By SASHA ENGELMANN Special to the Palisadian-Post The Cape Coast castle stood stark white, bleached by centuries of equatorial sun. I sat on layers of red rock while a throng of small Ghanaian boys played ahead on the cliff. One of them I recognized. His name was Ebenezer, and I remembered how busy he was that morning, selling peeled oranges in the town’s market. Soon, the game took the other children away from the cliff and Ebenezer was alone, facing the dazzling blue of the ocean. Suddenly, he turned his head and his gaze met mine. Ebenezer’s eyes, usually downcast or shifting, searched my face. He balanced an almost empty glass-paned box on his head. Through the box, I could see the ocean and open sky next to the last, peeled orange left inside. The sun highlighted the collar of the oversized shirt he was wearing as a dress, but gave him no shadow. Behind him, sea foam danced on the rocky beach while small yellow flowers nodded their heads in the wind. Standing against the sea and the sky, Ebenezer was beautiful, but his face was pained and worried. The incongruity between the majestic scenery and his serious expression startled me. I realized that this contrast had existed for ages along the West African coast. Earlier that day in the seaside town, a local guide had taken us inside the Cape Coast castle and showed us the dungeons where slaves were held during the colonial era. The dirt there, he said, was known to contain high levels of blood and other human traces. Inside the cramped stone chambers the only light came from slits in the high rock walls. A heavy sense of despair and agony emanated from the darkness within. Outside on the rocks, the spell was broken by the brilliance of sun and stone, until I almost forgot the landmark’s significance. The day I met Ebenezer was one of the last days that I would spend in Ghana, along with a group of twelve other high school students from across the United States. For five weeks we lived and breathed West African culture while helping to construct a school in Gomoa Achiase, a rural village in Ghana’s Central Region. Together we learned Twi, an ancient language commonly spoken across the country, and acclimated ourselves to life without running water or electricity. We carried buckets of water and dirt on our heads from pools in nearby groves of banku trees to the construction site where mortar was mixed and bricks were laid. Despite our constant struggle with heat, humidity and hungry mosquitoes, the walls of the structure grew higher each day. The primary-school children, who loved to hold our hands and guide us in long chains through dense palms and grasses, inspired us to work even harder. Back at the compound at dusk, we took bucket showers and scrubbed the red soil off our pants. The nights in Achiase were as haunting as the days were vibrant. Wandering through the maze-like heart of the village after dark, we found another world of candlelit faces and food cooking over low flames. We heard busy footsteps pounding in narrow passages between simple wooden houses as vendors yelled out ‘Obruni!’ (white man) when we passed. Through the smiles of my friends Abena, Ekua, Kwame and Kofi, the blistering sunshine and the feel of sticky clay-like soil beneath my feet, I discovered new qualities in myself. I found that running in the rainforest through sheets of warm rain was oddly fulfilling, and that I could teach math across a language barrier with nothing but a stick and a flat space of dirt. I learned that I had natural skill in haggling with marketplace vendors and that I loved dancing to the rhythm of drums. I had never felt as intricately connected to a single community or project before Achiase, but it was only after we had returned to the Ghanaian coast that the core of my experience in Africa was sealed by a chance meeting. No other moment defined how I felt then as clearly as my encounter with Ebenezer. Though no more than 9 or 10 years old, he simply smiled and bounded over to talk to me. I explained ‘Me ye skuuni’ (I am a student) and mentioned the rest of my group. With excited gestures, Ebenezer described his own primary school and pointed out his friends in the distance. As the sun was setting and we had to part, he took my hand and whispered ‘Madamfo, efe paa’ (Friend, you are beautiful). Before I could say anything, he placed the last peeled orange in my hand. I stood there motionless while he slowly disappeared into the shaded town streets. I could still see the empty box bobbing in the distance even after his small figure merged with others. Our conversation lasted only as long as the fading light, but I realized that it had brought me closer to Ghana than I had ever felt before. I found Africa in Ebenezer’s steadfast brown eyes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sasha Engelmann, 18, a longtime resident of Pacific Palisades, is a senior at Palisades Charter High School and will graduate this spring. As a sophomore she became interested in environmental science and has led several community service projects aimed at rehabilitating threatened habitats in Temescal Canyon. Last summer, Sasha traveled to Ghana with the nonprofit organization Experiment in International Living to build a school for a rural village and develop a better sense of obstacles facing global sustainability. This experience deeply changed her views on international relations and the connection between poverty and environmental health. This April, Sasha’s Envirothon team at PaliHi won the California state competition and will compete in the national competition in New York in July. Sasha will be attending Stanford University this fall and plans to double-major in science and international policy. She said her greatest dream is to someday return to Africa and work with local people and governments to solve the challenges that face the peaceful coexistence of society and environment.
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