OK, so I hate it when people ask me for money. To be fair it never used to bother me and in fact I gave them money pretty often, but then I moved to a bigger city with a large population of grifters. Let's call them grifters because most of them are not homeless and they are all very organized and their methods are dishonest (for example they ask you to sign a "petition" saying that you support schools for kids with handicaps and then try to get you to give them money, or once a guy "found" a ring on the ground and gave it to me cause it didn't fit him... then he wanted money). To make things worse these people are always pushy, and if you do give them money often times they will be upset that you didn't give them more. In short, people asking for money is now one of my least favorite things about the human experience.
However, one day while I was in Morroco, I decided to try being a beggar for a while. My motivation was simple, I wanted to get out of Morroco. I was two dollars short of a train ride to the the airport so I made a sign on some cardboard and sat myself down outside the train station. I thought it was going to be a sympathy building experience, that I would better understand our homeless friends, but within half an hour an old man gave me fifty cents and a young woman by the name of Yasmine had come a long and offered to pay for my entire train ticket (at this point I've made somewhere around five USD in cash and goods during a period of about thirty minutes, giving me a rough average of ten USD an hour... in Morrocco, where ten USD an hour is easily higher income than 80% of the rest of the nation). We shared a fifteen minute conversation while we road the train to where I could make my connection to get to the airport, during which time she fed me and gave me some extra change and then suggested we exchange info in case I ever came back to Morocco and I wanted a place to stay in Casa Blanca. It was too easy. It built no sympathy whatsoever.
That is until today. Months after my trip Yasmine and I had the following conversation through Facebook chat:
Yasmine:
hello
Me:
hi
Yasmine:
how are u to day
Me:
not great
hard day
Yasmine:
ok
i miss u so mutch
END CONVERSATION.
Suddenly all the random phone calls from Morocco make sense. You know the ones where your phone rings and you the number has the country code +212 and you answer and then someone is trying to speak to you in Arabic and you don't understand so they start speaking French and you still can't really understand what they're saying and then they hang up. Wait, you don't get those? Probably because you never gave your number to a Yasmine in Morocco because you felt obligated after she had fed you and bought you a train ticket.
But the important thing is that I learned that had never occurred to me. Homeless people are putting themselves out there everyday, out into a world that is a hell of a lot crazier than they are. Now I'm not saying we should go so far as to admire the courage that must take, but I am suggesting that we could all give them a little more sympathy. I know I will.
Monday, September 27, 2010
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1 comment:
--This is a crazy story. She is crazy. I mean... she met you as a beggar, and was still into you. I guess that just proves your charm, even through the language and financial barriers.
--My best friend talked to some lady who worked at a market ONCE during the last few days of his LDS mission in Argentina, and he gave her his email. She started e-mailing him all of these intense e-mails telling him how amazing he is and he stopped responding because they were getting too weird.. then a couple months later she started spamming him e-mails basically begging his forgiveness. I don't get it.
--Beggars though... man, I have a story. Last Saturday I was walking around downtown SLC, and after picked up some food from Burger King this lady in a wheel chair hanging out by a Beto's rolls up to me asking for money. "I'm trying to get a California burrito, and they are around $5." She says.
--I have a sandwich in one hand so I open my wallet with some difficulty and there is only one quarter inside, so I hand it to her. "You can have this quarter, it's all I've got." I say.
--She laughs, "Well I guess I'll just go hungry then!"
--So, I smile and reply, "I won't!" Then I took a bite of my sandwich and walked off.
--Seriously, what the hell. Did she think she was entitled to my money and I was keeping it from her or something? And WHY does a beggar in a wheel chair think she is going to starve if she doesn't eat a five dollar burrito instead of rolling a block over to Burger King for a $1.00 sandwich?
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