What is Home?

What Is Home?

“Come on, you’re my sister. I’ll keep you safe through the market.”

The market was one of the first places in Ghana where I truly realized I was somewhere unfamiliar. It was crowded and loud, with people moving in every direction and vendors calling out as we walked past their stalls. Bright fabrics hung from the sides of the market, tables were covered with things to buy, and everywhere I looked, someone was trying to get our attention. I was walking with two girls and a chaperone, trying to take everything in while also trying not to get separated from the group.

At first, I was excited by everything happening around me. But as the crowd grew tighter and people came closer to us, I started to feel overwhelmed.

I remember quietly admitting that it was a lot.

A man nearby heard me. He looked at me and said, almost as if there was nothing unusual about it, “You’re my sister. I’ll keep you safe.”

I remember thinking, Wow.

But what surprised me most was how natural it felt.

I had only been in Ghana for a short time. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know the market. I didn’t know why someone I had never met would so easily call me his sister. Yet somehow, his words made me feel less like a stranger.

I didn’t understand why that moment stayed with me until later.

At a leadership conference, I sat at a table surrounded by Ghanaian girls and the American girls from Girls Going Global. A speaker asked us a simple question:

What is home?

We opened our journals and wrote our answers before sharing them with the people at our tables.

When the Ghanaian girls began answering, I noticed something. They said Africa. They said their friends. They said their family.

Nobody said a house.

I wasn’t surprised. I remember thinking, this is beautiful.

But I didn’t understand it yet.

I had always thought of home as a physical place. Home was my house, my neighborhood, the places I knew. When I thought about the word, I pictured somewhere you could point to on a map.

The girls at the conference seemed to be describing something different. They weren’t describing where they slept. They were describing where they belonged.

It took the rest of my trip for me to understand the difference.

When we visited a school, it didn’t feel like we were walking into a place where we were strangers. It felt like a family reunion. Kids were dancing, playing games, laughing, and inviting us to join them. You could walk up to almost anyone, and they would immediately make space for you.

There was no awkwardness about being new. No one seemed to stop and wonder whether you belonged before deciding to welcome you. It felt like being welcomed into a home you hadn’t been to in a long time.

That was when the girls’ answers started to make sense.

They didn’t need to say, “My house,” because home was already around them. It was in the people laughing together, the girls dancing, the friendships being made, and the feeling that there was always room for one more person.

I began to realize that I had been looking at home as something you have instead of something you feel.

That realization followed me throughout Ghana.

I noticed it in the way people welcomed us, even though many of them had never met us before. I noticed it in the friendships that formed between the Ghanaian girls and the American girls. I noticed it in how quickly unfamiliar places could begin to feel comfortable when the people around you made you feel like you belonged.

Before Ghana, I also thought being fortunate was largely connected to what someone had. A nice house, financial security, and access to opportunities were things I naturally associated with having a good life. I still understand the importance of those things, but Ghana made me realize they are not the only measures of what makes someone fortunate.

I met girls with different resources and different experiences from mine who were still full of happiness, curiosity, ambition, and drive. They reminded me that having less does not mean having less to be grateful for. Sometimes, the things that make you feel richest are the people around you, the confidence to be yourself, and the knowledge that others will support you.