the wall, and all I could see was a sea of heads. The bull had already been led inside, along with the Important People who would, presumably, be performing the sacrifice, after saying prayers and doing whatever it is they were going to do. I could almost feel the general hum of so many bodies so close together, when all of a sudden there was a moment of silence.

Then the hum started again, a slightly different vibration. The gate opened and let out a handful of old men draped in red cloth, their minion/lackey/attendants bearing umbrellas, drums, and empty schnapps bottles (schnapps is poured here as libations to gods, cheifs, and at important occasions). After the men had left, the crowd pushed forward to get in. I was propelled along on a sea of children, unable to stand up straight. When the horde reached the gates to the shrine, we were caught up in the crowd pushing out, and I was shoved from behind, some stranger's hand on my back and voice in my ear forcing me forward, while children pushed me back as they shoved their way out. I lost my shoe, and almost went down, when one of the old men still inside pulled out a switch and started chasing children away. I was falling forward again, when the very welcome hand of Desmond, anothe student guide, grabbed hold of my shoulder and pulled me inside and under the roof overhang. I had a front row seat for the aftermath.

The tree in the center, draped with cloth, was now also smeared with a yello-orange paste. There were dark spots on the dusty ground where libations had been poured. And there were leaves scattered everywhere, vibrant, shiny green and suprisingly clean in the dirt. Over all of this, the yellow paste, the white and black cloths, the green leaves, the floor of the compound, was a spreading pool of bright red blood coming from the throat of the bull. There was a crowd inside the compoud too, made up of Ghanaian and obruni spectators, children, and the two priests who had performed the ritual. They were a wizened couple, a man and a woman, with lined faces, dressed in long, dusty black robes. On their shaved heads were crowns of dead vegetation, and they held their staffs regally while they posed. If I believed in their gods, I would have been terrified when the woman walked past me, she had that much power. For all that it was full of people, the compound was silent, but not in a shocked 'we have just witnessed an act of cruelty' way. It was more reverent, curious, and not disturbed at all. And over everything hung the smell of blood and damp earth, which didnt seem horrifying or barbaric at all, somehow.