My childhood pen pal and I grew up on different continents. After 30 years of friendship, we finally met in person.

I finally met my pen pal in person after 30 years of friendship.

Dontaira Terrell This year, I traveled to Ghana and met my childhood pen pal after 30 years of friendship.

We initially started writing to each other in second grade as a class assignment.

I was nervous our in-person conversation would fall flat, but we picked up right where we left off.

When I was 8 years old, my second-grade class participated in a pen pal assignment that matched me with a girl named Naa Ashirifia from Ghana.

At the time, there was no social media for a rapid response, no texts to drop a quick note, and no simple phone call that could last for hours.

And although the back-and-forth correspondence wasn't immediate, the connection was instant.

We were growing up on different parts of the globe: me in Youngstown, Ohio, and Naa Ashirifia in Accra, the capital of Ghana.

Still, we quickly bonded over the small but important details of our pre-adolescent lives.

Growing up, I never imagined that we would meet in Ghana 30 years later.

We formed a strong bond through written letters As a child, I looked forward to receiving letters from Naa Ashirifia.

Dontaira Terrell More than three decades ago, I sent my first letter to Naa Ashirifia.

I still remember carefully addressing each envelope in my best penmanship and double-checking the address a million times before mailing it.

Sometimes I used my own allowance to pay for postage and proudly walked up to the post office counter with a huge smile.