I can't help but cringe a little bit when she says 'oh, is it that woman around Yaya? I know her, she talks to me all the time.' He then pitches in 'I know her too... she has been around for a while.'
Why is it, that we feel tricked when we fall for a good story? In the end, did it really matter? An old woman conning people on the street should use any story that gets her money, if you think of it. It is in no way different from any other marketing out there. You sell the story that people need to hear to initiate a transaction. 'Don't feel bad' they say. 'Don't feel bad at all.' But I can't help it. I also feel bad when I get goosebumps by ads for Samsung or when I fall for one of Nairobi's Don Juans like every other white girl I meet afterwards. But that's a story for another time.
Yesterday night was the moment that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had overdosed on sugar and my giddiness spilled over into the street. With swinging steps I made my way back home because I am one of those wazungu who proudly declare that they don't care and still walk at night regardless of what our Kenyan (and expat) friends say about that. Until something happens, of course.
This old woman runs up to me. She doesn't ask for money, she asks for a job, because it is better to do something than to beg. Because, she has two children and so on, sometimes she can't put food on the table for two days in a row. My sugar high is wilting by the second. We talk. My friend says, when you talk, you are already hooked. So I am hooked and we talk. I say, we already have a housekeeper. She says you are a very good boss. Such a good person. That you talk to an old woman who has nothing on the street. The other people who are streaming back into Kibera in their suits and broken shoes turn their heads. I say, in fact, I am not the boss. The landlady is the boss. She says that doesn't matter, you are a good person. I ask her if she has a phone, so I can perhaps refer her to someone who is looking for a housekeeper. That would be nice she exclaims but I don't have a phone, see, my son had fees coming up in school so I had to sell my phone.
I feel terrible. My hand is playing with the money I just got out of the ATM. I say, here, please take this money and I want to give her 2k. I say, I really don't want to perpetuate this image, that white people have money just because we are white. In fact, I am a student and I live on a shoestring budget too but of course, while I have a shoestring she doesn't even have any shoes, perhaps. And of course, as the money in my hands is derisively sneering at my claim of brokeness, I can't help myself and give her the entire three thousand shillings I had in my pockets for the next couple of days. We end the conversation with her promising me to buy a phone and call me the next day to show me that my money really went somewhere good. Then there is something about Kisumu and Luos and a high five and she disappears into the dark. I stagger home, meet some friends who laugh at me having been conned but with tears in my eyes I say 'she looked like my Mom'. I couldn't help myself. I don't care if I was conned. Not until the next day, when they said they knew her too. My claim to uniqueness dissipating in thin air.
It is hard for me to see old people going through trashcans. In my european hometown as well as here in Nairobi. It is almost worse than seeing children begging. And yet, so far I was able to walk past most of the working people in the street who market towards my compassion. Often I will walk past a blind-ish crippled person and think to myself: your story is not touching my compassionate heart. It is no different than me walking past the shoes and clothes in the stores that I have no money for.
In the very same moment I think 'what would Jesus do?' and while my friends would be surprised to hear this because they don't know me as an overtly religious person, I am actually serious about that. Jesus didn't have a blue print how to treat people. He healed one person and sent them back to the village so they could tell everyone what happened. The next one he told to never go back and keep it a secret. Of course Jesus wouldn't just give money to everybody. He would probably sit down and talk and see what really is up. What caused this? Where is your share of responsibility in this life? Are you living a smaller version of yourself? Is society proportionally more to blame?
Sometimes I am thinking, in a way this marketing of the poor is a more direct way than going for the marketing of NGO's who then need a lot of the money to pay salaries and hardship allowances and furniture of their staff. Perhaps systemic change is more important but also maybe just giving a poor person money as they are working their ass off on the streets appealing to our twisted and tortured hearts of compassion is also just that - a transaction of goods. And sometimes we buy, and sometimes we don't. I am remaining with a big question mark in my heart.
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