Favorite Shots in Ghana by Kisa Clark

Media in Ghana students take a boat tour of Lake Bosomtwe on August 4, 2019. The lake was formed by an ancient meteorite strike in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The lake is considered sacred to the Ashanti people and believe the lake was formed by an antelope who was saved by the body of water. Bosomtwe means “antelope god.”

An Adinkra artist demonstrates the process of making the ink in which stamps will be dipped and pressed into a piece of kente cloth near Kumasi, Ghana. Adinkra are symbols that represent concepts or aphorisms. The ink for Adinkra is made from the bark of Badie tree. The red bark fiber is pounded, soaked, and then boiled over a couple day process before being strained and utilized as ink.

Afternoon activity at Black Star Gate located within Independence Square in Accra, Ghana. The full square was commissioned by Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah to honor the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1961. It is possible to climb to the top of the gate for nice views of the entire square with a small bribe to the guard on duty.

A customer waits to place an order of fried chicken from a community vendor in the Gbese community of Accra. The community is located in the Jamestown district of Accra, one of the oldest in the city. Community members are primarily from the Ga ethnic group and speak the Ga dialect.

The Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in downtown Accra, Ghana houses the bodies of Ghana’s first president and his wife Fathia Nkrumah. The building is meant to represent an upside down sword, which in Akan culture is a symbol of peace. The memorial complex was dedicated in 1992 and is situated on the site of the former British colonial polo grounds where Africans were forbidden to enter at the time.

 

A visitor peers down from the wall of Elmina Castle in Elmina, Ghana located along Cape Coast. The castle was built by the Portuguese in 1482 and is the oldest and largest European building utilized in the transatlantic slave trade. Millions of enslaved Africans were kept in atrocious conditions in the dungeons of the castle over a four hundred year period.

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