Hello from Tamale!

We spent two days in Kumasi on our way to Tamale. I feel like there isn't much to write about Kumasi, but that may be because we were there a couple days ago -- and we pack a lot into our days.

We have been in Tamale for two days now and it already feels like home. I considered it 'home' before we even got here because I have been looking forward to settling down for a while. We are going to be here for another two weeks before heading to Enchi and I am so excited to get to know a city a little better.

I am really enjoying Tamale so far -- it is much poorer than the other cities we have been to and there is far less traffic (though still a ton of traffic). We grabbed a taxi from the bus station and drove to the Catholic Guest House with our trunk open and our bags left untied. Kelsey and I had to hold onto our bags to make sure they didn't fly out the back!

Kelsey and I are sharing a room here in Tamale and we got to work right away making it feel like home. We taped pictures to the wall, pushed our beds together, and set up our mosquito nets. We set up a clothesline above the foot of our beds from one window to the other so that we can finally do our laundry.  It was nice to finally unpack some of our things rather than keeping everything in our bags. It was a pain to have to dig through everything each time you needed to find something.

I even woke up because I was cold our first night here in Tamale. I checked my thermometer and it was 28 degrees -- I have acclimatized that quickly.  It was so refreshing to want to put my covers on!

I have been feeling healthy thus far. No diarrhea yet! And I have pooped every single day -- same as at home. I think most of the other girls have had diarrhea at least once, but nothing serious yet. Kelsey and I are are boiling our tap water because buying bottled water is a pain and there is much more waste. I haven't gotten sick from it yet and I'm really hoping it stays that way.

I called Erik yesterday morning and it was so nice to talk to him!! I haven't even emailed him yet so I'm sure he was excited to finally hear from me. I wasn't even sad afterward, but I thought I would be. There are too many things happening here and it's all still so exciting and new -- I haven't gotten to the point where I have "needed" him yet. I have wanted him here every moment of every day, but that is because I wish I could share all my experiences with him. He would love everything I am doing and seeing and I wish we could be doing it together. That being said, I also love that I am doing this on my own. I like being independent :)

We have an African brother here who takes care of us and I am so thankful for him!!! I don't know where we would be or how much money we would have wasted if he wasn't here. I feel safe with him because he would do anything to make us feel at home. He constantly tells us that he wants us to be happy and that he wants us to remember Ghana and to speak highly of it to our friends and families when we return home -- he really is absolutely lovely.

Now I will quickly write about a couple of the interesting things we have done in Tamale thus far. For simplicity sake I'm going to do it in a separate post for you!

love, love, love