Standing by the road, reasing the paper waiting for a matatu—the VW bus-ish vehicles that careen around corners with 15-20 people packed to the gills inside. The name comes from the word for three, because a ride used to cost three shillings. But the Spanish translation (Kill you!) has more resonance for me—when a lady on the other side of the street stops and waves. I give her a nod and resume reading.
And that's when, in her slow and shuffling way, she pounces.
“Give me shillings.”
“No. Don’t have,” I lie. The change from my 2-liter Coca-Cola and rice for the dog is in my pocket.
“Give me.”
“Nope. Sorry. Didn’t get any change.” The likelihood of this last part making it through translation is iffy, but she knows the answer is no. She don't move. I act like I've resumed reading, but in reality all I'm doing is sensing pressure on my American comfort bubble and fighting the urge to ask her this oh that's just fine, I got all day strategy ever works.
My first thought was Yes, it must. Somewhere there’s a mzungu backpacker who caves under the pressure of I got all day.
My second thought was She is still here. She's never going to leave.
My third thought was that the closest I ever came to being blackmailed into giving money to an African beggar involved this not-so-handsome young guy with stinky rags and webs of white saliva in the corners of his mouth.
His angle was almost Bush-like in its infuriating simplicity: while begging, he walked into traffic. “My friend, my friend, give me some money.” Land Rover screeched around the corner, horn blaring at him. He just kept smiling, hands out towards me.
“If you don’t stop walking on the road, I’m going to stop talking to you.”
“Don’t worry, my friend. Don’t worry.” And here he tries to make friendly eye contact with me, thus losing focus on where he is on the road, thus taking another barefoot step and a half away from what passes for berm in Kenya. Again, big vehicle whips around corner, driver curses, adjusts, whips past him, he smiles all gooey and I want to slap him. “Give me money.” I didn't.
As in the present case, Spit Boy had seen me across the street and walked over. This is how the persistent ones come. But why do they think it will work.
Lightbulb: John is to beggar as pretty lady across the bar is to John! Consider:
If the former walks directly past the latter, the latter grunts, scratches face, but is too witless to say anything until the target is out of range. But if the latter notices the former from afar or, even better, notices the former waiting for a bus or a bathroom, then the latter has time to think up a strategy, muster up some guts, walk over, and fail. Lost you yet? Good.
Now we're getting to the very heart of the crux of our gist. Once beggar/John has confronted John/pretty lady, in both cases, there's not much of anything in the way of delivery. No argument to make, and no bells and whistles to offer. Only a plain persistence that says ‘How about it?' and 'I have no exit strategy.’
And Whammo! With this epiphany, just is cracked over the head with empathy for his fellow man. He looks at the woman asking for money, and understands the pointlessness of her quest.
But he still gives no change.
