My Work in the Peace Cell

My task in teaching in the Peace Cell was to conflict resolution and peace building to six village leaders in rural Ghana. I knew absolutely nothing about this place before going, and I was going to be there for less than a month. To say this was a challenge would be an understatement. I had to keep a perspective both on my relative ignorance and also that I might have something to teach these people. The volunteer before me did a lot of work with them on healthy dialog, anger management, collaboration, etc. I decided to start small. I decided to start with the family. All of the village representatives expressed to me that domestic violence was a major issue in their villages. In a previous post I talked about the vulnerability of women in marriages. I mentioned how the parents inability to pay back the bride price makes it difficult for a woman to leave a marriage. It’s also incredibly difficult for them to leave because of the social stigma attached to divorced women and because of their lack of economic independence. Divorce is not impossible in rural Ghana (one of the village leaders had actually just terminated his marriage), but it is difficult and these difficulties make women vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. In fact, when I asked the village leaders what spouses argued about the most, they said money and sex. I guess some things are universal. Poverty was not a topic I was equipped to handle, and I was told that arguments about sex were the most likely to lead to violence. Normally these arguments begin with a wife’s refusal to have sex with her husband. In the area where I was working, the economy is primarily based on agriculture. Women put in a full day’s work in the fields before they return home to care for their husband and children—cooking, cleaning, etc. They are tired. Husbands put in a full day’s work too and are responsible for the economic wellbeing of the family. Cultural practices like bride-wealth symbolically reinforce the idea that the woman is the property of her husband. As such, many men I talked to felt entitled to sex. I decided to teach the village leaders about sexual consent.

Borrowing heavily from Scarleteen’s “Driver’s Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent,” I taught sexual consent using the “yes means yes” model. In the US we’ve been so inculcated with the “no means no” model, that it is often difficult to get people to understand the limits of that model. For one, it ignores all of the reasons why saying no can be difficult or impossible such as power dynamics, intimidation, and being physically or mentally incapacitated. In its traditionally understood form, it also puts the burden of saying no upon the woman, forgetting the fact that sex is supposed to be fun—that everyone is supposed to be saying “hell yeah!” every step of the way. That’s where the “yes means yes” model comes in. The yes means yes model holds that consent is not when the other person “doesn’t say no” but instead when all involved parties are actively and willingly participating in the sexual activity. When I taught sexual consent from the “yes means yes” perspective in Aboansan, I didn’t encounter the challenge of shifting away from the “no means no” perspective, because they had never talked about the process of sexual consent as such. By this I mean to say that members of the peace cell group disagreed about whether or not a man was entitled to sex, but none had talked about sexual consent as such before. I started by emphasizing that no man or woman was ever entitled to sex and then moved on to talking about how to tell if your partner is consenting to sex. The sex-positivity defied my expectations of rural Ghana. The village leaders were very responsive to my argument that sex is better when all involved parties are really into it. This made it much easier for me to talk about both verbal and nonverbal signals of sexual consent. For example, I told them that “don’t stop!” and “whoohoo!” are verbal signs of consent, whereas “stop” and dead silence were signs of nonconsent. I told them that actively touching someone was a possible sign of nonverbal consent, whereas avoiding someone’s touch was a possible nonverbal sign of nonconsent.

Most of the village leaders I met with were men and we got into some really interesting conversation when talking about the idea that men don’t necessarily have to be the sexually dominant ones. It was hard for me to keep up, because when they really got into it with each other much of the conversation was in tri. But I was able to understand that they arrived at the conclusion that women initiating and wanting sex is sexy and that women wanted sex less when they felt like they had to. One of the more shy men shared that sometimes his wife did not want to have sex for 3 or sometimes 5 months but that he felt that this was okay. I don’t want to give any man too many kudos for simply respecting a woman’s sexual autonomy, but I think that him saying this in the company of other men was incredibly brave. The man who started off the sessions defending his entitlement to sex ended up telling us that he had changed his mind—that he knew now that consent was important. I think the first man’s openness and honesty had every bit as much to do with the success of our peace cell meetings on sexual consent. I learned from them that having what I would call backwards attitudes about sexual consent does not preclude having an open dialog about sex. And it seemed that they learned something from me too.

