Chocolate Charities- To Give or Not to Give

Saturday 7/31/10
Today I had the opportunity to travel to the City of Masaya with Sarita and Maria Eugenia for a little sight seeing and shopping. I was super excited since I don’t get out much. We woke up at 6:30 to take a microbus from la Universidad Centroamericana. The 17km trip was about 45 minutes long, and I was just happy to have a seat. Masaya is known as the “City of Flowers” and is the center of Nicaragua’s artesanía production. Upon entering the city it was noticeably different from Managua, with cobbled streets, fresh air, potted plants, and beautiful architecture. It is home to two exotic craft markets, which were our focus for the day. The Mercado Nacional de Artesanía or Mercado Viejo (Old Market) is located behind grandiose castle-like walls and is full of what felt like hundreds of stalls and vendors selling items from your “basic” hammock to turtles that have sadly undergone taxidermy. We spent the day perusing the shops and bartering with vendors, but we had little intention of purchasing anything.

On the walk back to the bus station, in one of her supreme acts of generosity Maria Eugenia bought me two large chocolate frosted donuts with sprinkles. Now, the majority of my experience has been receiving far more than I need and I am supremely grateful and humbled by the overwhelming kindness. However, there is only so much donut that I can handle. So we gave my second donut to an elderly man dressed in ragged clothing and lying on the street. He did not ask us for anything when we walked by, but Maria Eugenia nonchalantly went up to him and asked, “Excuse me sir, would you like this donut?” He smiled the biggest toothless grin I have ever seen and told us that he could not remember the last time he tasted chocolate, and sent us health and blessings from God. Our experience with the man on the street was only a minute, but it got me thinking about charity. I’ve always struggled with when to give and not to give, but the prevalence of poverty here makes the “struggle” daily. Nicaraguan culture is a culture of dependency; it’s sad but that is the way that the majority of the population have learned to live their lives. Walking the streets you have children running up to you with little grass creations that they have weaved, tugging on your clothing and telling you they need money. Sitting on the bus you have people stand up and start speeches about how so in so is in the hospital and the bill cannot be paid, and a frequent visitor to Ruta 114 is a blind man who plays songs on an accordion and asks for your extra change. People who have lost limbs sit in wheelchairs in the middle of the streets at stoplights and approach your car and knock on the windows. This question “to give or not to give” often turns into a lose-lose situation for me. I either give money and feel guilty because I think that they money is not going towards something positive, or I don’t give money and feel guilty for not doing anything. I have been warned by numerous people not to give to the children especially, because it aids the development of bad habits early in life and they most likely give the money they make to lazy parents that don’t want to work. Seeing the man with the donut, I’m thinking maybe I should just carry around tons of food with me in my final week here and anyone who asks for money I should just give him or her a power bar instead. At least when I give food I know that it can only be used as food- well maybe it could be bartered for other items??? I was hoping I would somehow come to a solution to this problem in a conclusion to this post, but apparently I’m going to have to ponder this one.