Cape Coast

Day 5 – April 28, 2010

The day started off very well. We were able to get on a direct bus from Kumasi to Cape Coast. This time the bus wasn't as nice as the one we took from Accra to Kumasi and the interior reminded me of an American public school, but it was loads better then a Togolese bush taxi. The trip took about 4 hours and the bus's last stop was within walking distance of our hotel, Oasis Guest House.

It was a nice hotel on the beach with an outdoor bar and restaurant. We got a bungalow type room with a view of the ocean. I believe it cost a little more than 30GH¢ a night. Lorena and I just dropped of our luggage and then headed out to see the Cape Coast Slave Castle, which was at most a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Matt decided to grab something to eat and rest in the room. The Cape Coast Slave Castle was worth seeing. The guided tour that we took was good as well as the museum. For more information on the Cape Coast Slave Castle go here www.website.com.

On our way back Lorena and I stopped at some of the shops selling a variety of handmade crafts. I bought a bag made out of strips of different of pagne so it looks very colorful, but it is still something that I would use in The States. I will take a picture of it at some point. Lorena bought a hat made the same way they made my bag. She's going to try to have the people she works with in Lama-Tessi try and recreate it or at the very least inspire them.

We were famished so once we got back to the hotel we went straight to the restaurant to get something to eat. An hour later, Matt met us and we all spent the rest of the day eating, drinking, talking and watching the waves. Therefore we didn't realize how quickly time passes and it was around 11pm when we paid and started back to our bungalow. The restaurant was right next our room, so it took us only 30 seconds or so to realize that all our stuff had been stolen out of our room.

The lights were on and the door was open. Pieces of the doorframe were on the ground with the remnants of some of the lock mechanism. We just stopped and stared for a moment then went to try and find one of the owners. The blond-haired owner came, surveyed the scene, than called the shaved-head owner. Lorena and the two owners, along with some of the workers at the hotel went out to see if the thieves left any of the bags. They came back not more than 10 minutes later carrying our bags. Apparently, the thieves had tried to roll my rolling bag through the sand on the beach so Lorena and the others followed the tracks and found various bags and items they had discarded along the way. Most of our things were found, but everything was thoroughly soaked. Lorena, was the one who lost the most, 2 passports (one PeaceCorps, one regular), $150 American dollars, an iPod and a digital camera. In the end I only lost my iPod and Matt was fortunate enough to come out of this with all of his belongings. In one of the bags, the robbers had taken, there was a small zipper bag of mine that had my passport, money and various other important items, but luckily when I got my bookbag back I found it undisturbed. Matt had the same thing happen to him and the robbers left his valuables untouched. Also, this was a little bizarre, I had my camera in an open case hanging on the arm of a chair in the room and the thieves totally missed it. I was very lucky. Also all the books that I bought in Accra I kept in the plastic bags that the sellers gave me, so they came out of the incident unscathed.

They repaired the door that night and so I slept in the room while the owners found Matt and Lorena another room.

 

Day 6 – April 29, 2010

The hotel was pretty nice about everything. They let us stay in the rooms and washed all our clothes for free. Granted, it was their hotel and lack of security was the reason why we robbed, but it was still nice. The next morning we woke up early and headed straight to the Cape Coast police station without breakfast. When we arrived we were led first into the waiting area for Lorena to fill out a report on what happened, then we were all led into another room which looked like something out of an action movie. There we all filled out separate police reports and were questioned by the officer there on what happened. Next he said he wanted to see the scene of the crime and he refused to walk the two minutes to the hotel so the owner was forced to pay for a cab for him. At the hotel he looked at our room for a few moments as we walked him through what happened. Next we showed him how we followed the tracks in the sand. The blond-haired owner asked if the policeman wanted to follow the tracks and see where they had found our abandoned luggage, the policeman said he didn't need to. Really it was because he would have to dirty his painfully shiny black shoes. Then the policeman said he wanted to see my rolling bag. We took him to the place outside where it was drying in the sun. He told me to take a picture of my bag as he carefully moved it around with a stick he had found on the ground, clearly he wanted to preserve the criminals' prints on the bag. Actually I think he may have watched a little too many detective shows. At this moment, I pointed out that I didn't understand how he was going to get the pictures from me after I took them. He didn't respond for a second then repeated that I had to take a few pictures, I hesitated but the blond-haired owner said that I should just go ahead and take the picture regardless of the ridiculousness of the policeman's request. So I did.

