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BOTANICAL GARDENS, TROPICAL FOREST and SLAVE CASTLE - June 24-25

The weekend offered our only opportunity for excursions while in Ghana—had we known that Thorvald wouldn’t be in England this summer, we might have stayed on a bit, but a week made us pretty glad to escape the humidity, so perhaps it was all for the best. In this episode, we travel to see a colonial era Botanical Garden, and then to take a “canopy walk” and tour a slave castle….a part of the world’s history that casts no one in a particularly good light. Below is one of the cannon with which they defended themselves….mostlyagainst other Europeans wanting to take over the “business”.....

June 24, 2006

Well, it’s now Sabbath morning, 7:30 a.m., and we’re delaying putting on our clothes until nearer breakfast time of 8:00. Elder Becerra’s talk yesterday was well-received, although some comments were made by men who agreed whole-heartedly but who thought that the ground at their institution would have to be prepared if implementing his ideas were not to bring on a “rebellion”, or even (literally) a strike. It’s kind of sad how far our schools have strayed from the type of institution we had, even as recently as 30 years ago. I remember that when I went to PUC, we were expected to go out to do recruiting – I went back to Modesto and visited students to see if they would come. That doesn’t happen anymore, and I think my brother was correct that if it were simply announced that this would be the program, there would be significant rebellion.

Anyhow, I gave my second talk – “Mere Scientists” and True Believers – and the only hitch was that when I played the clip from the DVD, we couldn’t figure out how to make the sound go over the P.A. system. I have no idea where the speaker is on this machine, and we held the microphone to every part of the laptop, to no avail. I hope that the video appeared better to others than from where I was standing – my view was like being a bit off-center from a flat-screen monitor…..

After I’d finished, during the questions, someone asked me what they might do about a colleague – in this case the dean of the science school – who is openly espousing theistic evolution and telling students in his classes that it’s simply impossible to believe in Creation and the Flood as we have traditionally done. I replied that first it was a mystery to me why anyone would want to teach at an SDA school if they believed that, and that it seemed to me that honor demanded one with those views to resign and go to some school where s/he fit in better – and the folk responded with applause! There’s something to like about the mission field, believe me! I also told him about our joint religion/science discussion group at SAU, and recommended that like-minded people at his school get together for discussion and prayer. Also, that anyone among them who still believe the Bible story take every opportunity to educate the students about the difference between what we can know from the scientific evidence, and what we must exert faith to believe – as well as to point out the significant areas where a materialist must do the same. Students need to understand that we can be faithful as well as discerning, and that we won’t attempt to support our belief with unjustified reference to science. Finally, the challenge should always be issued: Please tell the story of sin and salvation with the beginning point of God using millions of years of evolutionary change to do His creating….since this story is the core of our lives as Christians, it’s important that it be intact, and it seems to me that this means we ought to reject anything that destroys the coherence of the Story of Redemption.

Breakfast was again hot cereal (I have no idea what it was) and/or corn flakes, plus fruit – the papaya was all gone and we had to ask for more bananas – “cole slaw” (which our Trinidanian friend piles onto his bread with peanut butter!) plus bread on the table. Plenty, really. There was a devotional with song, and then we went next door to the student cafeteria (ours, remember, is the air-conditioned “banquet room”) for S.S. and church. The P.A. guys had the sound system so heavily bass that almost everyone was impossible to understand. I only suspected this at first, but when Humberto Rasi gave the sermon, he had a lapel mike and he was perfectly understandable…at least until he leaned forward and spoke into the pulpit mikes (two of them), whereupon he sounded just like the rest of the speakers. Given the reverb in the cafeteria – concrete in every direction, plus the big reinforced concrete beams up above, holding up the auditorium above – it’s no wonder….but really disconcerting to listen to something that sounded like an African language being spoken, only to have an English word or phrase pop out now and then.

This is summer session, so very few students are here – S.S. was sparse, as the kids were all in their divisions, as well as many parents. The student who led our class was excellent! First, tremendous poise, as he was faced with about 15 professors from various countries, all with their own ideas and a certain willingness to speak up. But, he also was an excellent class leader who moved through the lesson asking pertinent questions that invited discussion. It was stimulating. The only problem was again the sound – there were five classes going on in the same “live” space spoken of earlier – I cupped my ear and still had a difficult time! Ah well.

