Kids and money

More thoughts on Ethiopia
Getting from my hotel to the Awassa Youth Campus was a challenge. It was a simple half km walk, but I found that every kid on my way was terribly curious about the pasty white woman with too many bags. Some kids would scream “FORENGEE” and run to me from across the street. I remember having the same reaction to ice cream trucks when I was their age. The greeting is really intimidating. Kids calling attention and drawing a crowd. Then they would put out tiny hands and say “MONEY.” They’d say it with expectation, without shame. That was unsettling. It was just weird and wrong. I wasn’t mad at them. I was mad at the idiot forengees who came before me and dolled out pennies to buy the momentary delight of these kids. For the record DON’T GIVE MONEY TO KIDS. Think about how you would feel if a stranger was giving pennies to your kids. Think about a country with no 911 system. It is a really dangerous for them. Still, I knew that the kids were going to do it. I had to come up with a way to deal with it positively.

My strategy was to take the economics out of the encounter. When a little boy yelled, “FORENGEEEEE!” I yell back, just as loud, “KONJO LEJ!” That is Amharic for “beautiful child.” The kids thought it was pretty cool and the adults walking down the street looked openly relieved that I was being nice to the little ones. When the kids would demand “MONEY!” I’d respond, “That’s not my name. My name is Renee. What is your name?” Then we’d go through a whole circle of introductions and handshaking. It worked really well. It took a lot of time. I learned quickly to just plan for it. Sometimes I’d encounter groups of kids who were already professional beggars. They were tough, but they were still kids. I’d stick with the no money thing, but my secondary strategy was to teach them a song. Lots of kids in Ethiopia now know “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

I would give money to some people—old people, disabled folks or skinny mothers with chubby little babies. Maggie McKay, and Awassa native, told me that these women breast feed long after the child is able to eat solid food because they have no food to give them. They starve themselves for their children.

I had to really think about my actions and reactions every time I left my room. The loss of anonymity is jarring. I had to shed the illusion that I controlled the way people saw me.

Africa

Africa--my trip was powerful. I came home without words for it.  I mean, I saw kids in open sewers, horrible disparity between my possessions and those of the people who I encountered, unrealistic expectations, attitudes and assumptions based on the color of my skin, unexpected kindness and generosity, and the sweet human desire to reach the person who is the "other."

I traveled from the US to Dubai, and then to Addis Ababba, Ethiopia.  I met up with Ben Sota from the Zany Umbrella Circus (I was in Africa to document his adventures.)  The two of us along with John Mckay from the Awassa Youth Campus stuffed ourselves and our gear into a mini van with a bunch of random people and headed on the bumpy, but paved, road to Awassa.  We left amidst a downpour, passing hundreds of homeless people huddled under eaves and underpasses. It was sadly familiar, except that the number of people living without a roof was exponentially greater than I see in the States.  

Outside the city limits things changed dramatically.  Ethiopia is still rural-- villages, farmland, open space. People don’t have much, but the quality of life does not ring with the same desperation as it does in the streets of Addis. 

On the 250 km ride I hung my head out the window, cranked up my shutter speed and shot.  I had come during the two months of the rainy season that turns the land to a lush green guarded by endless mountains.  I saw what the rain, cattle, increasing population and farming was doing to the land in the bare tree roots clinging to hillsides.  Erosion is washing away livelihoods and creating huge environmental problems.

We got to Awassa and I dropped my things at the Central Hotel ($10/night).  Hours turned to minutes that day –it seemed like I had just put down my bag and some one said “LET’S DANCE.” I squeezed into a three-wheeled motorcycle taxi with a bunch of European kids who were volunteering at an orphanage’s summer camp. We ended up at the local disco “The Inferno.”  In Ethiopia if you want to make friends, DANCE!