The Emancipation of African Women

While I was in Ghana, I found this awesome book in the Cape Coast Castle gift store. It's called The Emancipation of Women: An African Perspective, and it's written by a Ghanaian woman named Florence Abena Dolphyne. She begins by saying that women suffer similar types of injustices in the family structure, education, little access to professional training, etc. The difference, she says, is the degree to which the women suffer these injustices. Africa though, has problems that many other places do not such as polygamy, bride-wealth (bride price), & female circumcision. She goes on to talk about the tensions she witnessed between African women and Western feminists gathering to discuss women's issues at the Mid-Decade Conference in Copenhagen. To begin with, they couldn't even agree upon what was a "women's issue," much less how to address them. The Western solution for African women's problems, which they thought were primarily practices like bride-wealth, polygamy, and female circumcision, were legislative bans. Dolphyne argues that both Western feminists' focus on these issues and their proposed solutions are out of touch with the lived reality of women in Africa. For African women struggling with hunger, access to clean water, no nearby hospitals, etc., "the issue of women's rights is inextricably linked with that of survival," and so "the emancipation of women and the status of women in society are closely linked with national development" (xiv).

This was readily apparent in Aboansan. Polygamy and female circumcision are not practiced there, but bride-wealth is an important part of the marriage ceremony. Before a marriage can take place in Aboansan, a man must go to the woman's parents and present them with gifts that are highly symbolic--bowls and plates, blankets, jewelry, livestock, etc.--to demonstrate that the man is able to provide for the daughter. The bride's family will also present gifts to the groom's family, but the value of this gift is generally significantly lower than the gifts received by the bride's family. The major problem with this practice is not the implicit messages (the bride is being paid for; the groom is paying the bride's family for their prior care taking, a responsibility that he is now posed to assume, etc.) but the vulnerable position that it puts women in. You see, if a woman wants a divorce, she is expected to "pay back" the bride price in full. Aboansan is an agricultural village--farming is their income. Because of strictly adhered to gender norms, women have no access to that income, which is controlled in full by their husbands. What this means is that the burden of repaying the bride price falls on the woman's family who may be unwilling or unable to repay it. Women who cannot payback the bride price cannot get a divorce and are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. Women with less money are actually less vulnerable in this situation because the less money a woman and her family have at the time of the wedding, the lower the bride price is. The lower the bride price is, the easier it is for the bride to leave. While the Western solution, according to Dolphyne, is to ban this practice, it would be virtually impossible to enforce, especially in rural villages like Aboansan where there is little government oversight and people are very tied to tradition. For a woman in these villages, to be wedded with a low bride price would indicate that she was of little value to her family. So instead of legislative bans, Dolphyne argues, will do little to stem the problem.

Something else that contributes to cycles of poverty is high fertility rates. To promote limiting the size of the family will not go over well because it is seen as unnatural for an African woman to willfully choose to limit the size of her family. Moreover, at some point parents become dependent on their children to take care of them in their old age. There is a high mortality rate because of poor sanitation and nutrition, high rates of disease, and a lack of access to medical services. Mothers must have lots of babies in order to make sure that enough survive into adulthood. A case in point would be the little boy Emanuel who fell out of a tree, broke his nose, and bled to death because there was no way to get him to a hospital and no money to pay for treatment should he have gotten there. This is a symptom of poverty, not a lack of knowledge about what perpetuates poverty per se. She suggests that the best way to reduce family size is to invest in education. Educated women want a higher standard of living for their children. They are also more likely to understand the health risks associated with not spacing out the births of children.

The problem of course is convincing people of the value of educating girl children. Girls face many challenges in continuing education. Girls may stay out of school to care for younger siblings. If there is only money to send some of the children to school, it is the boys who will be sent. Girls are at risk for pregnancy, which functionally terminates the advancement of their education. Should they make it to apply to secondary school they’ll find that there are fewer spots for girls at these (usually boarding) schools and so girls must score higher to be admitted. Rural girls, she says, are doubly disadvantaged, because they have to leave their villages to go to school which leads to astronomically high drop out rates. This was definitely something I saw in Aboansan. To pursue education beyond the elementary school level, kids must walk a couple miles to a nearby village. This is not possible for girls who attend classes with a baby on their hip. Education should be mandated for all children—regardless of sex—but this can only happen if (1) this can actually be enforced and (2) if education is actually accessible.

What rural African women need more than legislation or attitudinal shifts is the alleviation of the poverty they face. This is not the case for the vast majority of American women. We do not have to rank oppressions to understand that these women are not similarly situated and that the emancipation of women is not a one size fits all.

