Photo Ops in the Midst of Crisis

It is a press briefing. An important one. 

It will be broadcast live like all the others. A Minister of State is going to be explaining the President's almost weekly policy statements and various other state officials and high level experts will be on-hand to answer questions from eager journalists who claim to ask the questions on our behalf. It is just as well, people like me do not want to hang around other people at this time anyway.

I want to understand what the President meant when he promised free water for the populace for 3months, and free electricity for some. I want to be clear the President's tax breaks, somehow cover people like me even though I know better. And I want to know how the homeless and daily wage earners are going to access the promise of free meals without the provision of shelters even if temporary. I had suggested (to a friend in conversation of course) that perhaps managed temporary shelters would be one way of containing and protecting many people who live on our streets. That way we would likely be able to take them off the streets, provide them with food and the bare necessities for the period without worrying about their daily livelihood, monitor their health statuses and intervene effectively should there be the need. I had imagined this would be possible if organized at the level of each district in the country. Anyway, it does not look like it is a suggestion being considered in the corridors of power; even my friend was not so taken by it. So I make myself comfortable in front of my television and hope for some relief. 

The Minister goes through introductory formalities. He tells his audience, including me, that before getting into the day's briefing, there are 5 companies who want to make contributions to support the governments efforts. I am thinking what that has to do with the briefing? The contribution could have been presented already and the list of contributors run on the screens or mentioned. But the Minister cannot hear my thoughts and I am clearly not knowledgeable in these matters.

The first company is invited to the podium. The company official takes us through the protocols. He treats us to the history of the company he represents and its operations in the country. He then offers some words of encouragement to the populace in general. His company is in this with all of us, he says. Another Minister of state is now invited to receive the contribution from the company official. He mounts the podium and gets through the 'protocols', reminds us what a great thing this company is doing and blah d blah d blah. Then the cameraman gets into action. All officials must take their turn. 

Its about 20 minutes into the briefing now. I figure I will not get my answers at this briefing.  There are 4 more company presentations  to get through and I don't care much for what is being labeled as corporate social responsibility.

  

A Citizen's Dilemma

I attended mass today, a great homily was delivered and I had the all is well and all will be well gait. I planned on sharing a feel good photo on Facebook therefore but something else happened. 

On my way to establish the location for a meeting in the coming week I was driving at good speed  like all the other vehicles on the road so I could have missed the woman kneeling just by the roadside in the dirt on the other side of the road, with a child strapped to her back. She was evidently wailing and throwing her hands about her in apparent despair. I am on the wrong side of the road and it’s a little too late to stop now I thought. Truth is, it was plainly going to be an inconvenience. I hope she would be here when I get back was my little prayer. I would be on that side of the road then and then I could give her something I rationalized.

20 minutes after and on my way back, the woman was still where I saw her first and in the same state. I parked off the road and reached for my purse. I figured she could use more than the usual spare change. A good meal for herself and the child and enough for their transport back wherever. She was still on her knees when I looked in the rear mirror and I reckoned I would get out of the car and offer the money. Before I could do that though she came up to my car. She would be in her late 30s though she looked slightly older and the tiny child looked something below 2years. I stretched my hand out and she took the money quickly without looking at it. Then she spoke.

It was not the ‘thank you’ or ‘God bless you’ that would normally follow the act of giving. Not that I required that but what she said was nothing I could have expected. She said in a local language (Akan): ‘I want money, to start a business so that I can look after my child’. See the thing is, I started to respond to her before she ended her statement. ‘I want money…’ and I said ‘I just gave you some…’ thinking to myself, damn it, I had a handsome sum in my hands for her even before she got to me and if only she had looked, she would have known not to even ask! Then the rest of her statement came out. I froze momentarily. Then I said quietly to her, I did not have that kind of money. She turned away quickly at those words and left me. I truly wanted to leave just as quickly. It occurred to me that I had just blundered badly into something I wasn’t even sure of.  

Was this woman a con? Is this her trade? Mind you I hardly use that route so I wouldn’t know. There have been stories of people on the streets coming up with all sorts of sob stories to get money out of road users. Curiously, many vehicles were passing by and never even slowed down at the sight of her. Was I just the unwary stranger?  Then again what if she was genuinely needy, for I happen to hold the view that anyone on the streets begging must be needy. Yet clearly my assumption of her need was wrong. Besides her request was not altogether unreasonable. After all is there not some saying about it being better to teach people to fish rather than give them fish?

So I ask myself; how should I have responded, what ought I have done? How should this state of affairs be addressed, on that woman’s part and on my part and all of my countrymen … especially in the ‘new’ Ghana in which we remain citizens?