During

The plane ride is long. There is an extra seat so I stretch a little. 2 hours-in we eat din din. Watch Grease on the complimentary movie machine. Then pop one of mommy’s magic pills. I’m out like a light before cha-cha and zuko tear up the dance floor. Next thing I know the pilot announces that we will be landing in 10 minutes. I sit. Hazed until it’s time for me to exit the plan. I stand outside. Ghana is hot. Accra steams with the sweat of a city working the western way. I walk down a ramp where airport officials are stopping everyone but Ghanaian nationals I tried to stop and they rushed me along. I smiled. Finally someone recognized that this was my home. But when I tuned the corner I was funneled into a pile of “other nationals” where I waited to be entered in to the system. As an immigrant. Still in my chemically induced haze I made my way to baggage claim grabbed my bags and set out for customs which was a surprisingly shorter process than I had imagined. I pushed my cart up the ramp where I was greeted by Jessye in a pink Attukwei Art Foundation tank (I want one!). We get in a cab and I am still amazed by how in control she is at all times. She speaks the language and seems to have a firm grasp on social interactions here. We get to the school we’re our house is located and I’m greeted by some older women and and dozens of Ghanaian children that do more of an intense kinda of stare than a greeting. Either way, im so in love with everything at this point. We get in the house and I see the room which has 4 beds and one fan. Im in the far corner. I put my stuff down. change out of my flight clothes. And we head into town.first we get some food (jollof rice, plaintains, and red red) then we go to get me a cell phone and sim card. THERE IS SO MUCH I MUST BUY! So many colors and bags and dresses and yea. Just yea One guy stopped me and was trying to sell me bracelets when one of the girls told him I was from Russia (they are so used to the ‘harassment’ they now create this outlandish lies). He says to me something about how he will talk to me, his black sister, because she, my white lying friend, doesn’t understand. I laugh and keep walking. He yells something about Obama so I throw up a Black powerfist.