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| Do not encourage begging by giving money. |
It is an Easter Sunday afternoon
and children are in groups along Ring Road Kilimani. They stop any passer-by to
read their paper. A school called Victoria
something
Academy has written to
you. I
didn’t read the handwritten and severally photocopied paper. It lacked a stamp.
The child had hinted that she (not sure whether she was a girl or a boy) was
contributing funds for school uniform. I could have read and sought out a way
for the first child-even if it included contributing a coin- before I saw two
children who are in Heart to Heart Orphan Children support Programme-a
volunteer organization- among them. The first one who identified me started
running. The second one followed after understanding the reaction of the first
one. A scene. I sighed and walked away.
If I gave the child some money
for instance, how sure will it contribute to the uniform? What about if the
child is on a mission on behalf of some dishonest fellow? Is it not a holiday month? Uniform, really? With
money, can the child be prompted to utilities that may be abusive? Like
sniffing glue to the urchins.
Begging is such common on Kenyan streets.
The beggars vary from children, the aged and the old. They are in tatters,
their faces frowning and their eyes full of need. Rarely can a youth be found
in the act. Maybe stealing or crafting dishonest ways to make ends meet-like
wishing to join Al-Shabaab. As for the lame people, who are majority and make
beggars to be classified as people with disabilities, they can be found so near
to the house or office door in case you are a middle income earner. Some
beggars are so common that you may become a customer to their service- lending
their hands or cups. Seeing the children did not surprise much. A small
distance from there I had met three children standing at Eastern Hotel gate. A
few metres from my home gate sits a common man with walking sticks. He knows me
so well though I have never been of service. Of course I have never looked at
him with blushing eyes. Mine has ever been you-can-do-something-better-for-income-lazy-buddy
look. He has hands at least.
In one way or the other, most of
Kenyans are beggars if we associate begging with a feeling of a person who
should be pitied. Some lack housing and food like most people who live with
less than a dollar a day. 49.9% of rural families are poor. In need. I think it
is more than this untrusted government statistic. For one person to go to the
street to beg, he may have had it enough at the poor house with services that
he is not entitled to never to come. But what makes you think that you are a
special poor person to go on the streets with a cup? Don’t you think you injure
people’s souls? If I went to the rural home today my relatives will expect some
money from me. I am jobless though. We are all beggars. Aren’t we? Maybe if we
think so.
Absolute poverty can call for
begging though I would somehow deny poverty as a cause. Let the two children be
represented as Laura and Minky and the mother Diana. Diana vendors’ vegetables form
door to door. She sells the remainder in a Kiosk at the end of the day. She
reports that her small bussiness is moving on swiftly and she can at least provide
daily meals unlike two years ago when the children were first spotted on
Argwings Kodhek Road begging. They had scabies, survived in the streets, had never
stepped in school and fed on dirty food. They presently live in the slums of
Kawangware. Diana is under the micro-bussiness loaning system.
Diana, like another mother whom I
went to visit in Kabiria after finding a boy begging at Hurlingam has no
husband or education to help her compete for any opportunities. She is a widow,
guarding four children of her ‘mad’ sister when she has three of her own. Her
house is a small four cornered mabati building
with several spaces that can allow ants, cold wind, pungent aroma of nearby
stagnant sewerage and noise from the rooms separated by thin 1mm mabati. When it rains, the house risks
flooding or gaining hazardous coldness that will be felt on bare feet or
children’s buttocks when they sit without a clothing because there is no enough
clean water or saved soap for the mess to come if they urinated or poo-pooed in
the only clothes. She is still poor though to accommodate eight children under
the same roof and be responsible for their discipline.
Laura and Minky have greatly
risked their lives through this behavior. They have been talked to for a number
of times about the dangers of being on the streets. Minky is a victim of sexual
abuse to a certain man calling himself a child rescuer in Kanunganga,
Kawangware. The office has no means and personnel to follow up the case. Kikuyu
police Station has one day held hostage of Laura when she was found on the
streets late in the night. She lied that she was following her mother to the
rural side. I am largely sure that she was child-prostituting, like any woman found
begging along River road would say. Who in River road can drop a coin without
being served first? I have ever engaged
them and found that they were actively sexual though at 12. And so, on this
Sunday if the child is approached by a pedophile, the guessed answer is
correct.
