Akwaaba! Welcome!

Hi! I love it here, and we've had so many adventures already. The first adventure was coming 30 seconds away from missing my flight from Detroit to New York - but I made it, so I'm just grateful. The flight from New York to Ghana was a red-eye, but it was very hard to sleep. We were so confused about what day it was when we arrived.

Unfortunately Ghana lost the soccer game, but we got to go see the Black Stars arrive home, which was really fun (there was a big celebration). So many flags! I watched the Netherlands-Uraguay game with my host family last night. It was fun, everyone was enthusiastically rooting for the Netherlands.

We walked through the market with our group (I really like all 13 people in my AFS group), which was quite an experience. People reach out and grabbed our arms, saying "Obruni, obruni, come over here!" ("Obruni" means white person, or foreigner). The market itself was fun to see, but I'm not sure how you know where to buy something you need. We took tro-tros around, which are vans that act kind of like buses - they remind me of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter. I haven't taken one without a guide yet.

My host family is great, there are always lots of people in the house. There are several people staying close by me from our group, so they come over a lot.

We went to the orphanage for the first time today. The kids are incredibly cute. We played with them a lot after lunch. A group gathered around me, wanting piggyback rides, shouting "Obruni, me!". It was hard enough to leave the orphanage today, I can only imaginge what the last day will be like.

I haven't heard much about what's going on in the U.S. - I hope everything is going well!

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends"