Category Archives: Ghana, Africa

We went to Cape Coast on Saturday to visit the castles. It was horrible. I felt so many emotions. Anger, hurt, frustration and sadness hit all at once. I passed through the door of no return and saw the dungeons where my forefathers were held, tortured and slaughtered. I can still smell the blood and excrement in the air as we walked from tunnel to tunnel. I saw where the female slaves were housed and made to live in all of their fluids and released periodically by their captures into a small court yard where the governor and his men would pick a slave to defile for the night. Some were kept longer as mistresses and murdered and cast into the sea while others were used and returned to the dungeons to await their fate. I stood in the dark lifeless cells where the slaves were stored to die anywhere from 60 to 150 in a cell. The incredible heat and lack of air, light, food and water killed most of them in only a few days. A stain line around the wall almost a half meter high depicted the height of the bodily fluids they had to stand in total darkness. The only light that came in to the dungeons was when the guards came to throw more Africans in.

We were taken to another part of the castle where there was yet another door of no return that was not a door at all but a small tunnel cut into the stone walls of the castles dungeon. It was about 20 meters long and it was impossible to stand in which meant that its travelers would have to crawl on their hands and knees through this tunnel toward the light outside. Blinded by that light the slaves did not realize that the tunnel is lined with glass, nails and sharp rocks as a final test of strength and determination. One might think the slave merchants would not want the slaves that fought back and rebelled or would kill them but instead they provoked them to riot. They let the solders hone their fighting skills fighting the rebelling slaves and kept the very best and strongest slave fighters and sold them for higher profits. This is where the term “Freedom Fighters” comes from. The solders would provoke the slaves to fighting for their freedom and in the end put down their rebellion with all manner of cutlass and musket and all manner of unforgiving war implement.

The tunnel is now covered over with an ancestral alter where Kings and Tribal chiefs and pilgrims and African descendants still come to pray. I stood in front of the alter and began to pray silently and in my soul I could feel the slight glimpse of hope the slaves must have felt when they were lead into this room and told they would get their freedom on the other side of the tunnel. I broke down crying in anger and sorrow for all those souls, (20 Million died in the castles alone) and I fell to my knees and got some of the most horrible pictures of human atrocity you could imagine.

I understand what Alex Halley felt when he wrote “Roots” and why W.E.B. Du Bois dedicated his last breath to exploring and recording Africa’s true History. We have been lied to on so many levels. Writing about it I have a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes. I can’t wait to show you these pictures and share with you all that I have learned.

Rahim Baskett
Photographer
MindSoulVision Photography
URL: http://www.mindsoulvision.com/
Email: Rahimb@mindsoulvision.com

Today we leave Kumasi after some strange lessons in pride and priority. Yesterday (Friday) after being granted a second interview with Nana Osei Hwedie he also got us a very hard to get introduction to the King of the Ashanti Tribe and a tour of his Royal palace. Needless to say I am very excited about this opportunity. The students are, as always lost in their small world and manage to not grasp site of the bigger picture or grander order of things. Beyond that the Chief has offered to lead us to the palace by driving his own car there and formally making the introduction himself. Further, he had some business to attend to with the king and clearly he was going to make the introduction and he and the king would go and attend to affairs of state. The students more interested in playing with the children of Wadie Adwumakase than building their school and canteen as they were commissioned to do decide to stop working once again and start a good game of Foot ball with some of the children. It was cute for a bit until the Chief sent word that he would be ready to leave and if we planned to meet the King we would have to leave in about 5 minutes in order to catch the king at the palace. This was not important to the students. Needless to say the chief waited and waited for the students to pet the children of Wadie like puppies and offer to take them home with them for 20 minutes. The chief grew angry waiting at his palace and needed to go and take care of affairs of state with the king and left us.

The foot ball game was cut short and the students pouted and whimpered as they still could not take home one of the children to keep for their very own. Since they couldn’t go to the palace and their game had not been played in full they decided they needed to go shopping so off we went to the art center again to bargain for more trinkets and toys and on to lunch. Evening comes quickly in Ghana and is very welcome on days like this. The shooting schedule is tight and I am still only sleeping 4 hours a night. In the morning it is back on the bus for the long trek back to Accra and one the way, according to the itinerary, we would be stopping at Cape Coast to visit Elmina Castle, one of the last standing slave castles in Africa. (I still don’t know how I feel about that.) It’s a 6 hour drive with no traffic along rough terrain and I am looking forward to it. This opportunity will allow me to shoot the pictures for TEG and at the same time help me along with the “Tracing the Underground Rail Road” project. There is also a need for that spiritual connection and experience to complete this trip and at least in my eyes complete the Ghana, Africa experience for me.

