From Pasta to Pigfoot

by Frances Mensah Williams

  Edwin was still reading the information below the exhibit. ‘Well, we were certainly popular,’ he remarked. ‘First came the Portuguese, then the Dutch, before we were handed over to the British in 1872 to be part of their empire. I wonder how much the “notional sum” the British paid for Elmina Castle was,’ he added speculatively.

  They moved on to an exhibit about the castles at Elmina and Cape Coast, which as the two largest outposts had been the regional headquarters for the development of trade in the region. Manned by soldiers, merchants, doctors and other officials, they had served also to protect the local population in times of war.

  Edwin grinned and pointed to a line in the text. ‘It looks like Christopher Columbus “discovered” Ghana before America. It says here that he visited one of the forts – Sao Jorge de Mina – ten years before he set off on his famous voyages to the Americas.’

  On hearing Edwin say the word ‘America’, Rocky quickly dragged Faye off to the next exhibit, which was a pictorial history of Cape Coast Castle.

  ‘Rocky, you were right about Cape Coast once being the capital. According to this, it was the seat of English administration in the Gold Coast until 1877 when the capital was relocated to Accra.’

  They walked slowly through the exhibition hall, looking at black and white pictures of colonial Ghana and reading out titbits from the historical accounts accompanying the pictures. Standing in front of a series of pictures depicting scenes from a nineteenth century Fanti market, Faye and Amma gave voice to the same thought.

  ‘It looks pretty similar to the market I went to last week! It doesn’t seem like we’ve made much progress in almost two hundred years.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Amma replied, peering at the cooking utensils in another picture. ‘Look at that black grinding bowl. It looks just like the ones you’ll see in Ghanaian homes today.’

  The next exhibit stopped them cold; it told the story of slavery. Torn between horror and fascination, they silently read the account of the beginnings of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1500s and how, by the 1600s, the slave trade had become firmly established.

  Amma was the first to speak. ‘It’s hard to believe that the slave trade lasted for four centuries – that’s four hundred years! It says that between twelve and twenty-five million Africans were forced into the trade during that time.’

  Faye shook her head slowly in amazement. ‘One third of the slaves went to Brazil, one third to the Caribbean and one third were scattered throughout North and South America.’ She turned to look for Rocky, who had moved onto the next exhibit, and walked over to him.

  ‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked her softly, gesturing to the glass case in front of him. She looked at the metal artefacts in the case and shook her head.

  ‘It’s a branding iron,’ he said slowly. ‘They would heat it in an open fire and use it to brand the slaves.’

  Faye’s eyes welled with tears as she looked at the short metal stick with a flattened wedge and imagined it heated to a hot red temperature before being pressed against human flesh.

  He pointed to the circular metal objects on the shelf below. ‘Those are the shackles they used. They would chain the captured slaves at the neck and wrists and ankle.’

  ‘Ladies and gentleman, the tour of the Castle is about to begin downstairs!’ The announcement rang out loudly in the quiet hall. Reluctantly, they broke away from the exhibits and headed down the stone steps to join the small group that had gathered at the far end of the courtyard.

  The tour guide, a tall, very dark man with a loud booming voice, waited for them to take their place before he started speaking. The passion in his voice was undimmed by years of repetition as he took his riveted audience through the voyage of the Africans torn from the bosom of their homes and transported as slave labour to a foreign land from which they would never return.

  In lyrical accented English, he explained that as the home of the British Governors, the Castle served as the seat of government in colonial times.

  ‘The British traded in gold, ivory and in slaves,’ he said. ‘Captured from neighbouring countries and from the deep recesses of the Gold Coast – tragically, often with the connivance of their own chiefs – they were exchanged for iron rods and jewellery.’ He paused and began to walk. ‘Follow me, please.’

  The group walked along the courtyard and stopped outside a door marked ‘Palaver Hall’. The guide entered the room and waited until the group had assembled inside the long bare hall.

