Ghana is special and I felt it everytime I travelled there. There is neither the “Here I am” attitude prevalent in bigger neighboring countries nor is there a lack of self-assurance. It’s just Ghana, the first African country which gained independence and which inspired subsequent independence movements throughout Africa. Once known as the Gold Coast because it was rich in gold and cocoa. I visited the slave fort of Cape Coast, accidentally with two American couple who had come to Ghana to follow the traces of their ancestors. Here in this dark, filthy dungeon of the massiv Elmina castle, their ancestors had probably been “stored” together with hundreds of others, with no place to lie down and no place to defecate but into the incoming salt water. From here, the local guide explained us in his almost unbearably monotone voice, the ladies’ ancestors were probably packed like sardines in a tin to be transported in a most humiliating way to the new world. It’s hard for me to think of a more nightmarish travel moment.