If only

When the poor labourers came to work the first day, one brought her son of about nine. His shorts were worn thin where there weren’t holes in them. Boys go around without but not at the age of nine.

A couple of days earlier I had gone to their house because the oldest son in the house was begging for food. I knew he might lie about their needs and sell any food I gave him, so I felt I had to go see his parents. It would be much easier just to give him money, but I couldn’t take responsibility for letting him get away with taking the food and money for himself; he might get habits like his father’s.

I asked his mother to come work for me, digging a new garbage pit near my house. On the first day, she and the three others working there made TK 125 each, the next day they were down to Tk 110 and then they didn’t show up. I know they don’t always eat, and I was desperate not to rip them off, while also not giving them charity. The boy’s mother and father came on the third day and managed to make TK 190 together, but that was only because I increased the rate by 25% and then rounded every possibly measurement up to the nearest foot. I didn’t want them to know that I was fixing the numbers in their favour.

The ground was hard, but giving in to the need to be charitable is not an option. There has been too many people creating dependencies and to many people who never took responsibility for themselves because of it. Yesterday two of the people who came the first day turned up again. I guess they were hungry. It was much easier with four than with just two but the dirt was no easier to dig than four days earlier, and even with all my creativity I couldn’t justify paying them more than TK 100 each.

That is just under three kilos of rice, and not enough to feed a family of six. Today I could pay them TK 120 each with only a little fixing of numbers. It is so hard to help well but I was thrilled to be able to do that. The rate I paid today was twice of what I had been told others would pay. Perhaps that is when they dig from fields where the soil has been tilled every season. The best advice I was given was to pay two thirds of the rate I use now, but that was for twelve feet under ground, and we are not even half way there.

Another colleague told me he wouldn’t be able to pay what I pay. He didn’t complain about pushing prices up. From much else he does I know he has concern for the poor. It is just that he and most others can’t afford to pay more. I have been given money by a church in Denmark that I am using so for me it is not so difficult.

I found a quote on the internet, said to be by one of the first Muslim leaders, ‘If poverty had been a man, I should have had him executed.’ It is so hard to know how to help well, but I think I already said that.

Over the weekend a colleague who had heard about the boy and his shorts went to town and brought a new pair for him. Two days later, as he came to get his parents after work he was wearing long pants – I guess because the shorts weren’t decent. The look on his face and the tone in his voice as he put the shorts under his arm, chatted to his mother and they left for home was worth a million.

If only helping was always that simple.