As students living in Cape Coast, Ghana, our everyday life is a little different from our everyday life back in Norway. We start our day with breakfast at the hostel.
The breakfast is served Monday through Friday at 7am and consists of eggs, bread, porridge, and fruit. At 7.45 am, the bus leaves from the hostel to the university.
We have classes every Monday through Friday from 8.15am to 10.15am, and then we have two seminars per week from 10.15am to 12.15pm.
For the seminars, the class is divided into two groups. One group has seminars every Monday and Wednesday, and the other group has seminars on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of the seminars is related to the lectures and curriculum, and the other is to prepare for the three week field work we are doing at the end of our stay here. After school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we go to our study center at Brenu Beach to relax in the sun and have lunch. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we either have lunch on campus or at the hostel.
Today, it’s Wednesday, so we had lunch here at the hostel. As my seminar group has seminars on Tuesdays and Thursdays, some of us students went to the gym after class and got picked up by the bus on the way back to the hostel from the university. There are a few options for going to the gym in Cape Coast, but we go to the gym at the new football stadium which is located along the way between the hostel and the university.
It costs about 230NOK a month and we try to make time to go a few times a week. The past week, they’ve had some issues with the power, so it’s been super-hot and the treadmills haven’t been working, but that’s ok, we’ve ran a few laps on the track instead. And the machines are of course working regardless of the power!
Until now, we’ve had a cultural activity every week, organized by Kulturstudier, and today, we had a cooking class. We made groundnut soup, fufu, red red with plantain, palava sauce, and jollof rice – all typical Ghanaian dishes.
The cooking class took about four hours and we made tons of food that we all ate together in the evening.
In special occasion of this dinner, we had all bought Ghanaian clothing, some tailor made and some normal.
My favorite Ghanaian food is the red red with plantain which is, put simply, white beans in a tomato sauce with plantain, a type of banana. Usually, for dinner, we order takeaway or go out to eat.
Some people also go to the market to buy ingredients and make their own food in the kitchen. We also have the option of ordering cheap takeaway through a catering service, so we often have dinner for 35-45 cedi, which is about 28-36 NOK.
On a normal weekday, we have dinner at about 7 pm and then, we spend the rest of the evening together outside, talking and maybe drinking a beer or two. I usually go to bed at around 10pm with my mosquito net over me.
Hope you’ve enjoyed a little insight in our everyday life ☺
– Nathalie