  ‘This is Palaver Hall, where the exchange of slaves took place,’ he announced, gesturing grandly around the room.

  Amma shivered. ‘You can almost picture what it must have been like,’ she whispered.

  Faye nodded and turned to follow the guide who was striding out of the room. They walked across the uneven paving stones of the courtyard, stopping in front of a wooden door with a plaque identifying it as the Male Slave Dungeon.

  ‘When the slaves were brought to the Castle,’ the guide went on, ‘the men were separated from the women and both groups were locked into slave dungeons,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

  Faye instinctively reached out for Rocky’s hand and he held onto hers tightly as their guide led the way down a slope into the darkened dungeons. The male dungeons were made up of four interconnecting underground rooms with a few tiny windows carved out of the rough stone walls providing the only light and ventilation.

  The guide pointed to a large gap near the top of one wall. ‘That window up there was designed, not to give the slaves air, but to provide an avenue for eavesdroppers to listen to the slaves and report anything seditious to their masters,’ he explained.

  They stooped to pass between the interconnecting rooms in the wake of their guide. Suddenly he stopped and waited for them to surround him again. Neither his voice nor his face betrayed emotion as he spoke.

  ‘If you feel that our small group has almost filled this room, you should know that one thousand men were kept in here at any one time.’ He nodded to emphasise his point. ‘When they were captured, the Africans were forced to walk barefoot for days from the Northern villages, from the east, the west and across borders. Many died during those long walks, while some were eaten by wild animals.’

  He paused for a moment as an elderly woman at the front of the group removed a handkerchief from her bag and dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘Unfortunately, trapped as they were in these dungeons, many did not survive the overcrowded, unhygienic conditions and the tropical diseases. And, although they were all black men and all sons of Africa, they were mostly unable to communicate with each other as they had no common language.’

  The guide moved through to a side room and again waited for the group to enter. ‘This room was reserved for the slaves who resisted their masters. They were chained to the walls here or sent to the cells where, with no light and no air as the airtight doors ensured, they died a slow and painful death in the hot overcrowded dark rooms. When they died, they were buried together or thrown unceremoniously into the sea.’

  He paused for a long moment while the group looked around the warm, dark room, a faint dripping of water on the stone walls the only sound to be heard. After a moment, he gestured to them to follow him and led them back up into the open courtyard. Faye, her hand still in Rocky’s, was silent as they followed the other tourists past the rusted black cannon balls placed around the paved courtyard. They came to a halt outside the Female Slaves Dungeon, edging past the underground water tank that the guide explained used to be filled with captured rainwater and used for cooking and washing.

  They walked into the women’s dungeons and looked expectantly at the guide. He cleared his throat and gestured broadly around the confined quarters.

  ‘These dungeons held three hundred women slaves.’ His voice echoed loudly in the chamber. ‘Although the women slaves were not as valuable as the men for manual labour, they served more than one purpose for the slave masters.’ He paused meaningfully for t
hem to understand what he was inferring and then continued. ‘Evidence of this can be seen from the number of mulattos – mixed race children – in the area at the time.’

  He walked out of the chamber into the courtyard and raised his voice dramatically, a note of emotion creeping into his narration for the first time. He pointed to a huge wooden door further down the paved walkway.

  ‘When the time came, the men would take their final walk down the tunnels and join their wives and sisters here.’ He moved forward until they stood directly in front of the door marked with a small plaque.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen...’ He paused momentarily before continuing. ‘They would then walk through this door, the “Door of No Return”, leaving behind the land of their birth, their families, their parents and their children.’ He paused for a moment and continued softly while the group strained forward to catch his words.

  ‘Shackled to each other, they would walk down the cobbled walkway behind the Door and down a flight of stone steps into the ships waiting on the waters to receive them as cheap labour in the rice and cotton plantations of the slave masters.’

  After another period of silence during which the tour guide bowed his head, he looked up with a sombre expression on his face and informed them that the tour was finished. Slightly dazed, the group broke up slowly, its members drifting off to inspect other parts of the Castle.