CLPP, Reproductive Rights, and the Developing World

Last Saturday I attended a conference sponsored by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program (CLPP) called "From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom. (You can read about some of the conference panels at Feministing.) Wow! The day was divided into three workshops which generally consisted of a panel of speakers and a Q&A session. The first two I went to were so intense for me that I couldn't make it through a third. The first one I went to was about abortion methods. The first woman who spoke was Susan Yanow. She runs an international organization that provides women seeking abortions with abortion medications that allow a woman to self-induce a miscarriage safely at her home. The goal is to reduce the number of deaths due to unsafe abortions. This service is only offered in countries where there is no safe and legal access to abortions to women who have no severe medical conditions and are less than 9 weeks pregnant. Her organization is completely decentralized and self-sustaining because the work is done online. "Women on Web is a digital community of women who have had abortions and individuals and organizations that support abortion rights." These women and activists answer thousands of emails daily from women who email them seeking services and information. If a woman is seeking an abortion, she will fill out a survey about her health. The first question asks "Did you take a pregnancy test?" and the options are (1) Yes, and I am pregnant, (2) No, I did not do a pregnancy test, and (3) No, but I did get an ultrasound and I am pregnant. Underneath there is a link that says, "What if you are not pregnant but take the medicines anyway?" Each question proceeds much like this one: a straight-forward question, two or more options, and links to questions that anticipate and address the most frequently asked questions. You can tell that the sight is run by women for women. Linking a woman to a "What will happen if I am not pregnant but take the medicine anyway?" when she has been asked "Did you take a pregnancy test?" is an intuitive reassurance to a desperate woman. It tells her that she does not have to try to "cheat the system" to get the help she needs. She should not be afraid to ask questions that might her reveal desperate determination, because all questions are welcomed and answered. The health survey also asks questions like "Does...[your pregnancy] endanger your health?" "How do you feel about your decision?" and "Are you sure that you want to end your pregnancy and no one is forcing you?" I could go on and on listing all of the questions because I was just blown away by how thoughtful and sensitive the questions were. They don't ask the woman shaming questions like "How many partners have you had?" They don't promote a particular family form by asking questions about the father of the child. 

The one thing that did bother me was after the question, "Do you have an STI?" they say that the risk of contracting an STI, "increases when one has unprotected sex or after rape," which isn't exactly true. Your risk for an STI increases with unprotected sex without regard to whether or not the sex was consensual. I was also bothered by what followed that question, "If you have been raped we advise you to get tested for STI's and to go to the police." This oversimplifies the issue and ignores the way that rape victims are treated by the police, the fact that women may have very well been raped by the police, and that there are places where even the rape victim could be severely punished for being unchaste. 

After filling out her health survey, the woman can get information and medical counseling from a licensed doctor who can provide her with a medical abortion after consultation. She needs access to a place where she can receive a package.

This website and services could change the lives of women in countries where there is no legal abortion access--countries like Ghana. Having a child can terminate a woman's education, which is directly tied to her chances of upward mobility, and solidify her place as mother and caretaker. If the woman is unmarried, having a child significantly lowers her desirability as a marriage partner, which can effectively doom a poor woman to a life of poverty.


In the U.S., we often talk about abortion in terms of a woman's "right to choose." We need to talk more about the fact that access to safe abortion saves lives. Self-induced medical abortion poses a lower risk of fatality than giving birth, nevermind having an illegal abortion. So, I think that this movement is very important. The problem, of course, is spreading the word to women that this service is available, especially in this political climate when a media-induced frenzy could result in legislative backlash that attempts to shut this operation down. This service is likely to disproportionately serve women living in more urban spaces unless/until information is disseminated among rural areas. There is ground for optimism, as panelist from womenonwaves said that they are currently brainstorming ideas about how to do just that.


Snaps to women helping women. You can help by donating here.

Women's Protests 2008

Liberian refugee women have played a major role in political advocacy on behalf of all Buduburam refugees. 

A simple message

On February 19th of 2008, thousands of women unhappy with the UNHCR and Buduburam Camp leadership, organized a protest in the football field near the camp. Their protest demands: US $1000 repatriation package, resettlement into a third country of asylum, and non-integration into Ghanaian host communities. While some women, many as old as 50 or 60 sat with signs, other women circled through with water and food for the protestors. The women were joined by their children, which resulted in the closure of the schools in Buduburam. 

Many children joined their mothers in the protest

The women's protest also closed many commercial activities as the women are the ones who run the stalls in the food market. The women closed the food market except from morning til noon for the duration of the protest. They sat out in the hot Ghanaian sun for days, attracting the attention of motor vehicle traffic on the Buduburam-Kasoa road. The attention of passers-by eventually drew the attention of local and international news media. 

