Let me tell a story from 2008 when I was living near Jawala Khel. I was walking past the supermarket store in Jawala Khel next to the Allowa Hotel, and I was accosted by a young girl begging for food. She had the afternoon begging shift as she had attended school in the morning. She and I had interacted a number of times and we knew each other from the point of view that we were able to easily recognised each other. She came bounding up to me asking for food, and I often mimicked her actions of imaginary feeding by lifting my hand up to my mouth and saying "Food, Food." In a loud voice, I berated her as being a disgrace to the Nepali community, because every afternoon she would be there begging for food. She was not malnourished nor was she going hungry each night. She was not skin and bones like other children I had seen living on the streets.
As we were interacting with each other in jest, an oversea "religious visitor" overhears our conversation and reacted. He turned on his heel and returned to the Allowa Hotel, where he was staying, to get some money. He then entered the store and purchased two 2-minute noodle packets and gave them to her while giving me a look of distain. The girl then quickly disappeared, going to her home opposite the store, where she lived with her working parents, to put the two noodle packets into their food cupboard. Within two minutes, the girl was back on the street begging again with empty hands once more. No sign of the two 2-minute noodle packets she had been given.
This religious visitor had by this time left, hurrying off to his "important" meeting or wherever he was going, with a sense of pride that he had shown me up, by giving the girl some noodle packets. Unfortunately, he had reinforced the notion for the girl, that it was profitable for the girl to beg for food.
Had he actually helped the situation? I would suggest that he had added to the problems that were very common in KTM at that time. This girl was not a street kid in need of help from foreigners because the Nepali government provides no social help programs. The street kids worked the areas where the tourists usually stayed in the centre of KTM near the Kings Palace.
This girl was in good clothes and working the foreigners for money to buy food. The visiting religious visitor did not read the situation at all. It was his fast solution to what he thought was the problem. He had no idea the potential harm he was doing.
As we were interacting with each other in jest, an oversea "religious visitor" overhears our conversation and reacted. He turned on his heel and returned to the Allowa Hotel, where he was staying, to get some money. He then entered the store and purchased two 2-minute noodle packets and gave them to her while giving me a look of distain. The girl then quickly disappeared, going to her home opposite the store, where she lived with her working parents, to put the two noodle packets into their food cupboard. Within two minutes, the girl was back on the street begging again with empty hands once more. No sign of the two 2-minute noodle packets she had been given.
This religious visitor had by this time left, hurrying off to his "important" meeting or wherever he was going, with a sense of pride that he had shown me up, by giving the girl some noodle packets. Unfortunately, he had reinforced the notion for the girl, that it was profitable for the girl to beg for food.
Had he actually helped the situation? I would suggest that he had added to the problems that were very common in KTM at that time. This girl was not a street kid in need of help from foreigners because the Nepali government provides no social help programs. The street kids worked the areas where the tourists usually stayed in the centre of KTM near the Kings Palace.
This girl was in good clothes and working the foreigners for money to buy food. The visiting religious visitor did not read the situation at all. It was his fast solution to what he thought was the problem. He had no idea the potential harm he was doing.