Church was well attended

but the sound was more “African language”, although the choir marching in while singing was lovely. Just as the service began, three tall young women dressed in identical clothes stalked in and sat right in front of us. They were VERY self-absorbed (curly eyelashes, whispering now and then to each other, looking sidelong around them, etc.) and I thought to myself that the Dean probably has a bit of a problem with them…..anyhow, they were one of the special musics. I don’t think any of them had a clear idea of pitch….it was pretty grim. They were exceedingly decorative, though, and their performance seemed to be much appreciated. Gail can tell you if I’m being too harsh. A young man also sang, and he did very well indeed. The most amazing part of the music to me was the organist.

None of the special musics started with accompaniment – they just got up and started singing. He listened very carefully, played notes on the keyboard (sound turned ‘WAY down) and gradually began to accompany them – in the right key and everything. Maybe this isn’t a big deal to a real musician, but it sure impressed ME! We did a bit of video of the choir, of the trio and of the postlude (Wow!) and although the visual is terrible inside that cavern, the sound gives an idea of his abilities.

I should say something about the darling children who all came in for church. I have no idea where their parents all were – the entire group of them sat in one section to our right, facing the choir at right angles to the congregation. There were a couple of ladies over there, but perhaps 20 little kids and another dozen teens. They slept, they fidgeted….but they did NOT make any noise the entire time. And there were very cute – a few of them I really wanted to hug! I’ll wait for Sophia, of course….but it’s tempting.

After church we ate lunch – shish kabob of smoky gluten and onion, some cheesy casserole, vegetable fried rice with the chile sauce made from soy paste (delicious!) and the same GREAT tomato sauce we’ve had a couple of times before, plus French fries and real ketchup, battered and deep-fried green beans, and cabbage salad (this appears three times/day for some reason.) Then back to the room to change (I actually wore a white shirt and tie – but no coat…there ARE limits in this steam bath!) for our excursion, for which we had a pretty nice bus.
Tour-Bus-Interior.jpg

We left at 2:00, got to the botanical garden at 3:30, and left at 4:30 in order to be back for supper by 6:00! Oh my.

But, we got to see a lot of countryside and people – interestingly, virtually everyone you see here is black! Heh. It does make an interesting contrast to home, though – being such an obvious and unmistakeable minority is a relatively new experience for us – not even traveling in South America prepares one for this. I took some photos along the way – I’ve reduced a few to VGA size so I can e-mail them more easily than the last ones. An incredible amount of building is going on here – houses going up all over the place. No zoning, of course, so you see genuine mansions beside humble businesses. I asked about land titles, and apparently they’ve kept the Brit system because the guy we worked with here at the University to make arrangements and all said that it was very strict – no building without clear title to the land, recorded in the gov offices. Better than Latin America, as well as some other African countries, if he’s right. Anyhow, we even saw a couple or three subdivisions

obviously developed by someone who was building all these houses for sale to the public. Such an interesting contrast between extreme wealth and poverty, with apparently some middle class stuff in between here….more than I remember in Bolivia, although probably less than in Venezuela in the ‘70s. Who knows, now!

The Gardens are on the grounds of the old governor’s house – circa 1870 or so. A big wall, and lots of plants hauled in from all over the world. We had a guide (for about an hour) who is attending the horticulture school on the grounds, and was excited to explain the names and uses of a number of the trees and shrubs. It was fun, although perhaps not worth a three-hour drive. The grounds are used for picnicking, and one SDA church group was there for the day – having had S.S. and church, lunch, and now a discussion of unity in the church during the afternoon. It was a very good time – non-air-conditioned bus, though, which renders even lovely scenery (this is a view toward the capitol city, Accra) a little less engrossing.

Tomorrow, it’s 7 hours (minimum) of driving for perhaps three or four hours of touring the “castles” where slavers set up shop and bought their prey. Ah well. I expect we’ll see lots of sights along the way, as well. It’s good that we leave early – the streets were incredibly crowded today, largely because small businesses are set up along the road everywhere, snarling traffic like one can barely believe

and we didn’t get there until after 2:00 when the bustle has decreased considerably. I have a great appreciation for the transportation infra- structure of the U.S. after seeing developing nations and their attempts to keep the traffic moving on decent roads. California was pretty bad when we were there in June, but there’s a long ways to go, yet!

Back at 6:00 and supper was “yams” (nothing like you imagine them – these are purely white starch, very much like the yuca [also called cassava, and available here, too] we got in S. America), spaghetti, another wonderful tomato sauce, more cabbage salad, and watermelon. Juice (in boxes from S. Africa) and water on the tables. Then we had two devotionals (better than the three interminable ones we had last night), and off to the room. I’m so relieved to be caught up with this.

