We still live in Brenu by the beach and are very happy with it 🙂

A few days ago it was Independence day. The groups researching in Accra sent us videos of giant gatherings of people on Independence Square in the capital city whereas in Brenu we do not have a square like that, but the schoolchildren were marching very proudly.

Watching the videos from the other groups we almost felt like going to a bigger city for a change. Instead we don’t live too far from Cape Coast so we’ve been able to go there to buy the necessary snacks.​

After getting our snacks and walking a bit in the busy streets of Cape Coast, we were happy to be back in tiny Brenu where everybody knows our name and we know theirs. Walking through Brenu is full of “Hello, how are you Solvej?” and children so happy to see you that they jump and dance!

This is Cecilia and her children. She is our informant so we have interviewed her about her household chores and income work. She is very hard working and a lot of our research has shown  that women work really hard and for a long time. First they wake up and take care of their children, giving them breakfast and sending them to school. Then they go and work, for instance they are trading in the small market. When its lunchtime and the market is slow, they go home to take care of the children’s lunch. Then they go back to work until late afternoon where they return to the house to cook and clean for the husband and children. So this is some of what our research is about and we think it’s really interesting. It is fun to work on your own project and for most of the time be your own supervisor in every decision.

Sometimes research can be exhausting, so we feel very lucky with our field site being so close to the beach where we can relax after a long focus group interview.

The other day it was Jojo’s birthday, so we baked a Danish banana cake with chocolate pieces. He was very happy and we took this picture with some of the family (some are missing) and our interpreter Veronica on the left. When its your birthday everybody is allowed to throw buckets of water at you, so we did that for a long time before we sang birthdays songs from Denmark and ate the cake.

Also we are treated very, very well by Agnes! She gives us food from the restaurant and today we had the best dish, a whole grilled grouper with a lot of salad!

Soon we are leaving Agnes and her family in Brenu since the field work period has come to its end. We are looking so much forward to seeing the other students and hear about their experiences back in Cape Coast.

-Solvej-