Two hours into the trip we are told by the students that they do not want to go to Cape Coast today and instead want to drive past Cape Coast straight to Accra. The driver tried to explain that it would mean taking a second high way that would be far more crowded and it would take longer as the highways do not frequently intersect with each other in Ghana. No matter! The students wanted to go to Accra and that was it according to their new leader. (A Story that can only be told in person over drinks!) 3 more hours into our now 8 hour trip I found out that we were bypassing Cape Coast to go to Accra Post office before it closed and now the driver had to get the bus through the arduous Ghana traffic before it closed at 5p. When I questioned the student leader as to why we were in such a hurry to make the post office I was told that we would be bypassing one of the most important reasons for flying 1549 miles to the other side of the planet to get stamps for the student leaders collection. Clearly I needed more justification for potentially missing this major event to collect stamps. So, in true Jerry Ruffin form I inquired further. Are these magic stamps sold by the same guy who sold Jack his bean stalk beans? Is that really why we are bypassing history, to get stamps? I got exactly the response I expected. NONE!!! Just a blank stare and silence. The bus remained silent as all of its occupants could see the steam rising from my collar. We arrived at the Accra post office shaken and dusty from the road trip and the student leader got his stamps. He seemed quite please with his purchases as he boarded the bus exclaiming that he could get 4 times the value of the stamps in the us as long as nothing happened to them. For the first time in this adventure I am praying and counting on Ghana heat and humidity to do its thing. Ghana doesn’t let me down!!!

Rahim Baskett
Photographer
MindSoulVision Photography
URL: http://www.mindsoulvision.com/
Email: Rahimb@mindsoulvision.com

We are in the Ashanti region of Africa which means this region is mainly inhabited by the Ashanti tribe in all of its states (Ghana, Nigeria and a couple other parts) There are Chiefs, and regional governors in every town and village as well as a president and then there is the King who over rules all of them. Nana Hwedie (pronounced phw-e-day) everyone calls him NANA which is Twi for father! Nana’s under chief has to sign off when a new King is to take power which says that the new king qualifies to be King by the technical qualifications and programs they have to go through to be king and he is a proper Heir to the throne. Nana can overrule that and send the new proposed King away if he doesn’t think he qualifies to be King or if he doesn’t like him or just wants to embarrass the new King he can choose to postpone his inauguration and not bless him with the Ashanti Sword.

He took us on a tour of the Palace which is humble but you get a sense that a very regal and powerful man lives there. Being in his presence is a humbling experience and he seems to really like me because I am working with Donald and going to help him come to the US to promote the work in Wadie. The Chief wants me to be his Photographer for his US tour! J He then took us to see his Customary basket thingy whose name slips me right now, where they carry him through the town on special occasions. He says it takes six strong men to carry him so he would rather just drive his shiny new BMW. We got a good laugh out of that. Then he took us to see his Thrown collection. There are three. His regular everyday one which is gold and silver set in Mahogany wood, his ceremonial one which is platinum and silver and Gold for coronations and public events like weddings and so forth and the forbidden thrown.

He told us the ledgend of the forbidden thrown. It goes, no woman can sit in that thrown before menopause or she will never bare children. It works!!! It is Gold and covered in cow leather set in Mahogany wood and all three thrones are Beautiful. I will post the pictures to The Education group site tonight before we leave. This is very exciting. I sat with Patience (the writer Donald hired to work with me and write and interview everyone I take pictures of and interpret for me on many occasions) under Nana’s royal tree (a tree found in the yards of chief’s and Kings all over Africa where they sit and talk to their people and cabinets when they are not in parliament or in some other official business locale) It was very much like the tree of life in Disney. I will also post pictures of that to my site in the next day or so.

Rahim Baskett
Photographer
MindSoulVision Photography
URL: http://www.mindsoulvision.com/
Email: Rahimb@mindsoulvision.com

Today the students arrived and we took them out on the tour. We took them to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (that is Donald’s Grand Father and first president of Ghana) and then we took them to the Arts Center and let them shop around for a little while and then we took them to the W.E.B. Du Bios Memorial park which is a national park the make out of his actual house and grounds. It was a humbling experience. I didn’t know that he died while working on the first complete African historical Encyclopedia which is still not completed. The tour guide said that he wrote the first three books and scholars from all over Africa have been trying to write the other 28 books ever since he died. They said they will be finished in 2010. They said it took so long because they are finding out so much about African history from doing the research and debating every little detail whereas no one really questioned W.E.B. Du Bios. It was great!!!

I learned so much and got to teach the students some of the stuff I learned from talking to the diplomats, teachers and locals. That’s always a big plus. They say I am becoming an official Ghanaian every day. LOL!

Rahim Baskett
Photographer
MindSoulVision Photography
URL: http://www.mindsoulvision.com/
Email: Rahimb@mindsoulvision.com