Every week at lunch time I volunteer at a feeding centre once or twice a week. It's a pretty amazing project, it feeds the homeless 3 times a day and at lunch serves 800 meals alone, 5 days a week.
As much as I love teaching it's great to get away for a few hours.
The volunteers fold injera, the national dish which is like a pancake. I also got to work up the front on the pass, collecting tokens and handing out the meals.
It felt really good to be working there and helping the homeless. There are so many beggars and being a faranji I get targeted a lot. As a rule I don't give money to beggars, because it encourages be begging culture. You often see mothers sitting on the side of the road and their children as young as 3 years old will come up and say "one money one money, sister sister." Which is really heartbreaking to see. I cannot judge because my circumstances are wildly different but it would take a lot for me to teach my child to go begging.
Apparently begging is very good business, some sell up their farms to move to the cities and beg. And having a young child is only going to earn you more.
When you are in the mini vans you will be targeted for money. When all the passengers turn around to look at you it's easy to give in and give our spare change away.
In Lalibela young children run scams. They will ask you to buy them a book, which sounds reasonable, but take you to a shop which is in on the scams.
I can't even imagine the life ahead of these children, who are taught to beg from the age of 3.
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