  Faye broke the silence first. ‘It’s so incredibly hard to believe, even after hearing everything and seeing those shackles upstairs in the museum, that this all happened,’ she said soberly. ‘The thought that people were sold as though they were rice or coffee or flour is horrific.’

  Amma, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the tour, nodded in agreement. ‘Rocky’s right, these castles should be preserved. You know, they are actual proof that it did happen, that slavery was real.’ She looked so upset that Edwin put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t know about you guys but I think we’ve seen enough here.’ He turned to Rocky. ‘Why don’t we drive out to Elmina now? We can take a look around the castle and then get some lunch.’

  Cheering up at the mention of food, the girls led the way out of the castle grounds. There were few signs left of the rain that had fallen earlier in the day and the sun, now blazing high in the sky, warmed their chilled bones as they strolled back to the car. Rocky drove out of the winding streets and onto a major road running parallel with the beach and adorned with signboards advertising resorts and hotel complexes.

  A short time later, they arrived at Elmina and were soon driving along a busy market road. They drove past boat builders hammering together their latest creations, past old salt-beaten houses and groves of coconut trees swaying in the marshy wetlands. Leaving a narrow road sandwiched between market stalls, they saw Elmina Castle sitting perched on a low hill.

  Rocky parked the car, ignoring the plaintive begging for coins by some young boys hanging around the parking area. He took Faye’s hand and led the way across a drawbridge with huge rusted hinges, into the castle. Having already agreed in the car to take a quick look around and then go on to lunch, they avoided the guided tour that was about to start, choosing instead to take a walk around the ancient fort.

  They were immediately struck by its similarity to Cape Coast Castle, although the courtyard here was much smaller. A visit to the exhibition room revealed that the Portuguese had built the Sao Jorge Fort–Castle at Elmina in 1482.

  Unwilling to revisit the overpowering emotions they had experienced at Cape Coast Castle, they contented themselves with a peek into the slave dungeons before climbing upstairs to explore the bedchamber and living quarters of the Governor.

  Amma’s stomach rumbled loudly, breaking the tension that gripped them as they walked through the room that had once been occupied by the colonial master.

  ‘Okay, we get the message.’ Edwin smiled and gave her a quick hug. ‘Let’s go.’ Relieved to be able to do what their ancestors never could, the four of them made their escape and headed back to the car.

  After a brief stop for lunch at a small hotel, they set off back to Accra in high spirits. The journey back took less time as Rocky concentrated on getting them back to town before the traffic started to build up in the late afternoon. Within two hours, they were back in the heart of Accra and heading towards Labone.

  Amma and Edwin, after a hasty whispered conversation in the back, asked Rocky to drop them off in Osu.

  ‘I’ll see you back at home later, Faye,’ Amma said as she slid out of the car. ‘Thanks for taking us along, Rocky. Now we’ll leave you two in peace.’ With a wicked smile, she reached out for Edwin’s hand and dragged him off down Oxford Street.

  With the engine still purring, Rocky turned to Faye, an eyebrow raised enquiringly. ‘Well, it’s only five o’clock,’ he said mildly. ‘Do you want to go back home or shall we go somewhere for a drink?’

  Faye smiled, more than happy at the thought of prolonging the time they had together. ‘A drink sounds like a great idea.’

  Pulling back onto the main road, Rocky drove down Oxford Street and turned into a narrow side street.

  ‘There’s a quiet pub at the end of the road where they serve some incredible grilled kebabs, if you feel like something to eat’. He drove slowly, careful to avoid a large open hole in the road, and parked in the forecourt of a large walled off house.

  He came round to open her door before locking the car and leading her through a pair of dark-brown gates. A number of tables had been set up in the courtyard outside the pub and potted palms and miniature lamps between the tables allowed its patrons a degree of privacy.

  They spied a table and Rocky beckoned to a waiter to take their order. A few minutes later, Faye took a long sip of chilled white wine and leant back in her seat.

