For the past three weeks, I’ve blindly followed around a reporter for Accra’s largest independently owned newspaper, The Daily Guide. His name is Melvin, a 25-year-old Liberian who’s worked in Ghana as a journalist for 3 years now. He mostly covers local politics, attending multiple press conferences every day, while writing the majority of his stories in a google doc on his phone.

We didn’t talk much the first week. I felt as if I had been assigned to him as some form of punishment. My presence undoubtedly made his job harder: I asked too many questions, I didn’t know where I was going, I wasn’t dressed professionally. Any boyish good looks that I might have had were currently hidden by an immature need to “grow out my beard.” My mouth stayed fixed with a tourist’s smile, an ignorant sense of wonder that temporarily handicaps any ability to think critically. I felt as if I were walking around stoned, just letting things happen to me; to us.

Meanwhile, Melvin walked with purpose, hardly looking up from his phone as he crossed busy streets, only stopping to buy food or drink from the hawkers. Whenever he got a small pastry or sobolo, a dark purple Ghanaian drink made from rosella leaves and ginger, he’d get me one too. It was one of the only instances where I could tell that he actually liked me.

Because compared to the other co-workers, Melvin is quiet. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to, doesn’t bother with fake, performative smiles during greetings or goodbyes. He won’t laugh at a joke if he doesn’t think it’s funny. When he talks, it’s deadly serious. Like when he remarked on my outfit, a Hawaiian style pink button-down short-sleeved shirt, a pair of brown shorts and Chaco sandals.

“As a journalist, you’re always in danger. You could die at any time. Is that how you want to be remembered?” he said, motioning to my sandals.

I didn’t know for sure how I wanted to be remembered. I, of course, thought about my stupid clothes, bought to make me feel fun and different to my American peers; I thought about my dumb social media presence, filled with what probably amounts to 8 years of glorified dick jokes and half-baked music criticisms; my inability to take anything serious, searching only for irony and wit at all times (hopefully finding real meaning through that, but often finding nothing at all, just complete and utter boredom;) my relationship with my parents, the only people obligated to remember me, how we don’t talk that much and when we do it feels forced. I thought about my need to always talk about myself, even when telling you about my first time on a different continent.

I wondered if Melvin thought about these things. I wondered how self-absorbed I’d have to be to think that he didn’t. Of course, he did. We all do.

I thought about my short time with Melvin. Just five weeks to know someone who has zero reasons to give a shit about my experience in Ghana, as a journalist. I thought about how stupid I must have looked to him, sweaty and despondent. I decided to ask him some questions as we waited for the press release to begin. I asked him where he was from and if he spoke with his parents. I asked him about music and film. About journalism and how important it is to Ghana and the rest of the world. He didn’t open up very much until I asked him about religion. He became the first African I’d met in Ghana who didn’t go to church every Sunday, citing corruption as his main motivation to worship alone. He had a deep distrust of organized religion. It felt like the first thing we had in common and I left the office feeling encouraged and invigorated.

We’ve since built something similar to friendship. The awkward silences don’t feel so awkward anymore. I don’t take everything personally. I’m able to focus on what’s happening around me, as opposed to what’s happening inside, although a good writer is surely doing both.

When I got home that evening, kicking off my Chacos and laying under the mosquito net of my small bunk bed, I told my roommates of the small victory. It wasn’t until later that I checked Facebook and noticed that Melvin has posted a long, scathing rant, about dressing professionally as a journalist.