Welcome to Cape Coast, Ghana!
We have now been here a little more than a month, and I feel so welcomed here! Ghanaians are such warm and genuine people, and I am super excited for our stay here.
We arrived in Ghana on a Sunday. I traveled with a group of seven from Oslo to Accra, through Stockholm and Addis Ababa. The majority of the other students arrived the day before us and were already at the hotel in Cape Coast when we landed. After having made our way through security and passport checkpoints, we eventually got out luggage and then proceeded to find our driver that we organized through our field manager.
The drive from Accra to Cape Coast took about four hours, and after having arrived at the hotel that we will be staying at for our time here, and reuniting with our friends, we went on a walking tour around the city.
One of the nice things about the semester here in Ghanais that all of us spent last fall in Vietnam studying Development Studies 1 together, so we can jump right back in where we left a few months ago!
We also have three Ghanian students studying with us!
On Monday, we had our first day of school. Before we headed to the university, we had breakfast at the hotel.
We have all our lectures and seminars at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), and Kulturstudier organizes transportation back and forth between campus and the hotel.
We had a two hour course-lecture, then a lecture about tropical diseases and an information meeting with a representative from UCC, followed by a tour around campus.
UCC is ranked the best university in Ghana and the seventh best in Africa. When we came back from campus, we went into town to walk around and buy sim-cards. The Wi-Fi here is not the strongest, so it is recommended to buy a local sim.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we had lectures at campus. Twice a week, we also have seminars in groups dividing the class in half. We have one academic and one research seminar every week. In the academic seminar, we discuss things we have learned about in class, and in the research seminar, we prepare for our three week field research project.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have lunch at Brenu Beach, which is also our study center. Before going back to the hotel, we had some time to lay at the beach and soke up some sun. On Wednesday afternoon, we had a language class to learn some basic words and phrases. We also learned our Ghanian names which are based on what day of the week we are born. My Ghanian name is Adwowa! On Friday evening, we had a welcome party with good (and spicy) food, and dancing. We had also invited some people from school to join us.
On Saturday and Sunday, we did some more exploring of Cape Coast. Some went to the beach, some to a pool, some to the marked, and some just walked around. There are a few different pools around here that we can pay to use which is very nice with these hot temperatures. There are also two castles in the area that were used during the slave trade period as the slaves´ last stop before leaving Africa.
So far, I have really enjoyed my stay here in Cape Coast, and I’m very excited for the coming weeks!
– Nathalie