Protesters by the Buduburam-Kasoa road

The Liberian women barred the men from joining them in protest on the field, as men are more susceptible to police crack-down. The men respected their wishes but many did not stray far, pocketing themselves nearby with watchful eyes to come to the women's aid should the police give them trouble. Even the men not stationed on the perimeter voiced their support. In the second week of protesting, a cross-section of Liberian refugee men comprised of leaders from the 15 political subdivisions of Liberia and leaders of local Liberian churches and NGOs pledged their support for the women's protest.

Women with their children protesting in Buduburam

A woman protestor

According to the woman I talked to who was involved with the protests, the Liberian women were prepared to die in the hot sun--that they'd absolutely had enough. Indeed, many did almost die there. At least 19 women were hospitalized during the protests, which was not surprising, considering that they were highly vulnerable to heat cramps, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion among other diseases associated with poor sanitation, air pollutants, dehydration, and people living right on top of each other such as: the common cold, diarrhea, bronchitis, and malaria. 


The peaceful protest was forcefully broken up within a month of it starting. Police tear gassed the field and rounded up over 600 Liberian refugee women and children for detainment and deportation. Many children were left abandoned in the field when their mothers were arrested. Some children were arrested without their mothers. 


At the end of the day, the forceful break up of peaceful protests, fear of further police brutality, and the relative certainty that their demands would not be met either by the government of Ghana or by the UN, almost half of the Liberian refugee population fled. They went back to Liberia without even receiving the meager repatriation package that the UN originally offered them. The goals of the women's protest were not achieved, but their ability to organize as a collective and to garner incredible community and international support was laudable. 


The Liberian women made clever use of their role in life at Buduburam, causing a wave by effectively suspending education and commerce in the camp. They were also able to mobilize support through their churches, and the support of their churches in turn were influential in garnering more community support. I've mused before on the role of religion in Buduburam, but what I haven't talked about that's readily apparent in this narrative is the church as an oppositional enclave. The sermons in Buduburam churches often speak directly to the plight of the refugee population and become a space for the community to air grievances. Religion is rhetoric employed to urge these and other protestors on in their political activity and to quell any advocacy for violence as a means of protest. The women capitalized on all of the functions of the church and Christian religion in their organizing, even praying and singing while they protested. The women's utilization of their role in Buduburam life is also a cite rich for analysis that I wish I knew more about.


All photos reposted from the Equality Trumpet--a Buduburam news publication.


Here's a link to a women's equality campaign started by Liberian refugees in Ghana.

Kakum & Monkey Forest

Seeing as the entire "botel" looked like it'd been periodically flooded by swamp, I wasn't surprised when our hotel room looked like a really dingy version of this:

Hans Botel Room

But then again, we paid about $20 for both of us to stay the night. We were also able to shower under running water, so I guess we got more than we paid for.


We woke up early and headed off to Kakum. After haggling with a cab driver for what seemed like an hour, we were on our way. Kakum was beautiful, and very expensive. We paid for a brief walking tour and then paid more to go on the Canopy Walk.

The Canopy Walk

The canopy walk is a rope bridge suspended about 100 or so feet above the rainforest floor. The bridges are made of steel bars with wooden planks covering them and a huge net draping around and underneath them. I didn't feel unsafe but judging by the fact that some of the boards had pulled loose or completely off, I'd guess that the safety standards are more lax in Ghana than in the U.S. There are eight bridges suspended between six platforms and all of them bounce and sway under your weight. The view was incredible.

Canopy Bridge

Looking out onto the rainforest.

Awesome!

After Kakum, we ate some red-red and walked two miles to Monkey Forest Animal Sanctuary.

Red red

Entrance to Monkey Forest

The Monkey Forest Animal Santuary was started by a couple from the Netherlands. A thin middle-aged woman named Annetta greeted us at the gate. Seven cedis to see the place and play with the monkeys, she told us, and we agreed. Annetta led us around and told us how her husband came to Ghana, fell in love, and called her to tell her that she should come to see Ghana because he was moving there. "And I thought, 'Oh, well that's just lovely, isn't it?'" she said laughing. Luckily she fell in love with the place too, so much so that--though their families beg them to come back for the holidays--they haven't stepped foot in Amsterdam since and don't plan to. They weren't there for more than a year before they rescued their first monkey, and things just sort of took off from there. Before they knew it they were getting calls from folks with a monkey, or a deer, or a turtle, or another animal that they found wounded or just couldn't care for. Annetta said that this was what her husband wanted to do all along, so they settled in and expanded the place--bought more land, build new cages and sanctuaries, found help. I loved being there. It was a more personal look at forest life than Kakum. I could sit back and enjoy the view instead of being rushed through it. I got to play with the monkeys, and one of them almost stole my glasses. Annette says that he's their most expensive monkey because he has stolen phones and glasses and engagement rings--anything he can pull from your pocket.

