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Unbelievable, twenty-seven of those houses of misery were located in Ghana. Various European oppressors had occupied the Cape Coast Castle Dungeons during the Trans-Atlantic European Slave Trade. It began with the Portuguese in the 1500's, followed by the Dutch, then the Swedes, the Danes and finally the English who occupied it in 1665. It remained under their control, serving as the seat of the British Administration in the Gold Coast (Cape Coast) until they re-located their racist regime to Christianborg Castle in Accra in 1877. Our next stop was the Palaver (which means talking/discussing) Hall, the meeting place of slave merchants, which also served as the hall used in auctioning off our ancestors. The room was huge, the only light coming from the windows which lined both sides of the walls; one side facing the ocean, the other side overlooking the town; a bare room, echoing the voice of our Guide, a haunting echo, which reverberated off the walls, as the Guide explained how they bargained and sold us. When slave auctions were not going on, Palaver Hall was used as a meeting place for the Governor, Chiefs and other visitors. We then moved on to the Governor's apartment and the church, which I felt like burning down! But nothing could prepare me for what we would experience next. We descended the stairs into a large cobble-stoned courtyard and walked through large double wooden doors, which lead into a long, dark, damp tunnel. The stench of musty bodies, fear and death hung in the air. There was no noise except the thunderous crashing of the waves against the outer walls and the roaring sound of the water. Deeper we walked, into large, dark rooms which had served as a warehouse for enslaved Afrikan people awaiting shipment to the America's and Caribbean. This was the Men's Dungeon. As we stood in that large cavernous room the air was still, the little ventilation that was available came from small openings near the 20-foot high ceilings. Our ancestors had been kept underground, chained to the walls and each other, making escape impossible. The mood of
the group was hushed, as several people started crying. We were standing
in hellholes of the most horrific conditions imaginable. There were no
words to express the suffering that must have gone on in these dungeons.
I became caught up, thrown back in time. I was suddenly one of the
many who were shackled, beaten and starved. But I was one of the
fortunate souls to have survived the forced exodus from their homelands
to be sold, branded and thrown into those hellholes, meant to hold (600)
people but which held more than 1,000 enslaved Afrikans at one time.
The men separated from the women, as they awaited shipment to the Americas.
According to our Guide, the chalk marks on the walls of the Men's Dungeon
indicated the level of the floor prior to the excavation of the floor,
which had built up over years of slavery with feces, bones, filth etc.
As the guide continued to describe the horrors of these pits of hell I
began to shake violently; I needed to get out of there. I was being
smothered. I turned and ran up the steep incline of the tunnel, to
the castle courtyard, the winds from the sea whipping my face, bringing
me back to the present. I couldn't believe what I had just experienced.
How could anyone be so cruel and inhuman?
Following the guide we proceeded across the massive courtyard and down another passage way to the Women's Dungeon, a smaller version of the Men's Dungeon but not so deep underground, it had held over 300 women at any given time. As we entered that dark, musty, damp room, the sound of the crashing waves was like muffled, rolling thunder. A dimly lit, uncovered light bulb hung from the ceiling on a thin, frayed wire. After standing silently for a time in this tomb, the Guide began to lead the group out. I was the last person left in the room when the Guide turned and said he was continuing the tour. "Please,” I said, “I'm not ready to leave, just turn off the light for me and I will join the group shortly.” As the group walked silently away, the tears would not stop flowing. I dropped to my knees, trembling and crying even harder. With the light off, the only light in that dungeon came through one small window near the very high ceiling, reflecting down as though it were a muted spotlight. Darkness hung in every corner. As I rocked back and forth on the dirt floor, I could hear weeping and wailing...anguished screams coming from the distance. Suddenly the room was packed with women...some naked, some with babies, some sick and lying in the dirt, while others stood against the walls around the dungeon's walls, terror filled their faces. "My God, what had we done to wind up here, crammed together like animals?" Pain and suffering racked their bodies, a look of hopelessness and despair on their faces...but with a strong will to survive. "Oh God, what
have we done to deserve this kind of treatment?”
"Don't cry,” they said. “You've come home. You've returned to your homeland, to re-open the Door of No Return.” Gradually the voices and the women faded into the darkness; it was then that I realized that some of the screams I'd heard were my own. The eerie light beaming down from the window was growing dimmer as day began fading into night. As I got up from the dungeon floor I knew that I would never be the same again! “After years of wandering and searching, I have finally found home. And one day, I wouldn't be leaving again.” The book that you hold in your hands, "Returning Home Ain't Easy But It Sure Is A Blessing,” speaks to the visions of our ancestors and demonstrates the efforts both positive and negative, the humor, the tears and the frustrations of a Diaspora Afrikan family diligently working and struggling within the blessings of being back in our ancestral homeland. It faces the startling realities plagued by those of us who are trying to return home. Realities of the fact that many of our continental Afrikan born brothers and sisters have very little knowledge of the Afrikan people born and raised in the Diaspora that resulted from the Trans-Atlantic (European) Slave Trade. Ironically,
every Ghananian we spoke with wanted to go to the United States. We were
coming and they wanted to go. We were like ships in the night, passing
each other unseeing and uncaring.
"Dis es ah stickup, don' turn roun' or jew dead, Mon." They then tied and bound him, before throwing him in the trunk of the taxi. Riding around the Bronx and Manhattan they ended up dumping him on a dark street in the early morning. At a deserted Terminal Market in the Bronx, they ordered him to stay still and not move for 15 minutes. Thank God, he was unhurt that time, but what about next time? Certainly no one could doubt there would be a next time the way things were happening in New York City. Children were being gunned down playing in the streets and in playgrounds. Safety was a problem even in the school system. These chaotic conditions, among other problems caused us to run like hell from New York, out of the United States and straight home to Afrika. Here we found our family of four could live in comfort on my husband's pension from the New York City Fire Department. We set about pursuing economic empowerment for ourselves and the development and betterment of our Afrikan family on the continent. However, since arriving here we have found that there are many jobs that are either reserved exclusively for Ghanaians or require certain monetary stipulations designed for big corporations. My husband, who owned and operated his own taxicab/car service in New York, would have to have a minimum of 10 cars to go into the car service business here. If we could afford to purchase 10 cars, would we need to open a car service? We owned our own Travel Agency in the United States but in Ghana we would have needed ($10,000.00) US Dollars operating capital and a Ghanaian partner, or ($200,000.00) U.S. Dollars to do it alone. In the absence of that kind of up-front cash, we have had to call upon our God given creativity. Returning Home Ain’t Easy chronicles how we maintained ourselves, re-connected with our extended family, developed business interests to secure a good future for our families, while trying to make a worthwhile contribution to our community. It has been ten years since our family returned to "Mother" Afrika leaving behind mayhem, racism, creeping anarchy, bedlam, etc. (That's not to say things aren’t far from or are perfect here in Ghana). We've been tricked, accused of being racist, called Obruni (White man & foreigner), but we've also been loved and welcomed home by many of our Ghanaian brothers and sisters. They are anxious to learn about us, as we are about them. Each of us wants to know who the other has become. Who, we have become while we were separated from our "Mother" land. This healthy
exchange makes a stronger bond between us. Together we can set about
correcting those wrongs committed against us and remember the strength
and greatness of us as Afrikan people. Just as a two-chord rope is
stronger than a one-chord rope, our knowledge of the truth of our separation
from one another will enable us to go forward as a stronger, united Afrikan
front, a power source to be reckoned with spiritually, economically and
politically..
That being so, it is with the blessing & fulfillment of *Prophesy that we have returned home on the **“wings of the wind. *Genesis 15
verse 13:
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