Now Sunday night, 9:00 p.m., so we’re 16 ½ hours into this day….and WHAT a day! We got up at 4:30, and were out front by 5:00 with a number of others admiring the enormous planet about ½ way up in the west, when a van drove up with Daniel, our liaison from the University, to announce that there were problems and it would be about 25 minutes before the bus arrived. Our fearless leader was NOT pleased, but after a question or two (not answered, really – he said he thought there was a problem with the food), he desisted and we waited. Promptly in 25 minutes up drove the bus and off we went. The streets where the market was to be were pretty empty – although we saw some people beginning to set up…before 6:00 a.m. It was just about four hours to our first stop – although Daniel did call one stop at a service station with “a urinal”. Varied scenery – the first half was highways lined with stalls and businesses, including a lot of Accra proper.

Gail noted that it was very difficult to imagine this “mess” ever becoming an actual city with sidewalks, services, etc. I have to agree – developing countries have this look about them, and it seems profoundly discouraging to me…..the freeway is being built, but on the grade that is not yet finished there are trucks and vans driving to stock shops and stalls….. I’m sure corruption and mismanagement play their part – on the second half of the journey we kept making 100-yard detours onto dirt road to circumvent the reinforced concrete culverts that were being poured in place, or were already finished but not covered up. Not that anyone was working on any of them (it was Sunday, after all) – there must have been half a dozen in an hour – and without even any sign of work about them, either. They look abandoned – and the detours appear at least semi-permanent. The thousands of homes along our way are mostly without running water or sewer, and the thought of having responsibility for providing services is just daunting!

The second half was more rural – occasional blobs of urbanization with “shops”, houses (some really nice, even palatial ones, too), and so on. The names of businesses in this part of the country are explicitly, even incongruously, Christian…..”The Holy Infant’s Refrigeration and Air Conditioning”, or “Blood of Jesus Hair Salon”, etc. We kept reading them off to each other. The north of this country has a lot of Muslims, but here in the south they are most definitely in the minority….and the Christians are very much “out there”….even moreso than in TN! Finally, we hit a stretch of road with palm trees and surf that looked a bit like Hawaii…

And soon, we passed a fortress-looking thing on a point

that looked like the “castle” we were supposed to go to, but our driver turned inland and drove another ½ hour or so, to Kakum National Park, where there is a Canopy Walk. Wow! I’ve seen these things in magazines and videos, and we actually saw one “in the flesh” on the Hill in Penang, but it was closed. Here we spent an hour walking on over 1,000 feet of “rope bridge” through the treetops

a very different perspective on the tropical mountain forests than we had cutting all those traplines in Venezuela! It was a little disconcerting to look straight down to the ground (note sandaled foot on the walkway)

and we saw nothing but vegetation, but the guide said that the early morning walks see troops of monkeys in the trees every time – only you have to be out on the walkway by about 4:30 a.m. Ah well.

Having finished there, we headed back for the “castle” we’d passed – built by the Portuguese 10 years before Columbus “discovered” America – and drove through Elmina to St. George’s castle. Took a tour, and it was grim….man’s inhumanity to man is a source of constant wonder. This fortress was taken by the Dutch in the early 1600s, and held for over 200 years. The Brits bought it in 1872, after the slave trade was completely shut down, and left in 1948 or so, after which it was used for police training for a while and then abandoned. It’s being repaired

but it doesn’t look very active….another curse of developing countries. It’s tough to spend money on the past when there are so many pressing demands from the present. There are 16 such forts along the coast of Ghana, but this one is the biggest, oldest, and best preserved (certainly the oldest – I think the other two, also). Great tourist attractions if developed properly, but……we’ll see what happens. There’s a world-class beach resort nearby where you can stay for about $100.00 nightly. Tennis, swimming pool, restaurant, etc.

We had PB sandwiches as we drove along on the bus for breakfast, and ate a hot lunch while watching the fishing boats

before going into the castle, also on the bus, but sitting in the parking lot. Rice with vegetables and a tomato sauce with gluten (or some other blocks of protein). We left the castle at 3:00, Gail buying a wonderful mask from the hawker nearby, and after four hours got home for supper about 7:00. Rice, yams, tomato/protein block sauce, mango and the sweetest pineapple I think I’ve ever eaten. On the way home, we were struck once again by the contrast between the “developing world” scenes in the foreground, and the apparently modern and “normal” installations behind…

Two devotionals after supper, and then back to our room in the Women’s Center to shower, type this up and go to bed.

Posted by on 07/09 at 01:38 PM

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BOTANICAL GARDENS, TROPICAL FOREST and SLAVE CASTLE - June 24-25

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