As I’m aware we don’t have very many posts left for this semester, I’m struggling to decide what to share with all of you this week. Perhaps I’ll talk about some unique things about Ghana.
As you’ve hopefully discovered by now, Ghana is a very interesting country. There are many facts about Ghana that most people have never heard of or maybe one knows some of this stuff but never associated it specifically with Ghana before.
So Ghana, also known as the Gold Coast, was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to win its independence, although Ghanaians never had to fight in war to achieve their freedom from Great Britain.
You may have heard of Kente cloth before, but did you know that it originated with the Ashanti people in Ghana? It dates back 375 years to Bonwire which is a town in Ghana that leads in production of Kente. According to legend, there were two brothers from Bonwire who went hunting and discovered a spider spinning a web. In an effort to create something like the spider had, they returned home to make the first Kente cloth (Kente Cloth Origins).
Mount Adaklu, in Helekpe, where I lived for many years, is the tallest free standing mountain in Ghana.
The hike can take anywhere from two to four hours depending on the age group, experience level, and speed of the hike. I’ve personally made the climb many times and every single time, I told myself that I would never do it again because I hate hiking but lo and behold, when another group of Americans would come to visit, I’d be in the group taking them up the mountain. It was always fun in the end, but the hike was never as easy as I would have liked.
Ghana also has many tourist attractions such as the slave castles and the hanging bridges in Cape Coast.
There are a few different slave castles in Ghana but I have only personally seen two, Elmina and Cape Coast. Walking through and touring the locations that caused such harm and pain in Ghanaians’ lives was certainly a touching experience.
Although I was young, I understood what the slave castles were representing and through the tour guides, I learned a little of the sad history of slavery in Ghana.
The hanging bridges in Cape Coast are one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of Ghana.
The seven bridges hang from very tall trees and the ground is very hard or impossible to see from almost every bridge. It’s said that elephants can be heard in the forest beneath the bridges, but personally, I’ve never seen or heard them before so maybe the guides just say that to make people look and listen for elephants. Going to see the bridges was always something fun and exciting for my family and although I only went to the hanging bridges twice or three times, they were fantastic experiences and I’d love to go back and walk on them again.
Works Cited:
“Kente Cloth Origins.” Kente Computing | Origins, csdt.org/culture/legacy/african/kente/origins.html.
Ghana seems like a very unique country. It’s cool to hear your insider perspective on it all, especially because you have a deep emotional connection to the country. I bet it was hard to hear about the history of slavery, especially while having that connection. The hanging bridges also look like a really cool attraction…were they created for tourists or did they have a practical purpose to help with transportation?
To the best of my knowledge, they were only created as an attraction. I can’t imagine any use they’d have in the middle of nowhere as transportation haha.
Wow, I didn’t realize how much there was in Ghana! It sounds incredible and makes me want to go! There seems to be so much history and I feel like many people often overlook that when they think about Africa. The slave castles seem like such an emotional experience. The hanging bridges also sound so cool! I’ve always wanted to walk across a real one. Hopefully I’ll get to Ghana some day!
This makes me want to drop everything and go visit. I think having this experience is awesome and it totally gives you a different outlook on the world. These things about Ghana are all incredible and I think it’s so cool that at one point, these pictures were your everyday scenery and they were your life. I’m sad that the semester is almost over and we won’t get more Ghana posts 🙁
A few years ago, I’d see those hanging bridges on social media all over the place. I’d say how I’d love to walk across one…but then I realized how high some of them are. I feel like the beauty of so many countries aren’t showcased enough. I can’t wait to visit Ghana. It’s an attraction that must be seen in person I’m sure.