The Art of Giving

I ran into Naftal the other day. He used to work for the agency which arranged my trip last time. He said he was very happy to see me and told me that he needed money to send his son to a good college which cost a lot more than a regular school. He mentioned that he already got 50,000 Tanzanian Schillings from another volunteer but needed more to pay for the tuition for TS160,000.

My heart sank. He is not even looking for for a loan. He just wanted a handout. I know he drinks at night even though he needed the money for his family. Last time I was here, I was told that he didn't get paid for his work while his family's cow was sick and waiting to get treatment. I got together with another volunteer and gave him a big tip to help him with the bus fare to go home. I think that was the first time he got any money from the volunteers.

I felt partially responsible for starting and breeding the behavior of faking poor to get sympathy and money from the naive and good-hearted volunteers here. My mission here was to help people become self-sufficient but instead I have resulted in something completely opposite of what I was here to do. I realized that I needed to rethink about my approach and design of the program.