“So, why are you here?”

Elina holds my eyes in contempt, one hand on her hip, the other around the shoulder of her younger sister.

I’m caught off guard. I stammer something about being a journalism student and working for a newspaper in Accra for the summer.

“No,” Elina says firmly. “Why did you come here?”

I stare blankly back at her for a moment.

Why did I come here?

Surely professional experience alone would be a lie. I am clearly searching for something that I don’t think I can find at home. But what I’m trying to learn, see, or experience here in Ghana I am unsure of. At least, I am unsure if I can put it into words.

Especially while Elina stares at me waiting for my answer.

We’re in a small town in Cape Coast visiting the Elmina Castle – what was once the most dominant of all slave-trading ports. After a somber experience touring the castle, a few of us stayed to explore the town.

It’s off to the side of a small street that we come across a food market sprawled across a square area covered in black sand, rotten fruit cores, and mud-caked goats. The colorful peppers and fruit piled on top of woven blankets on the ground are tempting photography subjects, but fearful of a photo that would cause offense, I venture up to a young woman selling spices instead.

I purchase a small bag of Ghanaian pepper from a young woman named Elina. She’s 16-years-old and attends school close by when she isn’t helping her mother sell spices.

“So, why are you here?”

Her question spiraled my mind into possible answers. How could I explain to Elina that I’m here for the experience? That I flew across the world to come to her country to expand my perspective, or enrich my life?

Every answer I scanned through my mind made me realize something. That everything I want from Ghana is in self-interest. Every reason I am here is for myself.

So how do I change that? How do I make this trip less about me and more about the community I’m trying to become a part of?

Would buying her spices and paying the inflated obruni* price make me feel like a better person? Would donating school supplies to the elementary school in Nima, the most impoverished neighborhood of Accra, make my coming to Ghana worthwhile?

I sat on the bus ride back to the hotel in silence. Her question repeated over and over in my mind. I thought about what I had to offer. I thought about what I could give that wasn’t as disposable as a few Ghanaian cedis, or boxes of crayons.

“So, why are you here?”

I’m here to be a journalist. I’m here to learn how to honestly and insightfully convey human experiences. I’m here to integrate myself into this unfamiliar world in the hopes that I can begin to understand it. I’m here for an adventure. I’m here for a challenge.

Or something like that.

Elina’s eyes have lost their distaste. She laughs and tells me, “I hope you find what you are looking for,” as I turn to walk away.

I hope so, too.

*Obruni means “white foreigners” in the Ghanaian dialect, Twi.