|| My favorite holiday spot || by @kakape

Hello fellow steemians, I am very happy to come your way again with yet another post. This post is about a contest in this lovely community.

Everybody has once or twice in his/her lifetime visited a place during a holiday where they had an unforgettable experience. On holidays, I like to go on excursions to places where I have not visited before so I get the experience.

On one particular holiday, I decided to go on an excursion to the Pikworo slave camp in the upper east region. After the experience, I try to visit the place twice every year to listen to the stories over and over again.

Everyone has heard about the slave trade that occurred in the past and personally, anytime I hear these stories, it gives me goosebumps and I appreciate all the efforts our forefathers made to secure a peaceful land for us. Hearing the stories makes me feel sad and sometimes, people who go with me break down in tears.

You visit the place then you picture what the place was like when the slave trade was in action. These are the stories you hear when you visit the Pikworo slave camp.

This camp is located in Paga, a town in the upper east region and was established in 1704 and fell in 1764. Thus it lasted for sixty years. The name translates into English as ‘place of rocks’. The place is full of rocks and they used rocks for almost everything during the slave trade era.

The place was controlled by three slave masters including one who was a native of the Goldcoast. This place served as a transit where slaves were brought in from other places in Africa and then taken to any of the Castles to be taken to the “white-man-land”. What happens was that the place was serving as a market where middlemen came to buy the slaves and because it was the butter trade, the slaves were being exchanged for salt, mirror, sugar etc.

Sad, isn't it?
The sad part is, that slaves who were being held were maltreated; they were easing themselves in holes dug in the rocks, eating from holes dug in the rocks, and drinking water from holes dug in the rocks. Any slave who tried to be a recalcitrant was punished by sitting them on a punishment rock and making them stare at the sun directly. This made some of them go blind.

Also, they were malnourished due to the small amount of food and some of them died.

This is so heartbreaking. Exchanging human beings for a bowl of salt, this is so pathetic. But thanks be to God, all these have come to an end. Sorry to all those who suffered this and we are very grateful to those who stood to make sure this inhumane activity halted.

People like to visit beaches on holidays, but I like to visit places that will help me know about our history. Stories like these help us appreciate the effort that others made to secure all these for us so let us take care of it.

Thanks for your time and I hope we all start visitIng such places.