The first day of my internship, I did not expect to become friends with my new, intimidating coworkers. However, my coworkers ended up being the biggest part of why I loved my internship so much. The job itself was great and taught me so much, but the people I was surrounded by made the overall experience so much greater.

When my friendship with my coworkers began, they quickly started bringing new foods for me to try (I still don’t know what most of them were, but they were definitely not like anything I had eaten before). They taught me a lot about Ghanaian food, lifestyle, religious beliefs, and general Ghanaian history.

As time went by, my coworkers became more and more open to talking about different topics with me. I expected them to be very conservative, but many of them went against the norms of Ghanaian social culture during our conversations. One of my coworkers constantly brought up homosexuality, leading to very interesting conversations, as homosexuality is illegal in Ghana. During my first week at my internship she asked me about Adam Lambert, then slowly brought up his relationship with his current and ex-boyfriends – clearly she had done her research. From then on, every day she brought up other artists’ homosexual relationships such as Elton John and Sam Smith casually into conversation. Our discussions became more and more in-depth about homosexuality and the repercussions of being a member of the LGBTQ community in Ghana. She explained over the past few years she has seen an increase of Ghanaians becoming more open to homosexuality (but they still have a long way to come). I introduced her to the television show Queer Eye, which she quickly grew to love almost as much as I do.

My coworkers and I grew closer than I ever imagined we would in such a short amount of time. We made such amazing memories I will remember for the rest of my life. I never forget all the laughter, countless memories, photoshoots and the amazing friends I have learned to know and love over the past five weeks.