“What are we waiting for?” I asked impatiently.

“Just sit here and wait for me.” My fellow reporter told me as she walked towards the front of the room where a National Summit had just taken place.

As I waited in my seat, I smiled at the familiar faces in the room. Three other students from my program were here and I was happy to not be the only “Obruni” in the room.

Within the next fifteen minutes, I heard a young woman from the front of the room call out Metro TV. The reporter I was with was quick to grab a little white envelope from her hands. She made her way to me and raised her eyebrows giving me the cue it was time to leave.

Finally.

It’s no secret that in Ghana, nothing starts on time. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to a press conference at Parliament or a National Summit, if the time is 9am it will most likely get started well after 10am. We had left the station an hour late, waited another hour for the event to start and the event itself took about thirty minutes.

While I waited out front of the building with the camera man, the reporter went to fetch a taxi (without my company of course). I insisted on this so she would get a fair price. By the time the taxi came out front, the camera man shouted in my direction.

“Let’s go!”

Even though this startled me, I was thankful to abruptly end the conversation with the aggressive banker who had just began insisting he get my contact. Escaping from the covered area, I braced myself for the rain. It had not rained since I had arrived here, it was humid still but the rainfall reminded me briefly of home as I shut the backseat door to the taxi.

As I sat in the backseat of the taxi with her, our camera man in the front seat, she held the little white envelope in her hands. Opening it, she took out a stack of cedis and began to shuffle them with her fingertips. As she counted the amount to herself, I found myself asking her what this was for. In a soft tone, she mentioned how it was from the members of the bank, every reporter received money for coming and it went towards their travel.

Hm, I’m clearly not getting the full story.

“How much did you get?”

She hesitated and then went to explain how the reporter and the camera man each got the same amount, fifty cedis, but she had also put my name down so there was a total of one hundred and fifty cedis. I never thought for a second I was going to get any of it and I didn’t want any of it.

I was told time and time again from my journalism professor to NEVER take gifts from people you are reporting on. Even if it is as small as taking some produce from a local farmer you are reporting on. This is because when you go back to write your story, no matter how hard you try to remain objective, you’ll have a small voice in the back of your head reminding you how nice that farmer was, causing you to leave something out in, therefore creating a bias.

Tucking the little white envelope into her bag, she stared out the rainy window.

* * * *

At the end of the day, I sat in the backseat of the commuter truck. Stuffed between the door and three other employees. I heard my name being called and my gaze met hers.

Did I forget something? I thought to myself.

She reached in to truck through the open window and grabbed my hand placing a crumpled bill in the middle of my palm. As I began to protest, she shook her head. As she walked away she said, “for your travels home.”

I looked down to see the crumpled bill was for 20 cedis.

My tro tro cost 1 cedi and 60 pesewas.

Embarrassed, I shoved the bill into my bag. I haven’t spent it.