How to Get Blood From a Stone

My colleague looked at me like I had rocks in my head.

We had just spent five days traipsing around leprosariums. We had interviewed at least a dozen former leprosy patients about their struggles to survive and gathered comments from their advocates that packed a fair punch at the government’s lack of support for some of Ghana’s most needy.

Next step, I suggested, was to go to the government and get their side of the story.

“You will not,” my colleague said.

“We will,” I replied.

“You will not,” he repeated.

“We will,” I said. “Why not?”

He grinned his knowing grin – I get it each time I blurt out something betraying my hopeless naivety – and began reciting a poem from William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence.”

Journalists often don’t get the government’s side of the story, he told me, because they do not have time. You will go and wait for hours, getting passed from person to person, and usually still emerge after a long day in sweaty offices without the information you need. For reporters at a busy daily paper who are expected to file one, two, three stories a day, they simply can’t do it.

I insisted we go. He indulged me.

We arrived at the government ministries in central Accra around 11 a.m. I had tried calling various numbers to set up some interviews, but no one answered, which is often the case with public relations officers who don’t particularly feel like talking to a journalist.

As we were walking up to the building that houses the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare, my colleague said that I should do the talking.

I protested, pointing out that Ghanaians often have a hard time understanding my accent, and I have a hard time understanding their accent, and besides, it’s not me doing this story. Why would I do the talking?

Because, he said, we would be more likely to get a response if a white, Canadian journalist is asking.

First, we went to reception, where a bored-looking woman directed us to public relations.

It was closed.

We started asking passersby where to find the officer. Eventually, we were given a phone number. The officer said he would return in 20 minutes.

While waiting, we went across the yard to the Ministry of Health to look for some statistics. They told us to go back to the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare.

We went back to across the yard to the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare. We were greeted by the public relations officer, who told the receptionist to take us upstairs to an office.

We waited in that office for a while. Eventually, a man came and told us he wasn’t the right person to speak with. He directed us to another office.

We waited in that office for a while. Eventually, a man came and told us we should go to another office.

We waited in that office for a while. Eventually, a man came and told us he’d speak with us in a moment.

More than an hour later, he returned and sat down to talk. A few minutes into the interview, it was clear he was not the right person to talk to.

As we traipsed back downstairs to track down the public relations officer again, my colleague told me that because I was there, it was going better than it ordinarily would.

Back in the PR office, we were cordially invited in to exchange pleasantries. We re-iterated our case and the officer smiled and nodded. Eventually, he gave us a phone number to call.

The man on the other end of that call was hard to make out over screaming traffic in the background, but I was pretty sure he said to call back the next day before the line went dead. Further calls did not go through.

It was just about the end of the working day as we began our trek back to the office. Five hours, and we had a short, marginally useful chat and a phone number for a man who may or may not be able to provide what we needed, if he did indeed answer his phone sometime.

“You see? You understand?” said my colleague, as we walked away to get a tro-tro back to the office.

“I see.”

He began reciting “Songs of Innocence” again.