When I got picked up today to move to the Park Center from where I would visit the last two villages on my round, they asked me if it was ok to make a stop at the last camp I stayed at to pick up four poachers that they had arrested there the day before. They would be brought to the police in Abrafo. I was fine with it, imagining that we would stop shortly, having the poachers and some guards taking seats in the back of the pick-up and drive on. That was not what happened at all.When we arrived at the camp there were some twenty or thirty people already standing around, discussing and to me they looked very excited. Among them were many rangers from the Wildlife Division, more than are usually stationed at Mesomagor. But the crowd was also made up by children, women and other men from the village. At first, a lot was discussed which I didn’t understand. But when a boy yelled something to his father suddenly everyone started running, chasing past me to the backside of the house. I didn’t know what was going on until someone told me that apparently two of the poachers had escaped. Behind the building there is a small path that leads through some fields in the direction of the forest. In the distance I could see a small crowd consisting mainly of women, they through their hands up and backed off of something on the ground. This gave me a clear view on a man kicking hard at something on the ground. First I thought it might be a snake or something like that, for close to that spot I once saw one. But after some moments other rangers joined the man and dragged one of the poachers up and back to the camp. The two fugitives were caught and thrown on one of the verandas. One ranger passed me by with a grim look on his face and a stick in his hand. He entered the veranda and started hitting the poachers. Luckily I could only see the ranger but not the men on the floor. The other ranger, the one who was kicking one of the poachers on the path, joined them on the veranda and started kicking again. This whole situation was so shocking for me, with the sound of the stick hitting flesh over and over again that I had to leave. I leaned at the back wall of the building where the sounds were scarcely audible anymore. For me, being brought up in a very safe country and in a family without any proneness to violence, this situation was a new one. I didn’t know how to handle it. The crowd of people stood by, watching. Most people were silent and trying to get a better look, only one woman was rolling in agony on the floor, weeping. I guess that she was a relative, maybe the wife, of one of the poachers. It was hard to see this woman, dressed in her Sunday clothes, crawling in the dirt with nobody else registering or noticing. After some time alone in the shadow behind the house I recollected myself. I was determined to go back and do something. Poaching in the National Park is prohibited by law and when a poacher is caught in the Park he faces a trial and jail, at least as far as I understood it. Poaching poses a threat to many wildlife species that are endangered and intentionally protected by the National Park laws. I am mostly on the side of the animals, because in general I believe that humans take away too much of their resources and their habitats already. On the other hand, the implementation of Kakum forest as National Park stripped local communities off some important natural resources, such as bush meat, medicinal plants or timber that they collected in the forest before it was forbidden by law.When I returned to the courtyard the rangers were just about to bring the poachers to the car. But still some kept hitting one of them with a rope, it seemed as if the ranger was just angry. I went to the car and yelled at them that it was enough now, but nobody took notice of me or maybe they just ignored the ignorant Obroni who was trying to involve herself in things she didn’t understand. One poacher was bleeding from his head and they cleaned him off roughly with a wet cloth. Right before we were about to leave one woman brought water for the men in the back of the car but right in front of the poachers one of the rangers took it from her and spilled it on the floor. I felt morbidly reminded of Cape Coast Castle and the stories the guide was telling about how faithful men were praying in the church and then stepped out to a hole in the ground just two meters from the church’s entrance to check on their slaves in the dungeons. I am aware that these two situations have scarcely anything in common but still, to see all these people in their Sunday clothes trying to get a better view on men beating other men lying on the ground, of denying them water, of official staff members in their uniforms beating these men… I think I was shocked by the rapid change. When we arrived the staff members greeted me with a smile and a handshake and a few minutes later they beat men with sticks and kicked them with their boots though the poachers did not put an immediate threat on any of them. They actually looked quite bad, their clothes were torn apart, some didn’t even have shirts. As we finally left the ranger next to me asked me if I was sad about the poachers. He was the one repeatedly kicking the poacher, first on the path and later on the veranda. I had so much adrenaline and anger and shock in my body that I answered very emotional and upset that yes of course I was sad for the poachers, because they beat and kicked them even when there was no danger coming from them. He answered in such a happy and just unconcerned manner which just increased my anger. He said that when they caught the poachers in the forest they treated them well and just took them under arrest, but that when they tried to escape they had to use “a minimum amount of force” to recapture them and to show them that running away was a bad idea. I retorted that it was hardly minimal force to beat someone lying on the ground so that he ended up bleeding. That they also had rights and that it was the task of the police to deal with them. He laughed and answered that yes of course they had rights but that they had to show them their place and to prevent them from running again. I told him that they could have just bound them to prevent any escape instead of using crude violence and he said that they did afterwards. I was in such a state of adrenaline that I couldn’t really deal with this anymore. The unconcerned voice and his conviction that they had acted in the right way made it impossible for me to argue any further and I told him I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. And that I did. I ignored him and also the driver for the rest of the two hour trip. They laughed at me, at my shock and I am afraid also at my opinion. I had a hard time to keep calm, in the middle between the two men who didn’t understand my position, probably didn’t even try or wanted to, and bouncing up and down on the bumpy streets.Finally it was over and I could leave them behind. I am aware that this is a different country with different laws and practices than what I am used to, but I felt really small today. This situation was something I hadn’t expected at all, something I would have never wanted to witness. The mix of people turning to violent beasts, people standing around as curious onlookers, the ragged poachers and the crying woman made such a horrid situation that I hardly knew what to think. I still don’t know, actually. The poachers were in the wrong in the first place, since poaching is prohibited by law and since it poses a threat to wildlife populations. But how the rangers handled the situation does not seem right to me either. This crude and, at least from my perspective, unnecessary violence was completely out of place. It opened my eyes in the way that I realised how people can change. I would never have guessed what these people, with whom I stayed just the week before, were capable of; without any hesitation or, as it seems, any second thoughts or regret.