the problems of poverty

On the 18^th of May I woke up to the sound of pouring rain hammering the tin roof. I lay there wondering where all the street people went for shelter, if they had dry clothes to change in to, if the open sewage flooded their beds.

When the rain had cleared a bit I left the dry comfort of my hotel and the first person to stop me in the street was a young boy, of no more than five years old with a man I assumed was his grandfather. The boy held out his arm to me “money money money.”

Knowing full-well that he didn’t speak English I said to him:

“What should I do? You and the old man are not crippled and you don’t look sick. Do I give you money or say ‘no’ to teach you a lesson?”

He cocked his head and looked up at me confused: “Money?”

I didn’t give him money, I just kept walking.

Something hit me in the stomach. Not a physical something, but something from inside. I felt my guts knot and I almost doubled over with the sharp pains of guilt.

‘Teach him a lesson?’ I thought.

‘Teach him what? That I have money and he doesn’t. That I can eat breakfast and sleep under shelter in the rain and he can’t? Teach him that life is cruel and people un-relenting? That he is no-body and I can just walk right past his suffering and never look back?’

I didn’t know what to do anymore. At the start of the trip I was adamant that I would not give beggars money. I had the Lonely Planet on my side which stated: ‘Never give anything to children including money, pens and empty water bottles’. I had it in my mind that by giving money to beggars, tourists will always be targeted, that it reinforces the idea of the wealthy white person, that it keeps people stuck in the cycle of poverty/begging and that the best way to help people is by feeding their economy with tourism.

But I stood there frozen with uncertainty. Something had shifted in my made-up-mind. For three months I had given very little to those who demanded it from me, but in Addis Ababa, after being approached by a dirty five year old boy, in a street recovering from a storm I changed my mind.

The streets were full of hungry beggars. There seemed to be no other choice for hoards of people trapped in a city where unemployment is rising faster than its rapidly multiplying population.

1 Birr in Ethiopia is about 10 Australian cents – not even enough to buy a piece of chewing gum at home. Yet it might buy a local Ethiopian enough bread to fill their hollow stomachs for half a day.

If these people are already stuck in the un-breakable cycle of poverty/begging then what further harm could giving them money do? As a fellow human being is helping someone out, when I can, not something that I have a moral responsibility to do? As a traveller it is important not to encourage stereotypes and ideas of other travellers and countries such as the idea that we are rich and going to give them money, but I also did not want to perpetuate the idea that white people feel superior and don’t care. When a country’s government is dependent on aid from western governments who in turn encourage this aid dependency, why would their people not also be aid dependent?

I think it is dangerous to encourage locals to beg from tourists, which in turn discourages tourists from going there which results in damage to the economy from lack of tourism. But it is hard to see that big picture when a hungry 5 year old is looking you in the face and wondering why you won’t take away his pain.

I turned around and ran up the street looking for the boy and the old man to give them some birr. But I couldn’t find them anywhere.

As I walked back to my hotel my mind still raced. I thought:

‘I can’t possibly give money to everyone who asks, but I also can’t keep saying no to everyone, it just doesn’t seem right’.

With no welfare system and little opportunities I didn’t have much hope for the people of Ethiopia. I decided to give money to crippled and disabled people and women with children. I knew that it wouldn’t make their life better, but I hoped that it would help them get through that day. And it might be the ‘wrong’ thing to do, I still felt uncertain and helpless, but it was the decision I made that day.

A minute later a teenager in a wheelchair asked me for money.

I gave him some, maybe a birr or two I don’t remember, and he grabbed my hand in both of his and thanked me profusely. I even passed him again later that day and he smiled, said hello and thanked me again. And it was hard to regret the decision I made.