Ghana, Africa

Ghana

            Exactly one month ago I boarded the MV Explorer and began my voyage. It’s hard to believe that I am already one month in and three countries in. If the past month has been indescribable, I can only imagine the experiences the next two bring.

We left Takoradi, Ghana Thursday, and today it hit me what an incredible experience it was. I have begun to learn that the ports are all a blur until you get on-board, and it hits you like a wave.  It’s such a surge of energy when you first arrive, and the experiences all catch up to you when you leave.  For some people it hit them so fast that they just started to cry at what they had seen. Other students chose to treat it as a spring break and drink the whole 5 days. Each to their own, but I am happy with how I spent my 5 days.

To highlight what I did:

Day 1: Walked around the city of Takoradi, and visited a beach

Day 2: Travelled to Cape Coast and walked on the canopy walkway, a series of swinging bridges on top of the trees- one of only 4 in the world.

Day 3: Visited the slave castles and Dungeons in Ghana

Day 4-Day 5: Travelled to an orphanage and spent the day with 18 kids, and then travelled to a fishing village to feed 1250 kids.

The last two days were by far the most powerful. We visited an orphanage called the City of Refuge, where former child labour victims live after being rescued by the couple who run the orphanage. The amount of child labour in Ghana is unacceptable. We seem to take pride in the fact that the slave trade was a thing of the past, but modern day slavery exists, and its kids who are the victims.  After visiting the orphanage we travelled to a place where many children are kidnapped and used as child labour in the fishing industry. The sad part is that many of the children willfully leave the village because they have been told they will be taken to a place where there is better education and more job opportunities. Their captives make a promise to the mothers of these children, a false promise. While we did give out 1250 meals, there were still children who walked away with nothing. In talking to a friend after she described it perfectly. She said, “normally when I help people I feel good, but this time it doesn’t feel that way.”

I hope to visit the orphanage again one day and dedicate more time to the cause in stopping child labour. It’s difficult to experience all these emotions at once, but I already feel like a stronger person for it.

Edwin, City of Refuge Orphanage, February 10th 

Next stop is South Africa. Should be another amazing experience.