The hard eyes posed by beggars can’t
be exorcised by a talk with them on the streets. If that were the case,
prostitution would have ended in Kenya due to the high energy of social
workers. I am however afraid to talk to a sex worker who stands opposite Chaka
Place every 9pm. One day I’ll try. It doesn’t matter whether it is a Sunday or
a Monday. There is a woman at Yaya who has been common appearing with a young
boy child whom I guess is not hers after sharing the story about the ‘stunted’
children used by the begging women. It is painful to think that the children
are hired for this job. Why are the
children never advancing in growth to think that being on the streets is wrong?
A well trained child can earn a good sum, dear reader. Therefore, I stooped low
one evening feeling guilty that if I passed without a caring attitude, God will
be angered by me, to ask her about herself and the problem that keeps her in
the cold with a small child. The answer was rude than her shame to keep an eye
contact, ‘Kama hutaki kusaidia uende’- If you don’t want to help, go. I went.
When a certain old woman calls me ‘kijana yangu’, I sense flattery and ignore.
Its money being sought for.
Beggars are not the poorest in
the society. They may have adopted a simple way of raising their money. My
friend once made me laugh when he said that he peeped in a beggar’s cup at Alsopps,
Thika Road and saw that the beggar had more than 20/- when he himself had only
the coin to be moneyless. He therefore had wished to ask (not to beg) the
beggar to lend a hand and help him with ten shillings to top up and travel to
Kenyatta University. Beggars know that people look into their accounts and even
the blind one knows that a hawking beggar may pass by and to avoid a heavy
heart, it is better to transfer the amount to trusted account-from the cup to
the pocket. Begging at places like State house road using a wheel chair means
that you were in a position to afford a wheel chair not minding if it was a
donation. The person is better of a lame person without any aid service in the
slums.
With such a high number of
children and people begging portrays Kenya as a one-man society if not a
careless one. With increased number of traffic due to increased buying (loaning)
of cars and expenditure on fuel with the President saying that Kenya is a
middle-income country brings out the irony. My lecturer thinks that Kenya has enough resources to at least
prevent absolute poverty only that distribution is poor. Somebody may think
that it is a normal society when poor people can be traced. For it was the same
when God walked on earth in flesh. It is also written in the Holt books that
poor people will never cease from being among- Mathew 26:11. It does not
however encourage begging. The Quran writes, ‘Have you seen him who belies the
rewards and punishments of the Hereafter? He it is who drives away the orphan
and does not urge giving away the food of the poor. (107:1 - 3).
The up come of urbanization,
value for money and reduced cooperation, call it lessened moral fabric, among
people has led to this situation. For the first time I saw a beggar in Nairobi.
Not in the countryside. If we used to beg at home, then it was a bit different,
a bit civilized. Like going to a man’s compound, asking to pluck some guavas
from the tree and later cleaning the compound or a man or woman coming to ask
if the family is need of service and work for food if there is no money.
Begging was discouraged. A beggar would not get anything because money is not
everything in the rural area. Food and health is. But at this rate, I will find
a beggar soon in the village. Begging for money. An old Jewish curse is here
with us. Reverse civilization it is.
Beggars, I used to think are
people whose mental functioning is not good. And if they have a good reasoning,
then they more often play stupid. Playing stupid is being foolish and
foolishness is a matter of accepting your thinking is poor. A lady that sits
out of the office gate with a small paper cup sometimes laugh when you look at
her. She can talk and reason with a person. But tomorrow will see her back.
Sometimes she brings five-shilling packed groundnuts. When people fail to buy,
the family maybe consumes and she wakes up with the can again. When a normal
person walks to the begging place with the help of a guardian then both are
foolish. Like I am to think of them in that manner. And if they are not
foolish, then we can conclude that begging is one of the social-economic
activities. It doesn’t sound proper like the former statements. It is your role
to give and assist, I pretend to know. But can’t we assist the noble needy
initiatives which they should join?
Throwing a coin in a beggar’s tin
is not a good thing. It does not mean you care. Maybe you are just recognizing the
problem. If you think you care, give notes. No, provide help more than that
because since I started using money, it has never been enough. You can opt for
a monthly shopping to that family. If you have the heart of Dr. Doom in Dean
Koontz book, ‘One Door Away From Heaven’, you may see to them being quickly
killed to despair from suffering and stop making some people hate life when
they see crooked hands beside a manila paper on Moi Avenue or burnt chests
under Githurai flyover. The one whom I saw nagging a white man in Lavington on
his way is a disgrace. You can be human enough to advocate for family
planning-give birth when you think you can manage-while you support abortion. What about policies to encounter this behavior? That would be inhuman. Maybe policies that encourage wealth creation. Dreams. And if the government and community do not sought out this issue, for I have
seen beggars on State House Road, many will become beggars and our society more
violent. Even sane humans. Reason? We are allowing it.
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