Post-Ghana thoughts

And then it was all over. Back home. It’s cold, a bit grey, and oh so quiet. No colorful clothes, no pounding speakers constantly shouting out our favourite songs Amen, Johnny or Aye. Our last weeks in Cape Coast were quite intense but also so much fun. We were working on the group paper, hanging around and sightseeing in town and a couple of days a week we went to Brenu, soaking our last time there in. The farewell party came and it was all like one big dance floor. Students from UCC were invited and so were all the boys from Brenu, and everyone else that we have gotten to know during the past months. On our last friday together, we had another party at Nana Bema, filled with speeches and food and local schnapps. Afterwards most of us went to dance one last time at Oasis, it was such a perfect end to our time in Cape Coast.

I spent my last three Ghanaian weeks in Busua together with 15 or so of my classmates. We all stayed at the same place which made it feel a little bit like we just moved Nana Bema to another town. We were swimming, surfing, hiking, barbecuing, dancing and going on small adventures every day, trying to squeeze in some time for writing the home exam. One after one people started to leave, either to go travelling in Ghana, Africa or Asia. Or to go back home to Scandinavia.

It’s really weird. Ghana already feels so far away, even if I got back to Sweden just a couple of days ago. Most of all I’m so used being surrounded by all these amazing individuals 24 hours a day, every day. It takes a while getting used to not seeing everyone all the time. However, it is kind of nice also, being home. It gives you some time to reflect and think of all those things you experienced, all the people you’ve gotten to know, and seeing family and friends is great. Although, we have already started to plan our reunions, it looks like it will be 17th of may in Norway, Midsummer in Sweden and Roskilde festival in Denmark. I can’t wait!!

So (to copy Isa's wonderful farewell speech a little bit)… BIG BIG thank you to Kulturstudier for being such a cool organization letting students go on trips like this, experience different cultures and learning about interesting subjects, other people aswell as yourself. Thank you Ghana for being such a rad and random and crazy beautiful country. Thank you to all the lecturers and seminar leaders and all the staff that’s been involved in GES14. And thank you to all of you students that’s been on this safari, even though we've had some ridiculously good lectures I’ve learnt way more from all of you guys than from any of them. Stay awesome and keep being so inspiring, I’ll see you soon. 

XOXO Elin

Nearby beaches & early morning dancing

I know it's getting old but time is running out. Crazy. We're all really busy writing our group papers at the moment, which is a fun but also very tiring process. Every now and then we sneak out to Baobab (a vegetarian restaurant in town) for a coffee or some pancakes. Here's my fantastic group at Baobab one day when we tried to find some people to interview for our paper.

Since we've been spending a lot of time in Cape Coast the past couple of weeks we have now two weekends in a row escaped to Elmina for some beach time. There's this super cool place called Stumble inn where you can go and stay, eat or just hang out for the day. It's only like 20 minutes outside of town but soooo relaxing and nice. Perfect getaway from the city life.

This Saturday one of the restaurants/bars in CC had jazz night. Almost everyone from our class joined and we were drinking wine and listening to the live band. Later on we all decided to go to Oasis, another restaurant, and we ended up dancing until early in the morning. My muscles are super sore after that. Either I need to start working out or go out dancing more because that is unacceptable. It was such an amazing night where everyone came together and just forgot everything that has to do with school and exams. Hands down best night in Ghana so far.

Cooking class & Mining field trip

I guess there's two or three Ghanaian dishes that I've really come to like. Red red is definitely number one, a delicious black eyed peas mix served with fried plantain (banana-potato-things). Another one is groundnut (peanut) soup that is usually served with fufu (made of yam, almost like a african way of mashed potatoes). Both of these together with some other dishes was made at the cooking class. It's all very easy to prepare and instead of describing it here you can have a look at the pictures below. The best part of the night was that everyone was wearing their Ghanaian clothes that we've had made here. Such a colourful night! 

 

 

Might not look tasty, but it is!

Last week we also had our last field trip. We went to Obuasi to visit a community that's located next to a big mining industry. It was a really emotional experience seeing how the mining has effected the community. Some of the women's husbands had died because of TBC and they were now left without any ways to provide their families with money. The few crops that's survived the degradation of the soil contains unhealthy chemicals but the people has no other choice than eating it. We also visited some small-scale miners who showed us how the procedure goes. Very interesting day which left at least me with many new thoughts and perspectives.

This is actually mountains of waste from the mining company, not a beautiful green landscape. So weird.

Elin