Travel was... crazy.
My flight from D.C. got delayed and then pushed back and forth a couple of times, almost making me miss my connection to JFK. Luckily, I ran through the airport as the flight decided to board early, and ended up running into my internship group who were on the same flight! Once I got off the plane, I could immediately feel the humidity. It was like a wet blanket was thrown on top of me, and I hadn't even gotten out of the airport yet. If I had to make a ballpark estimate of how hot it was that first day, I would say between 17,384,629,376,308 and 17,384,629,376,309 degrees Farenheit.
I didn't get a lot of sleep since leaving home, but I was so excited when I got to Ghana, that I ended up going to bed late that night. We went to the mall, had interesting experiences trying to exchange money/withdraw local currency from the ATM and packing as many people as possible into a local taxi. Our room at the bed and breakfast was absolutely adorable. It definitely was an adjustment learning to take luke "warm" showers. (Lukewarm = cold water that feels like it has been under a candle flame for a hot second then sent through the pipes). That's what the temperature of showers feel like here! Sometimes, the water pressure randomly stops and/or the power goes off while your'e in the shower. It's really nice when there's still conditioner in your hair and you need to rinse it off with now literally drops of frigid water.
Also, people here sweep outside between 5:00 and 6:00am?? My first night, the roosters didn't wake me up. It was the sound of a straw broom sweeping off the leaves on the cement outside. I was still jetlagged and disoriented so I wandered downstairs and realized that it really was just a man sweeping on a Sunday morning. The front desk receptionists later told me that they were all laughing at me. Honestly, I would be laughing if I saw someone do what I did, too.
I'm still learning how to speak to people in the local language, Twi. There are a few phrases I'm (slowly) learning. People laugh at me all the time, but I kind of enjoy the energy and change of pace. I've really started to learn that it's okay to not take everything so seriously sometimes. And if you accidentally greet a man using a female pronoun in front of all his airport security co-workers... it [usually] all works out...
I'm just learning to be super okay with standing out in embarrassing ways, not knowing where any bathrooms are ANYWHERE/(walking into the men's bathroom when I find one), trying to figure out the conversion from US dollars to Ghanian currency (cedis) and basically being "that tourist" that has no idea what's going on. I've lived in a lot of places, but Ghana sure is different. I am super excited to learn more, get to know the people and hopefully find my place in this wonderful community.
Thank you all for helping me get here!