My cash won’t solve your problems – But it’ll buy your dinner

We just finished a week long education camp in a small town about 40 minutes outside of Arusha called Kikatiti. The needs in Kikatiti are many – and the group that did a community profile in the area decided that running a week long camp by partnering with a vocational school and working with Tanzanian volunteers would be the best way to address a lot of them. Kikatiti is small, rural and dusty. It was very different than here near Arusha. Located just a hundred feet from the vocational school where we spent most of the week was a well that fed a constant stream of women (and some men and children) collecting water in large plastic containers that they would then use for the rest of the day (or longer). The line was never shorter than 15 and the road was constantly full of yellow barrels carried by handcarts, donkeys, or on heads. There are tons of orphans (a child in TZ even if they have only lost one parent – there were 40 registered orphans at the primary school of about 300) and many of them end up as “street kids” not necessarily living on the street, but spending a lot of their time outside with not much to do – although many of them find work pushing carts. There is also a large market held every Tuesday and Friday that people come from all over to attend. And remember that huge trash pile? Yeah – that’s smack dab in the middle of Kikatiti.

The coolest part of the project was that we recruited a bunch of Arusha college students to help us plan and carry out the week and working with them was awesome. It was so much fun developing friendships and communicating about issues with kids our age and working together to solve problems (look for a future blog post on how education inequality in the US seems to mirror some of the problems here – aka – getting to go to college has a lot to do with the type of background you come from) Together with these students we planned classes and projects to help change attitudes and behaviors and address issues in K’titi (that’s how it’s abbreviated on the Dala Dala’s.

Well best laid plans of mice and men….but I’d say we adapted and the week went really well. We (that’s presumptuous. The only class WE as in HELP taught was English. The university students taught the rest and were awesome! Way to kick butt Gerald, Godlisten, Joseph, Abdallah, and Irene!) a bunch of classes and seeing a room full of people seeing and using computers for the first time, or helping a motivated farmer understand how he could diversify his investments and support himself in case of a poor harvest by selling bricks, was AWESOME. Not to mention that every day in the afternoon we got a group of kids who we taught English games and just got to have fun with.

Then, today (Friday) for the closing ceremony we had a DJ come from Arusha and set up a stand to promote a handwashing station that we built. We did training and had a bunch of activities to help the villagers and market-goers participate in cleanliness. The handwashing station was awesome. The rest of the day was less so. It seemed that whatever we did – people were asking for a handout. People I worked with all week asked for 500 TSH for food. People who we invited to come and use the new handwashing station asked if they’d get paid. People gave up on our activities when they learned the rewards were sweets, not shillings. We couldn’t play the second game of soccer because one of the kids from the first game stole the ball. Maybe it was all the muzungu in one place. Or the dj set up with his music, computer and soundmixer in an obvious show of wealth. And just to rub it in, in the short walk from the bus stop to our house, I was asked for money three times: once by some kids that I stopped to talk to while Matt bought food. The first thing out of his mouth was English “Can I have money?” The next was an old lady who wanted 200 shillings to buy tea because it was cold. And finally just as we turned onto our road, a lady yelled “muzungu!” and held out her hand. None of these people were beggars.

I feel sorry for mom’s and dad’s everywhere – is this what the “Hey – can I have some cash?” feels like? But it was also discouraging (not to mention demoralizing) to be seen as a source of free money and not as a person. It makes you wonder what actions/programs/prior interaction has caused this attitude and whether we’re helping or just making it worse.

But there is another side to this too. In the market I was asked for the US equivalent of 33 cents. The old lady only wanted about 13. The people asking for the money are spot on in their assumption that I have that money and enough to spare what they want (I can’t spare it to everyone – but I can spare it to them) And all of this is not to mention what I feel my responsibility is as a Christian is concerning money and beggars (Hmmm interesting conclusion that writing this down helped me to reach: They aren’t technically beggars – we’re theologically required to give only to those who have no other options than to beg….interesting)

I guess this is the constant struggle of this kind of work – today alone we spent a lot of money that probably didn’t change much. We might have had a just as much (if not more) of an affect giving that money away. It might have made a bunch of people satisfied (happy, even?) today. It might have prevented someone from getting sick because of malnutrition. We tell ourselves that giving away money doesn’t have a long term affect, but it totally could. It just isn’t sustainable. It means twenty years from now the same well dressed granny will ask a muzungu for twenty cents and kids who don’t know any English other than hello, gooodbye, and give me money will stick their hand out before they get to know you. The trick is finding something that can change this. Because up to this point – apparently begging money from a muzungu is still a good way to eat – whether your 12, 22, or 66.