Above the interior doorway was a sign in Dutch inscribed with Psalm 132: “Zion is does Heeren ruste. The chapel near the governor’s quarters also had a balcony overlooking the central plaza. They’d be bathed, perfumed, and groomed for him, then discarded back to the hot, damp, waste-ridden women’s dungeon when he grew tired of them. Whenever the Dutch governor was horny and wanted a quick or overnight fuck, he’d order the slaves from the female dungeon to a military style formation, crudely inspect them, and choose his victim(s) for the night. The governor’s quarters had a balcony that overlooked the main plaza. We took some uneven stairs to the upper interior of the castle where the governor and clergymen lived. I’d just done the same thing in Africa, ignorant and unaware. After learning this, I thought about the irreverent instagram influencers inappropriately posing for travel pictures in front of the death camps at Auschwitz and Dachau. I imagined other slaves behind the crossed bars of the adjacent dungeons peering through the medieval gates to see their rebellious friend one last time. Any African who entered that chamber did not come out alive, condemned to death by starvation, heat, or disease for even mild forms of rebellion, like spitting too close at a European. I later learned that the skull and crossbones were symbols of terror designed to keep the enslaved Africans in line. I had my coworker Wells take a picture of me standing in front of the door. One of the doors had a skull and crossbones up top which looked cool and piratey. They’d peek through the cracks to bid on slaves behind the walls so they wouldn’t have to look their victims in the eyes. There were small slits in one of the walls for slave traders to peer through.

The main plaza at the center of the castle was surrounded by high white walls, each with dungeonesque doors and chambers. Inside, a guide gave us the historic tour of grounds where so many lives ended, figuratively and literally. This structure, Elmina Castle, was the oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa. The Portuguese had originally built the large white edifice which was later captured by the Dutch. The fortress’s h igh walls, towers, and old, rusted cannons made a statement: Do Not Fuck With Us. The group of us strode up to an enormous white fortress and past the “gate of no return,” where enslaved Africans would pass before being crammed into slaver vessels and leaving their continent forever. My heart felt for them, even more so when our driver, Karl, would yell at them to leave us alone. I found out later there had been a military coup in the former French colony of Burkina Faso, and refugees from the neighboring country sought safety and opportunity in Ghana. Most of the beggars spoke French, and very little English, the lingua franca in Ghana. Aggressive salesmen, yes, but little in the way of beggary, until arriving in Elmina. So far in Ghana, I did not experience much harassment from beggars. Old pieces of net and line littered the greasy, trash-filled streets, the pungent odor of fish assaulting our nostrils stronger than hot, flying brass. Fishermen sold their fresh catches, sometimes still wriggling in buckets. Street side musicians collaborated with familiar and foreign instruments to drown out songs blasting over blown out speakers. From Cape Coast, we ventured West past thatched-roof huts and giant anthills to the seaside city of Elmina. Before going home, Phyllis took our team to see a place I’d never forget.

Castle on the coast of africa