Well, thinking about my travels, the one thing that came up in my mind was something we were speaking about when we were about to leave - the increase in the number of street urchins in Rio that were looking for money or food.
It seemed like there were more this year than usual and indeed they seemed to be more aggressive and persistent in their approach.
It hard to know what to do when you have a six year old undernourished girl begging for food and telling you “estou con fome” - I am hungry.
You cannot feed everybody. If you give money to one child, then they will all target you and it becomes deeply unpleasant. If you don’t give anybody anything, then you feel like a heartless so-and-so.
However, I guess it might help us here in Ireland (or europe or wherever there is real wealth), to occasionally be made feel uncomfortable by other people’s poverty.
We have money and by gum, we are going to hold on to it. We refuse to trade in agricultural produce with Brazil now because we are worried about the quality of the meat. I have been eating Brazilian beef for for a decade and I’m still almost normal. Maybe there is an increased danger, but I don’t see wholesale deaths in Brazil because of the quality of the meat - we see wholesale deaths in developing countries because of the lack of money.
I don’t think I went to Brazil to exploit the country. We raised 22,000 Euro for this trip from European institutes. We paid for the accommodation and meals expenses of 20 students and we taught a total of 40 students (from MSc/PhD students up to professor level). We provided grants for students from Africa to fly to Brazil for the course. We didn’t get paid any salary and we provided employment in hotels and restaurants. We are not Chiquita banana or a logging corporation burning down rainforest in Rhondonia. We go to Brazil, leave money behind and leave education behind. The students now have the knowledge to go and do conservation work, monitor the spread of infectious diseases, etc. I feel it is making a contribution.
It still seems like very little when you have a six year old girl with her hand out saying “estou con fome”.
2 users commented in " Musings on my travels "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI’ve witnessed the same thing many times in Philippines. It is very heartbreaking to see the children begging for whatever they can get. Sad to say, there aren’t any easy answers.
We all point fingers at someone else and say, “It’s their fault.”
Indeed we are very much involved in their poverty. Very much.