I was walking from one taxi to
another in Macanisa, headed home. Sitting on the ground, knees folded to her
bony chin, was a little beggar woman. She didn’t look up when I walked by. She
only saw above my dusty Toms the whiteness of my ankles, which triggers for a
beggar blinking dollar signs. Her arm bounded up and down more aggressively and
she yelled louder, “Se le Mariam! Se le
Gabriel! Se le Igzyabeher!” (For the sake for Mary, Gabriel, and God.)
I pass hundreds of beggars in a week. Every
day, on every street they are there. They hold out there crinkled palms, step
out to block my path, bang the cloth in front of them, tilt their heads, moan,
and send out their small children to run after me. I have learned the hard
lesson that I cannot hand money and food to every beggar that intercepts me. I
can’t, but it’s hard. A lot of my perspective on them changed when I began the hospice
program and realized how many of these people I personally knew were on some
street doing this for their living. Most beggars – I have also learned that not
all – depend on their beggings for income. Their food, their rent, their water,
their health care.
I often drink machiatos at a café on a main strip with friends.
There are easily ten beggars sitting on that strip daily. Some of them have children,
some disabilities – blindness, missing limbs, etc…
We sit out on the porch most
of the time, which gives me a clear view of the walkway on which the beggars
sit. I watch people, Ethiopians and foreigners alike, hurry or mosey through.
The beggars call out to each person, but no one looks down. Everyone sets their
faces forward and does not acknowledge the calls. This is not hard to believe.
It’s extremely awkward to have someone looking up at you asking for money. What
gets me more, is that even when people stop and give them money they do not
look at them. 
They drop the coins carelessly on the cloth without stopping. Never
is there eye contact, or a sense of a person to person exchange. Beggars are
dehumanized by the rest of us. Also the passersby are dehumanized by the
beggars, only seen by them as potential donors. I observe these things intently
from my seat at the café - my sociology teacher would be so proud haha – and wonder
about my own behavior when I walk this street. I was ashamed to realize
that I do as all the others. I walk by with my face forward, acknowledging with
my eyes and my smile the world that is walking as tall as I am, but
dehumanizing those sitting at my feet. I still know that I cannot stop and give
to every beggar, but I can meet them. I can learn their names and their
stories. I can hug their children and show them there is more to a ferenge than an opportunistic dollar. My
dream is to sit down next to each one and tell them I will give them 50 birr if
they will listen to a story. And then I will tell them the story of the fall of
man and of grace that cannot be begged or earned, but is given by a wonderful,
merciful God. I cannot do that yet. I can tell the creation story, and the
story of Noah. Next I will start on the life of Jesus. By God’s grace I will
tell the rest of the story soon.
So all of this was in my mind when
I passed the little folded up lady in Macanisa this week. I started to pass and
stopped. At my hesitation, she again began to cry louder, “Se le Mariam! Se le Gab-“
She stopped begging and smiled the
biggest smile a person can smile with only two teeth. “Werkaye! Werkaye! Werkaye!” She repeated her name again
and again, and then bade me to say it.
“Werkaye. Werkaye!” I got the
explosive ‘k’ the second time.
“Yes! Yes! Werkaye!”
I don’t think she would have been happier to
shake the hand of the queen of England, and I had never been acknowledged as a
person by a beggar either. For the first time we saw each other. I was no longer a white ankled wallet
and she was not another faceless crinkled palm. Praise the Lord. I reached in
my pocket and placed a ten birr in her hand. Once in a blue moon does a beggar
receive ten birr. Most donations are not more than coins, and even one birr is
generous. She popped her crusty little eyes open in astonishment. She again seized my hand and kissed the whole
of it. Then she turned my hand over, opened my fingers, and she spit in my hand
three times. Three times. She spit…in my hand. It’s a good thing I’m not in the
healthcare system or that might have really grossed me out lol. I am in the
healthcare system…and it was pretty gross. But I remembered that in the movie, “My
Big Fat Greek Wedding”, all the relatives spit on the bride all the way down
the isle and they were blessing her. Not that Greece and Ethiopia have many
things in common, but I wagered that the puddle of spit in my hand was no less
than three blessings from a beggar. Ten birr is equal to six cents. That was
not a sacrifice for me. It cost me nothing from my purse. It cost me a
handshake, a smile, a moment of my time….and the need to really really wash my
hands. J
Werkaye was made in the image of God, planned from the beginning of time same
as me, same as all of us. And he can say her name perfectly.