  ‘Mmmm, this is delicious!’ She sighed happily. ‘Thanks so much for today, Rocky,’ she looked straight into his warm caramel-coloured eyes.

  ’It was my pleasure,’ he answered. He put down his glass of beer and reached for her hand. He gently stroked her thumb with his finger and smiled.

  ‘I’m glad we finally got to spend some time together,’ he said softly. ‘Even if it meant we had to have my little sister and her boyfriend along for the ride.’

  Faye laughed. ‘Come on, you must admit that they were very well-behaved. In any case, you have to be nice to Amma – she’s going to miss Edwin terribly when he leaves this weekend.’

  Rocky looked at her quizzically. ‘And I’m going to miss you terribly when you leave next week.’

  Lost for words, Faye took a hasty sip of her wine and looked around the bar, her mind in a whirl of confusion.

  ‘Faye?’ His voice was insistent as he tugged gently on her hand. She turned back to look at him, horrified to realise that she was close to tears.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered, her churning emotions clearly visible on her expressive face. ‘I’m going to miss you, too.’

  ‘Rocky!’ Engrossed in each other, they both jumped as the shout came from the bar area across the courtyard. Rocky looked up sharply and groaned in exasperation.

  ‘Damn it!’ he muttered, sitting up straight as Nii strolled over to their table, his arm around a plump young girl who looked like she was barely out of school.

  Rocky glared at the other man, who merely stroked his goatee as he took in the scene at their table.

  ‘Hey man, what’s up?’ He was obviously in a jovial mood and when it became clear that Rocky had no intention of responding, he turned to Faye.

  ‘It’s Fiona, isn’t it?’ He bared his white teeth in a wolfish grin.

  ‘Actually, it’s Faye.’ Unable to resist it, her gaze moved to the young girl, who simpered at them both and nestled into the arm cradling her.

  ‘This is Gloria,’ Nii said blithely, nudging the girl forward. ‘She’s a very good friend of mine, aren’t you sweetheart?’ He laughed loudly as she giggled in appreciation.

  ‘Nic
e to meet you, Gloria,’ Faye said quickly, looking apprehensively at Rocky, who continued to glare coldly and silently at Nii. Finally taking the hint, the other man gave a slight shrug and turned to the young girl.

  ‘Hey, Gloria, I think we’re interrupting a tête-à-tête. Let’s leave these lovebirds alone, eh?’ With a brief wave and salute, he propelled her away to the other side of the bar.

  Rocky shook his head in resignation and took a long swallow from his glass.

  ‘I don’t know how Serwah puts up with that man. She really doesn’t deserve the kind of humiliation he puts her through.’

  Faye remained silent for a few moments, sipping her wine thoughtfully. ‘Why does she stay with him?’ she asked curiously. ‘He certainly doesn’t appear to be particularly discreet – that’s the second girl I’ve seen him with in less than a week!’

  Rocky shrugged helplessly, clearly at a loss to explain his cousin’s tolerance. ‘All I know is that if you can’t be faithful to someone, there’s no point in staying together,’ he said flatly.

  Faye looked at him, wondering if she dared to ask the question that had been preying on her mind ever since Amma’s revelations about Rocky’s time in America. Before she could reconsider her decision, she took a deep breath and blurted out the words. ‘Rocky, what happened with Celine?’

  For an instant he froze, his glass lifted halfway to his lips. Carefully putting the glass back down on the wooden tabletop, he looked at her, his face expressionless.

  ‘Who told you about Celine?’ he asked. Before she could speak, he cut in. ‘Amma, obviously.’

  He took a sip of his drink and stared hard at the table for a minute. Looking up, the warmth had left his eyes and he stared ahead blankly. ‘Celine is history and there’s nothing to discuss.’ Swallowing the last of his beer, he shrugged. ‘All she taught me was that the only thing you can count on is working hard and making a success of yourself.’