Cape Coast

we spent a day in cape coast helping mom and dad with some of their mission work. we got to see the chaos of the post office and the craziness of the bank. it was pretty incredible.

then we moved on to a little shop on the coast where we made some authentic african fabric! of course we took some time to enjoy the view first.

and james explored a little of the slave castle that was right next to the shop. we went to the castle later on in our travels so i'll tell you more about that later.

making our fabric was so fun. and it's not just something they do for tourists, it's their everyday technique. first step to dye the cotton fabric or just leave it white. next you pick a stamp. the stamps are hand carved into foam squares from old mattresses. then the stamps are dipped into hot wax and stamped onto the fabric.

then another coat of dye. whatever color you want. the dye is made from colored glass bottles that have been grinded down to a powder and mixed with water. james picked orange. i did brown.
the final step is putting the died fabric into a hot pot of water so that the wax stamp melts off. this makes the pattern visible. then you just hang it to dry in the humid ocean breeze!
that night we went to my parents house to enjoy a nice redred dinner prepared by Sister Afrani. Redred is a bean dish with lots of veggies in it (if you're lucky) served with fried plantains and plantain chips.
as you can see we licked our plates clean. this one was a winner! and what do you do after dinner, but learn African tribal dance. Sister Odeibia, Sister Wallace, Sister Afrani, and Sister Owuna taught me how to groove african style. then james and i showed them some country dance moves. they laughed pretty hard.
and the night was complete after dad showed them his hawaiian hula moves.