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Overlooking the Gulf of Guinea, a city lined with coco palms, scattered tin-hut villages, and turquoise beaches stretches for miles along the African coast. On the shores, fishermen tend their heavy nets. Mothers carry baskets on heads with infants tied to their backs. The African sun is brutal for workers on the sea. A fisherman’s job requires strength and skill in order to mend boats, throw nets and haul daily catch. Every now and then I stop to take a photo. An old fisherman tending his net looks up and says, “hullo”, revealing his white teeth. I respond politely and walk on. I quietly remind myself that today is not the day to take photos. Today is a day where I stop and reflect on the history of this city. I’m standing in the place where the American slave trade began: Cape Castle, also known as ‘Carolusberg’, the dungeons of death. For 400 years, slaves were captured in jungles and villages throughout Ghana, then transported to Cape Castle where they were held captive in dungeons. I didn’t expect to come to Cape Coast. I planned to stay in the capital of Accra, attend a friend’s wedding, explore the city, relax a little – but I felt this invisible thread, pulling me to learn more about the West African-slave trade, the historical atrocity, where it’s estimated around six-million slaves were shipped to different countries. I feel a myriad of emotion as I walk through the fort. Hatred. Despair. Disgust. I stumble down the cold, dark, dungeons, holding onto my mother who is clutching onto my arm. The earthy-mouldy scent reminds me of the cramped living conditions the slaves once endured. Within minutes, the tour guide turns the lights off and I feel nauseous. We stand in a circle. “This was the reality of the dungeons. See that small light in the wall?” He points to a small window. “This was the only source of light.” In this dungeon up to one hundred men were crammed side-by-side like sardines, urinating and defecating, forbidden to speak and chained to each other. I hear my mother praying quietly. We pass through the old Governor’s house and enter a small room with a concrete slab that was once used as a bed. Our tour guide stops and says, “This is where the governor had young female slaves brought him,” he turns to the bed, “...and here is where he would sexually abuse them.” No one says a word. I look up at some of the African American women on our tour who are holding back tears. Their partners try and comfort them, no doubt, raging on the inside. From our earlier conversations, I know some of the tour group are fathers and I realise, in another time, it could have been their daughters in this room. I try to comfort the women around me. A part of me wants to wake the dead of my own ancestors and yell profanities. Scream. Protest. But history reminds me that many good men and women fought hard to end the slave trade; some at their own peril. I ask our tour guide how the slave trade has shaped America today. He says, “Many of the female slaves had children as a result of rape, so, the British would take the children to the Americas and raise them in white families as ‘white people’. Those kids forgot their culture. Their people. Everything. And what this did was create a cultural divide that still exists in America today. Today we see white-African descendants looking down on their darker skinned brothers and sisters, who are poorer, less educated and marginalised. It’s tragic really.” Our tour ends. I hop back on the bus, feeling grateful that I’ve visited. It’s only until we see a glimpse of history for ourselves that we can truly understand. And when I hear those African drums, I’ll remember the rhythms of a life, a village, a family who once lived and breathed on this side of the world.