Gifts, begging, and generosity

People come to my door many times every day, usually children but also adults, sometimes just to talk but often to ask for a loan, food, employment, school supplies, or a drink of water. This is extremely uncomfortable for me, but it seems to be part of the territory of living here as a Westerner. The fact that I could afford to travel all the way to Uganda is evidence enough of the wealth disparity between myself and most of the community. For me, a chronic people-pleaser, saying no to these requests is hard but necessary (though I never say no to water – it’s too easy and important). A few days ago, a couple of young children, one of whom is a friend of mine, knocked at my door and we talked for a few minutes. My friend then asked for band-aids for the other child’s skinned knees. My first instinct is to be cautious about giving handouts (because they can set a dangerous precedent), but hey, I’m a health worker after all, so this was an easy decision. I had a thought: if it were me, I’d bandage it, so how could I say no to this kid? That seemed like a great way to think about these difficult issues – treating my neighbor as myself, giving of my resources, serving those around me. I thought I had my philosophy figured out. Then I had another thought. There’s no way I can possibly do that for everyone who will come to my door, there’s no chance that I can give everyone the level of care or help that I would want for myself. If it were me, of course I’d pay my own school fees. Of course I’d buy myself food. Of course I’d pay for a hospital visit. But I can’t do those things here. I’d be broke in a week and everyone in the community would know that I was an ATM (this illustration is for your benefit – almost no one here has a bank account or would know what an ATM is). So what does this mean for me? How should I handle these situations? When should I be generous and where I should draw the line? And is giving handouts a good idea? Unfortunately, simple answers to these questions are pretty elusive.

I’m going about handling this by trying to give gifts to people with whom I have a relationship, and to give them when they’re not asked for. I think this makes it less of a paternalistic relationship and seems to be in tune with Ugandan notions of friendship and material involvement. (For us, lack of material involvement is what makes true friendship. Here, material involvement is a defining aspect of friendships. These cultural differences are tough). So I try to give gifts of food or school supplies to my neighbors, while maintaining plenty of other interactions that involve no material goods. We’ll see how that goes and how my thoughts develop in this area. (The Myhres – 15 year veterans of Bundibugyo – ensure me that it doesn’t get much easier). Yikes.