Cape Coast Festival

I found myself meandering through the carnival-esque streets, alone and gloriously happy. With a bag of 20 pesawa sweet popcorn, I roamed the main street of Cape Coast. I saw old people sitting in bunches by store fronts in plastic chairs, women selling peeled oranges neatly arranged in metal frames and a woman announcing “Milo, Milo” (the hot-chocolate esque drink that’s sold cold and in a green skinny can,) and the smoky haze announcing another kebab stand rich in red fat hot dogs and dark delicious beef strips. I caught myself automatically heading towards our hotel, but only out of habit. So I doubled back and walked towards the ocean, following the warm golden light of late afternoon. Everything looked beautiful and alive and pulsing.

I sat alone on the bluff behind the castle overlooking the tumultuous beautifully conflicted waves and long stretch of sandy beach hemmed by its accompanying palm tree lining and fishing canoes. The waves are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, which seems fitting actually, given the stories people say about what happens if you swim in these waters. The story is that the hands of the slaves who died at the castle and were thrown in the water reach up and pull you down down into their murky depths. I wonder how many bones once littered the ocean floor around here. Anyway, all you can see today are the waves that fling themselves at the rocky acropolis and then ricochet backwards, to collide head-on with the next oncoming wave. The result is a huge spray of water and foam that reaches up and surges along the length of the waves, almost like a row of Broadway dancers kicking their legs out one after the other in perfect flowing synchronicity.

Regardless of these endless watery collisions, and of the dominance of the castle in the background, the beach is a happy exuberant place. Looking down the stretch, I watch with a smile I can’t help as a crowd of little black boys practice a string of backflips into the surf. They’re far away so all I can see are their dark silhouettes against the golden haze and reflection of the sand.

Dusting myself off, I decide to follow the curve of the coastline and meander through one of the smaller streets – as I do I get the impression that not a lot of tourists walk this way, and from now until I rejoin the main street I’m the only obruni I see. Everywhere there are people in and along this street, walking places, hugging people they run into, selling things (but to each other, not to me – which is a refreshing change), eating, cooking. Now there’s a procession of people in blue and white up ahead, a throng of them even, and I squeeze between a car and a gutter to slip ahead of them. We’re climbing a hill now and the street is even smaller and it feels like everyone knows each other, which can’t be true because it’s a big city and there’re so many people but it feels like a small town and the people dancing in the streets are the same people who live in the slummish shacks a few feet away. The homes are built in succession receding from the road and little dirt paths branch off but I am too ... self conscious? Afraid? To venture down any of them and instead step off onto a platform at the top of the hill. From here I can see down to a narrow strip of beach, and stand by as the blue and white parade passes by. I can see roofs of corrugated metal and washing lines laden with colorful clothes and brown dirt packed down from walking over it, and a little boy with a bucket and a woman who slips around a corner gracefully. I feel serene and peaceful, even amidst the noisy boisterous procession.