Breath

Since my arrival in Ghana, over a week ago, I have been holding my breath.

I sweated through the nights with no electricity, and lamented over my limited Internet access. I stared through the windows of the bus as we toured Accra, transfixed by the shining new skyscrapers casting shadows on small shacks selling local wears. I braved my way through delicious local cuisine and later fought through the devastation of traveler’s sickness. I laughed with shopkeepers as I stumbled through a transaction in Twi.  I let the waves of the Atlantic greet me and gently swell around my feet. I followed as our guide led us through Elmina and Cape Coast Castles while he described the atrocities of the slave trade. I smiled and played with neighborhood children on the sidewalk outside my house.  All the time I never stopped to take a breath.

This morning I got up, took a bracing shower, attempted to tame my humidity-induced frizzy hair and put on my nicest dress, because today we started our internships. I listened and teased with my fellow students nervously buzzing about our upcoming day. We loaded into buses and vans together and one by one got dropped at our new internships.

Today I exhaled, took a deep breath, and stepped off the bus. I walked into my new internship, and met my new co-workers. We laughed at my clumsy pronunciation of their names and then harder yet at their struggle with my surname. Just like that I was one of the group. They invited me to sit in an office with them, asking me about my first impressions of Ghana. We exchanged questions about each other’s cultures and they promised I would be fluent in Twi and full of local foods by the time I left. My coworkers even gave me a new name: Nana Yaa. Yaa reflects my being born on a Thursday and Nana roughly meaning Royal.

“We like you, do you like us?” my coworker Ben asked. He smiled at my confirmation and informed me, “We are your brothers now and you are our sister.”

After extensive directions and a friendly escort to the nearest ‘tro-tro’ station, I easily conquered Ghanaian public transportation. In the short walk from the drop off point in my house I joked with some kids walking to their houses for dinner.  Then triumphantly returned my house, just in time for the power to cut out.

Tomorrow the real work begins; I will be assigned a column to maintain, stories to write, and shadow a reporter to an event. But today I feel, for the first time, that Ghana has welcomed me and I am becoming a part of her. No longer am I watching from a bus, but stepping onto the dusty road and weaving myself into the cloth of this beautiful country.

I am taking full, sweet breaths Ghanaian air.