Mona Monkey

Turtles

The Monkey Thief!

When we left Monkey Forest, we went back to Cape Coast to catch a bus back to Buduburam. We are the first ones on our bus, so we had to wait for about an hour. (They don't move unless the seats are all sold). I'm reading my book while we wait when a preacher jumps on the bus. He started preaching, and I wasn't sure what to do. Is this like church where it'd be rude not to put the book down and pay attention? I decided it wasn't. He jumped on the bus unsolicited, and so I can just keep my nose in my book. Some people were very attentive and responsive. Tony even took out his Bible to follow along. But I wasn't the only uninterested one. Right in the middle of the preaching ("Brothers and sisters do you understand what I am saying to you today?.."), a man stops the preacher and askes him to call for the ice cream boy, he wants vanilla. Though these kinds of interruptions in religious services aren't unusual in Ghana, I wanted to die laughing. It was really unfortunate that I was alone, because any other secular American would have found it hilarious and I would have enjoying having someone there laughing with me.

Elmina Castle and Fish Market

After Cape Coast Castle, Tony and I caught a cab to Elmina to see Elmina Castle, the first European trading post on the Gulf of Guinea. It was established in Portugal in 1482 as a trade settlement. It was later used as an important stop on the transatlantic slave trade routes.

The Elmina Castle is prettier than Cape Coast Castle--at least I think so.

Elmina Castle

The architecture has different influences than Cape Coast Castle--Spanish and Portugese.

The courtyard

The injustices suffered by African slaves in the dungeons of this castle are not unlike the ones suffered by African slaves in the Cape Coast Castle. Just like in Cape Coast Castle, these slaves were deprived of fresh air, light, water, food, and sanitation. Women were dragged out of the dungeons into this courtyard and the governor would watch as they were paraded around. He picked the one he liked, and she was taken away to be washed up to slip up a back staircase later. Guards awaited her at the governor's bedroom door to take her back to the dungeon. There was no other option. A woman could either submit and be raped or she could resist and be beaten and raped.

The view from the governor's apartment

If it feels like I'm just beating you to death with depressing imagery, that's exactly how I felt at the end of the day. When the barrage ceased, I was ready to just relax for a little while. 


But before we could, I wanted to see the famous Elmina fish market located about 500 yards away from Elmina Castle. There were so many boats there. I can't even guess at how many rows of women with their fresh catch on display. In some parts it was so crowded, you couldn't hardly walk. 

A view of Elmina Castle from the shore

Rows and rows of women with fish for sale

Look how big that one is!

It's so crowded it was hard to keep up with Tony 

It was worth it though when Tony stopped a woman carrying a machete and a tub of coconuts on her head. For 10 pesewas, the woman took out two coconuts and whacked off the tops so we could drink the coconut water inside. When we were done she chopped my coconut in half and the whacked off another small piece of the outside of the coconut and handed them both to back to me. Tony taught me to used the wedge as a tool to scrape the coconut meat off the shell. It made me think about how we used to fold up the foil tops of Yoplait yogurts to make spoons or those cream ice cream cups with the wooden tongue depressor-like spoon, except this was cooler.

Then Tony and I caught a cab to the Hans Cottage Botel where we were staying for the night. It was really strange. It was run down and a little leaky. It was built on a tiny swamp with Nile crocodiles and purple heron living in it. They also keep a big tank of fish. 

Hans Cottage Botel

Hans Cottage Botel

The swamp was actually not manmade, so all of the animals around were wild, even if they had gotten accustomed to the pipes and parking lots inserted into their customary environment. It was like a manicured hybrid of LUMCON and the ULL swamp.

Tony was fascinated by the Nile crocodiles.

I was more impressed by the purple herons.

Cape Coast Castle

Tony and I set off for a weekend trip. We left early in the morning on Friday to make the most of our day. We arrived at Cape Coast around 9AM and looked for the castle, which wasn't hard to find. We walked towards the coast and stumbled upon the fish market.

Fishermen at Cape Coast

All of the fishing boats at Cape Coast

Then we looked to our right, and there it was!

Cape Coast Castle

The entrance

Cape Coast Castle was built for the trade of timber and gold but eventually became one of the biggest and most well-known sites of exportation in the transatlantic slave trade. It was the main slave trading fort used when Ghana was still a British colony in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. 

Ghana's coastline was termed the "Gold Coast" by the Swedish traders for its mineral resources

The courtyard

The courtyard and canons

First, a tour guide led us through the male slave dungeon.

Entrance to the male slave dungeon

This door takes you down a tunnel system underneath the courtyard where hundreds of thousands of male slaves were kept before they were exported--most of them to the Americas. At any given time, the castle held about 1,000 men who were separated into groups of roughly 200 into five 30-by-15-foot holding cells.

The dungeon chambers

The light at the end of the tunnel

This is the main dungeon. The small trench that you can see in the middle of this room was a sewer line that carried human excrement out to see. They've installed some lights in the room now to illuminate the room for the tour groups that pass through, but when the slaves were held here, the one small opening that you can see in this picture was the sole point of entry for sunlight and fresh air. I looked around the dungeon and noticed what looked like the water marks made so familiar to me after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. The tour guide told us that these marks were not water marks at all, but the mark left by the human feces that built up from over 400 years of men being tortured and subjected to the worst kind of hell in this room. It was about two-and-a-half feet high. That's about where I lost it. The full weight of what the experience of being held in that dungeon must have been like. Hundreds of men pissed, shat, ate, and slept in this room for weeks at a time, waiting for their turn to go. 


The women's dungeon was slightly more "livable." It was smaller, as not as many women as men were exported to the Americas. It was also better lit and ventilated. On any given day, there were about 300 women held here in two chambers. Women often served as domestic servants and on call mistresses for the British soldiers and government officials stationed at the castle. 

Female slave dungeon chambers

I couldn't help but think, "How many women were raped in this room? How many women died in labor here?" The women (and the men) were only let outside once a day. They were led out to the courtyard in shackles, blinded by the sun, and were fed what was often their only meal for the day. Menstruating women were left in the cell to simply bleed where they sat.


Any slave that rebelled was thrown into the condemned cell which held as many as 50 men at a time but was no bigger than some of the walk-in closets I've seen. The men in the condemned cell were deprived of food, water, light, and air, and they were held there until they died.

The condemned cell

Before those that survived these conditions left Cape Coast, all of the men and women passed through "the door of no return"--aptly named as none of the men or women that passed through it were able to live to return back to their homeland.

Placard

The door of no return

Right above the male dungeon was the chapel, where the British worshipped not 30 yards above where enslaved men lay sick, shackled, and starving. On the wall was a plaque with "Psalm 132" inscribed on it.

Sign in the Cape Coast Castle chapel

Psalm 132 tells of the search for a resting place for the ark of the covenant and all of the promises that God made to his people thereby. In it the Lord promises to privilege David and all of his descendants over others. To them alone he will give protection and might and fulfill the needs of their bodies and minds. 


"11. The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath he will not revoke: 'One of your own descendants I will place on your throne. 12. If your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever.' 13. For the LORD has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling, saying, 14. 'This is my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it. 15. I will bless her with abundant provisions; her poor I will satisfy with food.'"


Could this psalm that tells of a man chosen by "God," "placed on the throne" to be privileged over all the rest and protected and provided for "for ever and ever" be any more appropriate? The repetition of the phrase "for ever and ever" in this psalm echoes the profound sense of powerlessness and defeatism that emanates from the castle's pores. You can see both the sense of worthiness and entitlement and the promise of transgenerational passage of privilege once preserved in the scripture, now codified into law.


Unlike the African slaves, the British were set up quite nicely, especially the governor.

The governor's spacious apartment 

The hallway that wrapped around two sides of the governor's apartment.

The staircase where the slave woman of his choice was taken up to bed with him

I remember standing at the window in the governor's apartment looking out over this beautiful view of the coast and trying to imagine what it must have felt like for the governor to stand there--the wind at his face, the king of the castle. He was the ultimate alpha-male: rich, powerful, free to have any slave woman he chose. I suspect that the source of his pride and masculine sense of efficacy came more from the guns that he stood on, the money he was making, and the view of the ocean with no enemies in sight than the women he had and could have. Ruling over the Africans housed at Cape Coast Castle was probably not a source of pride for him. He slept above them; he slept with them; but it's unlikely he thought about them.

The view from the governor's window