The next few hours we spent at the hotel, eating and talking while we waited for the police to give us their police report. We needed the police report for Lorena to be able to get a new passport. They said that we would get it at 2pm, but we ended up having to go back to the police station at 2pm to talk to another person, the "Crime Officer." After walking up a flight of stairs we entered his office and you could see one who was benefiting quite nicely from the corrupt legal system. We walk in and the guy is dressed in a nice shirt, nice pants and fancy shoes. He was watching a soccer game on a TV set up on the wall while listening to music from an expensive Panasonic sound system that was plugged into a nice laptop. Also connected besides the laptop was a scanner and a separate hp printer of some sort. He motioned for us to sit down and continued watching the soccer game for a few minutes before muting it and turning off the music. Then he leaned back in his leather chair, put the tips of his fingers together in front of his lips and asked, in a voice of doubt, if we spoke English. We responded, "yes." Then, thinking himself amusing he asked if we spoke French, we responded in unison, "Oui." He was somewhat nonplused after that, he hadn't expected us to be able to speak French. He asked us where we were from, and we said America and he continued to be a little bewildered. Then he asked if we lived in some Francophone country and we told him we lived in Togo. The reason being that the French we speak is not France French it is Togolese French therefore it could be compared to speaking Ghanaian English instead of American or British English.

So we continued speaking in French with him because he said it was easier for him. Really I think that he just was showing off to his inferiors. It is interesting here how people who are in positions of power are absolutely terrified of their subordinates and feel the necessity of constantly reinforcing their superiority in a variety of ways. In addition to this show of his remarkable intelligence he had book besides his laptop, very clearly displayed, that was titled, "48 Ways to Power." He was like some type of caricature. The conversation eventually changed into English as no one else except us could speak and understand French. Blond-haired owner was there with us and after arguing with the "Crime Officer," for some time I came to learn that here, in Ghana and probably all 3^rd world countries, one is guilty until proven innocent. At this point in my life I thought that things like that wouldn't surprise me, but it did. Especially since I've written papers in school on the subject, travelled to Myanmar and also having lived in Togo for nearly a year (haven't yet dealt with the Gendarmes though and really have no interest in it). However, this time being that the degree of separation between myself and a malfunctioning legal system was practically zero, "guilty until proven innocent," really struck me as being completely barbaric, archaic and illogical.

In the end the "Crime Officer," said that now because it was 5 minutes to 5pm we had to wait till tomorrow to get our report. His reasoning was that in order to get the report we had to go somewhere else and pay 5 GH¢ to get a receipt that said that we paid for the police report and because we couldn't get there before it closed at 5pm we had to wait. We were annoyed. We went back to the hotel, ate, drank, played some pool and went to bed.

Day 7 – April 30, 2010

After breakfast we headed to the police station naively thinking that it would take more than a couple of hours now that we had the receipt for the police report. Earlier that morning the shaved-head owner of the hotel went out and paid the 5 GH¢ for the receipt of the police report for us. We stayed there all day, sitting and waiting till 4:43:54pm, the policeman who "had taken our statements and investigated the scene of the crime" gave Lorena the final police report. 15 minutes earlier she had been given the police report, but she noticed her name was spelled in a variety of creative ways. Matt and I's favorite spelling was "Loranda" and much to Lorena's chagrin for the remaining days of our trip we called her Loranda. After we got the police report we headed out immediately and arrived a few hours later in Takoradi. We stayed at 'You 84' a pretty nice hotel that had A/C, hot water and clean sheets however from the construction going on outside you wouldn't even think it was a hotel. That evening we took a taxi to a seafood restaurant I believe was called Captain Hook's. Afterwards we went back to the hotel to sleep.