From Deadly Walkaway To Point Of No Return – By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

I have made some interesting trips in this life.
Let’s do recall of my journey to the Caine Prize Writing Workshop in Ghana back in the year of Our Lord 2009.
The invitation from Nick Elam, the then administrator of the Caine Prize for African Writing, was straightforward: “This is to invite you to participate in the Caine Prize Workshop for African Writers that will take place at the Royal Beach Resort and Hotel, Accra, Ghana between 21 April and 1 May 2009. All your travel, accommodation costs and living expenses will be paid by the Caine Prize.”
The invite also stated that I would be met at Accra airport on arrival and taken to the workshop venue in time for the inaugural supper.
True to my nature of going against all rules, I decided not to take any flight to Accra.
I instead chartered a car to make the journey overland.
I got to Accra at night and took a cab to La Palms Royal Beach Hotel in the centre of town only to learn to my chagrin that it was not the hosting hotel.
Some frantic phone calls apprized me of the proper venue situated in a beach some two or so hours out of town!
The hotel cab driver who promised to take me to the place charged all of 60 Cedis.
With the currency decimalization in Ghana, it was akin to being charged 60 US Dollars!
You can make the conversion to Naira – this is more than the fare from Nigeria to Ghana by air, land or sea!
After settling the bill of the uncompromisingly greedy cab driver I was taken to the far-out beach.
I settled into Sankofa Beach Hut, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
A rainstorm shook up the night.
I fell down while closing the windows and mopping the flooding floors.
I met Nick Elam at breakfast the next morning, and he was full of lament on how many times they had to go to the airport looking for me!
His charming wife Helen was so relieved setting eyes on me yet again after the happy time we had in London at the Caine Prize awards in 2008.
The 2008 Caine Prize winner, South Africa’s Henrietta Rose-Innes, was her usual bubbly self while the Brooklyn, New York-based other nominee originally from Ghana, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, author of the short story collection The Prophet of Zongo Street, resumed his cherished brotherhood with me.
We reminisced on the nights we spent wandering about the London streets, boozing and sampling the menu of diverse restaurants.
He would later get me to serve as a talking head on a documentary he was doing on the legacy of John Jerry Rawlings as Ghana’s revolutionary leader.
He feared for my life when I said Nigerian leaders needed the Rawlings treatment!
The Sudanese novelist based in Barcelona, Spain, Jamal Mahjoub, author of the 1989 novel Navigations of a Rainmaker, served as the workshop facilitator alongside Sierra Leone’s Aminatta Fiorna who operates out of London, England.
The now deceased Ghanaian novelist, playwright and short story writer, Ama Ata Aidoo, author of The Dilemma of a Ghost, Anowa, No Sweetness Here, Changes etc had an evening with us in which she read some of her “flash” fiction.
It was a rewarding session shared with Rawlings’ former minister Mohammed Ben Abdalla.
Towards the end of our stay we made the three-hour journey by bus to the Kakum National Park, managed by the Wildlife Division of the Ghana Forestry Commission, at Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana.
A major highlight of the visit was the long walk across the 333-metres “canopy walkway” built by two Canadian engineers and six Ghanaians.
A narrow wooden board suspended on ropes and shielded on either side by shoulder-high nets ensured that one walked atop the trees, not unlike being hoisted on top of the trees at Milliken Hill in Enugu!
After a successful passage one was greeted with the following words: “Thanks for surviving the walkway.”
It’s indeed scary!
With our hearts still beating with the exertions at the walkway we departed to the Elmina Slave Castle and saw the dastardly “Point Of No Return” for slaves being shipped away across the seas.
It was not a pretty sight beholding the cells for the male and female slaves.
The top floor was reserved for the white administrator to have a good view of choosing the best female slave to devour each night!
A dark, windowless room was reserved for disobedient slaves to die in.
The only peephole was for the soldiers to see when a slave had died!
The white administrator had Psalm 132:4 emblazoned in the castle, to wit, “This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.”
We were a sober and subdued lot, returning from the slavery haunts.
It was well into the night that we made it back to AB’s Royal Beach Resort and Hotel owned by the inimitable Mr. Boateng.
We drowned our sorrows in red and white wine, Star and Club beer.
In the end, I broke my own rule of always breaking rules by departing for Kotoka International Airport for the 45-minute Virgin Nigeria Airline flight back to good old Lagos, Nigeria.
As the Ghana musician sang, “Travel and see!”

• Uzoatu is a writer and poet