ACCRA: In this file photo taken on July 31, 2019, US Representative Ilhan Omar (left) poses for pictures as she arrives at the Ghana's Parliament in Accra, during a three-day visit to the country to mark the 400 years anniversary since the first slave shipment left the Ghana's coast for United States. - AFP

ASSIN MANSO: In a
clearing at the turnoff to Assin Manso, a billboard depicts two African slaves
in loincloths, their arms and legs in chains. Beside them are the words,
"Never Again!" This is "slave river," where captured
Ghanaians submitted to a final bath before being shipped across the Atlantic
into slavery centuries ago, never to return to the land of their birth. Today,
it is a place of somber homecoming for the descendants of those who spent their
lives as someone else's property.

The popularity of
the site has swelled this year, 400 years after the trade in Africans to the
English colonies of America began. This month's anniversary of the first
Africans to arrive in Virginia has caused a rush of interest in ancestral
tourism, with people from the United States, the Caribbean and Europe seeking
out their roots in West Africa. "Ten years ago, no one went to the slave
river, but this year has been massive," said Awuracy Butler, who runs a
company called Butler Tours.

She said business
has nearly doubled this year, which has been touted as the Year of Return for
the African diaspora tracing their family history. The number of tourists has
forced her to hire more vehicles, she said. "Everyone wants to add the
slave river to their tour," she said. The coastal forts where they spent
their last days in Ghana in suffocating conditions are also increasingly
popular, she said. The increase in tourism has been an economic boon for Ghana,
which unlike other West African countries has aggressively marketed its
"heritage" offerings for the anniversary.

Officials see it
as an opportunity to entice some much-needed foreign investment into the
economy, dogged in recent years by high inflation and public debt that has
needed an International Monetary Fund lending program to fix. The Ghana Tourism
Authority expects 500,000 visitors this year, up from 350,000 in 2018. Of
those, 45,000 are estimated to be seeking their ancestral roots, a 42% increase
from last year.

On a recent day
in the capital, Accra, a delegation of tribal elders and a representative of
the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre welcomed a tour group at a hotel in the
city. At an event in a low-ceilinged hotel conference room, the tour guide
encouraged the visitors to sing a hymn in a local language, gently chiding them
for not yet knowing the tune. "You are Ghanaians now," he said.

Members of the
group, who were mostly African American, went up to the front one by one to
pose with a smiling tourism ministry official or one of the robe-clad elders as
they received an official certificate of participation. The investment
representative launched into a lengthy power-point presentation focused on the
need for investment in Ghana's cocoa sector and the minimum capital
requirements for joint ventures.

With an average
spend of $1,850 per tourist, the tourism authority expects this year's revenues
to top $925 million, a 50% increase from 2018, which it hopes to sustain over
the next three years at least. The amount is dwarfed by Ghana's $2-billion
cocoa industry but is considered essential in a country of 28 million people
who mostly live in poverty.

Anthony Bouadi, a
tour guide at Cape Coast Castle, a fortress where the captives were kept until
they were sent on ships over the Atlantic, said he believes the site will
change the lives of those who visit. "The moment you get to know your
history, it is going to change you," he said. "We are encouraging our
brothers and sisters from the US, from the Caribbean from Europe to come back
to their Motherland Africa to get to know the culture ... and whatever the
ancestors went through."

The surge of
visitors is part of a global phenomenon: Airbnb data shows a five-fold increase
in people travelling to places connected to their ancestry worldwide since
2014. US genetics company African Ancestry says its sales of DNA tests tripled
after last year's release of the superhero film "Black Panther," an
Afro-centric blockbuster with a predominantly black cast. The company is
launching an ancestry-based travel service later this year.

To make the most
of the moment, Ghana will host a mass "ancestry reveal" on Friday.
More than 80 African American participants, including the head of the NAACP,
will learn their genetic history, touted as the largest ceremony of its kind in
Africa's history. Ghana has long encouraged its diaspora to return and has
strong links with the African American community. Malcolm X visited in the
1960s and spent time with the American poet and civil rights activist Maya
Angelou, who lived there at the time. The prominent black writer and activist
W.E.B. Du Bois settled and died in Ghana. Since, many other ordinary African
American families have returned.

But questions
remain about whether the heightened interest in Ghana can be sustained after
the anniversary. Bad roads, a cumbersome visa application process and expensive
flights could stem the number of visitors in the long term. "The
government has a huge responsibility," said Peter Appiah, head of research
and publicity at the Centre for National Culture in Kumasi, Ghana's
second-largest city. "If we want to sustain this tempo," he said,
"then we need to do a lot more in terms of social infrastructure."

Massive year

At Assin Manso, a
group of visitors removed their shoes and walked barefoot down a path to the
muddy river that runs through a bamboo grove. Together they placed their hands
in the water, then waded in to offer prayers in thanks for the opportunity to
return.

"I can't
even get my head around people coming from a land like this and being
snatched," said Miriam Allen, a 62-year-old retired urban planner from New
York, clutching a box of tissues and choking back tears. "This is a good
place and a bad place. A good place to know your ancestors, but to know what
those white people did to us. I can't ..." she said, breaking off. On most
tours, Assin Manso marks one of the final stops on a country-wide swing in
which groups take part in Ashanti rituals, meet local chiefs and trace the
grueling route captured slaves took from the country's northern hinterland out
to the coast.

The forts that
still dot Ghana's coast are a reminder of what slaves endured. At the Cape
Coast Castle, rusted old cannons point out to sea from the ramparts, angled
skyward, away from locals playing football on the beach below. The government
is committed to its upkeep - on a recent visit, workers were repainting the
high white walls. In forts like this one, slaves experienced their last days on
African soil crammed in steaming-hot dungeons without light - and where
tourists are now returning in droves.

"I have seen
a lot of people - they really are coming," said Bouadi, the guide at the
castle, who now does up to six tours a day compared with three last year. Each
tour has doubled in size, he said, to around 40 people. He tries to help his
family when he can, using the extra money he earns to pay their water and
electricity bills. "Tourism organizations in Ghana are having to hire more
people," he said. "If people earn more, they can pay for school fees;
it boosts the local economy and reduces poverty."

Ghana's efforts
stand in stark contrast to other West African countries with rich histories of
their own that are little known outside the continent. Despite a collection of
slave sites, including the picturesque but haunting Goree Island, where
tourists can visit old slave quarters and its "door of no return,"
Senegal does not appear to have harnessed the potential like Ghana. Neither has
Benin or Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the
main sites commemorating the slave trade are three small museums along a road
in the coastal town of Badagry. Artefacts including chains used to shackle
slaves are spread across the museums, two of which are small single-story
buildings with corrugated iron roofs. Foreign tourists are rare at the site,
and a large proportion of visitors are schoolchildren on tours. The poor state
of local roads, dotted with potholes, make it hard to visit Badagry: The
65-kilometer (40-mile) journey from the country's largest city, Lagos, takes
around three hours.

"As far as I
know, only Ghana has made such a significant effort in terms of programmes and
activities," said Shanelle Haile, a doctoral student at Brown University
in Rhode Island who was in Ghana to study diaspora engagement surrounding the
anniversary. "Now that we're here and we've done the events and the
activities, it's really moving and it's a powerful experience," she said.
"I just hope that more African Americans learn and hear about it."-
Reuters