And I would walk fly five hundred thousand miles...

I have arrived safely in Accra. The flight was around 10 hours in the air, during which we gained four hours and I did not sleep. (I had some luck pulling the tray table out, putting the pillow on it, and dozing until turbulence shook the tray.) As such I was grateful for the time gain, because instead of it being 3am, we were catching up to dawn at 7am. If you looked out the window, you'd see a rainbow. Forget a double rainbow, the entire SKY was one giant rainbow.

I was less stressed about flying out of Dulles, as I've done that before (but last time I flew out of Dulles I didn't appreciate the architecture nearly as much... my GOD that building just SWEEPS!), and much more stressed about getting through immigration and customs in Ghana. I had every single form I might need, photocopied four times. Immigration was a 3 minute painless check of my visa and the form we filled out on the airplane, and "customs" was walking through a room. There were several fellow NYU Ghana students on the flight (how many flights to Ghana are there daily, after all?), the first of whom recognized me from when we were briefly introduced on Lafayette St in May by a mutual friend of our who went to PHTS. (She roomed with a PHTS 2nd year this past year and thus we have a lot of mutual friends and she knows a ton about PHTS.) Others of us just found each other in baggage claim. One person was asked by customs how long she was staying in Ghana because she had a lot of stuff with her, but that exchange took less than 2 minutes, and all was well. We found the staff very easily, went o go exchange money, and headed to our dorms to settle in. Those of us who had already arrived went to dinner together, and more people are pouring in tonight. Part of the reason I'm already updating this blog is that I'm trying to stay awake until my second roommate arrives.

Throughout the trip, I've thought to myself, "This is absurd." When I was flying over, I wished I could see a zoomed out image of Africa and see myself flying towards it, because then it would seem more real. Stepping out of the plane onto AFRICA was surreal and made me laugh. It truly is so absurd. Sometimes I think, "What have I gotten myself into?" but all of that makes it even more right that I'm here.

Impressions so far: patchwork collage of colors and art, in every aspect of visual life. My eyes are just drinking things in as if they've been thirsty for a very long time. I'm often stared at, which is fair enough as I am doing a lot of staring myself. People here are INDEED very good at carrying things on their heads. New York has pigeons and dogs... Accra has chickens and goats. I saw a bird that I have never before encountered my life that looked vaguely like it could be related to the toucan. I am completely and totally out of my element, except that the buses NYU carts us around in sound like the AV van.

We're all being shepherded around by our CRAs who are native Ghanaians and lovely people. I've now completely moved in to my room, which has AC. It's not great AC, but I went all this last summer completely without AC. Our bathroom is HUGE and nice and includes a water bucket that we should keep full in case the water goes out. We have tons of porches which I will go all Southern on. I have my five books I allowed myself to bring (The Bible, the Koran, Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and The Art Spirit), as well as a pocket-sized book of Rumi poems I snuck past myself.

And I have jet lag so bad I may NOT meet my second roommate before tomorrow.