The Buddha and Beggars

Tuesday, 26 January 2010.
I am reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book "Old Path: White Clouds" and in it the Buddha says that monks beg to foster humility and make contact with others to help them see the way of Love and Understanding. I can understand how begging would foster humility in the monk and also allow others to see the way of Love and Understanding. But, how can responding to beggars who are not monks but just ordinary people help us see the way of love and understanding?

Yesterday I went to town and in the market saw some refugee children begging. These children and their families stand out even in a sea of Ghanaians, with their straight brown hair, their light brown skin, their language, and the men’s colorful turbans. Most of the time I just notice the children, but occasionally I see women in long dresses begging with a few children between the cars and trotros. I have not seen the men beg but I see them standing at a distance watching. When the children beg they come up and hold your hand or your arm and quietly whine and stay by your side until you give them something. And, as soon as you hand them a little money, they disappear. There are many rumors about where these people are from and why they are in Ghana. I do not know what is true but imagine they probably they come from Northern Africa and, as so many people who move to an inhospitable situation, are fleeing violence.

Yesterday I saw three children in one small area begging - moving from person to person - and two men, one in a blue turban and another in a pink turban, standing across the street watching the children. In the moment it took me to cross the street I watched two different people yell and swat at two of the children and saw the children cringe and moved away but continue begging as the men across the street kept watch. How does this scene open my heart to love and understanding?

My impulse is far from loving. First there is anger, why do the men make the children beg like this? Why doesn’t the Ghanaian government provide some support to these people? Why are people so hostile to the children? Or at least why don’t some local mosques offer assistance? I hear my questions and notice they are all irrelevant at the moment when I see the children. So again, how does this scene open my eyes to love and understanding? I am still unsure.

I have given a little money to these children many times but does it improve their lives? Does it decrease their suffering? It certainly doesn’t transform their situation. Handing them a little money is not gratifying to me. I would rather “solve” the problem. I don’t want to be part of an unknown or un-seeable long term perhaps lifetime or multi-generational transformation. I certainly don’t want to be a part of any plan which prolongs suffering. If I give, the adults will continue to use the children to beg. If I don’t give, the adults will continue to use the children to beg and maybe the children will go hungry. From my vantage point it is impossible to tell what impact my role has. I am impatient for change now. But perhaps this is the crux, relinquishing a bit of control and doing whatever I decide to do with love and compassion in my heart.

Friday, 29 January 2010
I did a lot of wash today sitting behind the house on a stool with a bucket between my legs. I filled the lines outside and felt accomplished. The clothes always smell lovely after drying in the sun but sometimes I wonder if all the dust I so laboriously wash out is just blown back in immediately with the breeze. It is always dusty here. There is no end to it. After one week our sheets turn the water brown. After washing, I cooked: fried whole fish and boiled yam. As I held the fish with their glassy eyes in my hands I realized how far I had come. My mother never cooked fish apart from fish sticks.

Yesterday I went to Mampong. I went to see about possibly working as a midwife there. It’s a small town, a little over an hour’s trotro ride from Kumasi. The hospital, they say, is one of the busiest regional hospitals in Ghana. They do 1,200 deliveries a year. Nothing seems busy compared to Bottom’s 12,000 a year. The town is small and green. The hospital grounds are spacious and quiet. It is peaceful. If I were in Ghana on my own I would probably choose to work in a place like Mampong. But, now it is too far from Clement. I don’t want to be away from him any more than necessary and a lot is necessary already. It was an interesting excursion but I will not apply for a job.

On my return, while I was sitting in the trotro in Mampong, waiting for it to fill, women and children circled selling water and meat pies and sugar cookies and yogurt. The woman behind me bought water from a small girl and asked the girl if she went to school, the girl nodded. The woman in the mini bus exchanged a glance with me, doubtful. One woman and the little girl stood in the doorway and looked at me. An old man with short white hair and stubbly white whiskers wearing dirty threadbare clothes came to the passenger door. Speaking in a low voice he stretched his open hand through the window. The two men sitting in front paid him no mind. I watched him as he continued talking to their indifferent faces and took a one cedi coin from my bag and held it in my closed fist. He stayed there for a moment until he realized they would not give him anything. He then moved to the back door and saw me. He said something I could not understand and showed me a small coin in his hand. He smiled at me. I looked in his eyes and smiled. He said something else and I handed him the money. He looked at it for a moment, wiped his hand on his dirty trousers and offered it to me. I shook it and he smiled and continued down the line. The woman sitting next to me smiled at me and said “Medasse” (thank you). I smiled back and saw her life – a life full of physical work in the sun, which had wrinkled her face and made her body wirey and strong; her clean colorful mismatched headscarf blouse and skirt, the look of village women all over Africa.

I caught a glimpse of the Buddha’s meaning. Perhaps our hearts are opened to love and understanding when we release the need to know what will happen to our coins, when we silence the voices of judgment and rationalization, when we release expectation of gratification and gratitude and simply acknowledge the person and the fullness of their humanity. The woman sitting next to me was a poor woman, perhaps she did not have any money to give the man, but she understood him and cared for him enough that she thanked me on his behalf. She said nothing to him but embodied sufficient humility, love and understanding that his plight had personal meaning for her, unconditionally. His handshake and her smile were gifts of water on a little seedling somewhere deep inside me.