Money Money Money
Posted By Sika on January 19, 2009
Moses was meant to help me with my garden the other day. He came a couple of hours after I was expecting him and told me that he and his daughter, Dinah, had a meeting with Derek in the morning. Dinah was one of the students Derek is supporting, but she’s never done very well. She failed again and so Derek is not going to pay her school feels anymore.
Moses was damp-eyed and couldn’t manage much of a smile at all as we chatted and he rescheduled. I told him I was sorry, and my heart was nearly breaking because all of them, Derek, Moses, and Dinah, are in an impossible situation. It doesn’t make sense for Derek to continue to pay for school when Dinah continues to fail. He’s had her repeat years, switch schools, insisted on English only with him so that she could get more comfortable with the subject, and her grades have just gotten worse. But for Dinah, this is her way out of the “villages.” I honestly don’t think she understands what passing her MSCE would do for her (and so, as a result, I don’t think she’s putting as much effort in as she could). I suspect that she’ll be like my friend Zione, vaguely pursuing some kind of education until she finds herself pregnant and married and stuck in the villages forevermore.
And, oh, poor Moses, who has such high hopes for his daughters, who wants so much for them, who would like to give them the world. He has decided that he is going to find a school that will take Dinah and pay her school fees himself. Add that to the fact that his other daughter, Maria, is failing as well—Derek is still paying boarding, books, etc, (about MK13,000 every term), but Moses now has to pay the actual tuition, (about MK3,000). So, Derek told me that he was really glad I was giving Moses more piecework because he won’t be able to manage the school fees on his own—now I just need to figure out what else to hire him to do without having him in my space all the time.
And it’s tricky—it’s all so tricky. You want to help people out because you love them, but money is so unbalancing. It doesn’t even have to be gifts of money. Most azungu have more money and more stuff than most Malawians and as much as we deny it, everybody knows it*. And then add in the differences in beliefs about how money should be distributed, and we all, who say that we don’t have money and then don’t share even while we go to Cape MacClear or Tanzania or Nyika or South Africa are not only selfish but are selfish liars.
I don’t think we are viewed quite so harshly as that. At least not on a conscious level, although my new officemate, Jessie, looked at me rather knowingly when I said I couldn’t afford a car and said, “You mean you choose not to have a car.” Which is both right and wrong. But still, money casts its spectral shadow between us, whisper-shouting all the things we fail to do with the windfall that belongs to some of us by accident of birth.
And then, when money is physically involved, it gets even more complicated. There are cultural differences in what the responsibilities are of the giver and the receiver. Forevermore, at least usually on the western side, the relationship is tainted. With all the stresses cross-cultural friendships already strain under, all the things undid that are supposed to be done, all the things said that are supposed to remain unsaid***, to add another two sets of (money related) cultural expectations can strain relationships to the edge of functionality.
The power imbalances compound. Those of us with the money try to decide how to give, how to assist without causing more problems than we solve. We assess pitfalls and determine the rules under which we will part with our money. The recipients are often only peripherally involved with this process, even though that makes it patronizing, even though it sets up a horrible supplicant/pasha relationship. The evidence is all around: what happens when money is given indiscriminately; the deterioration in independence, the expectation of further largesse, the lack of progress by anyone’s standards.
It is somewhat easier to figure out these issues with someone like Moses. Every time I go out of town, Moses feeds my dogs twice a day. I usually arrange for someone else to feed them on Moses’ days off. While I was in South Africa, D’Lynn agreed to feed them on Sundays (yes, the Malawian work week, especially for non professional workers, tends to be 6 days a week and often 10-12 hours/day). When I got back, Derek told me that Moses came all the way from Sadzi on his days off to feed the dogs. It’s a 45 minutes to one hour trip on the bike Derek bought him to make his commute a little easier and cheaper.
I protested—but before I got very far Derek said that he had reminded Moses that D’Lynn was to feed the dogs on Sundays, but Moses was so concerned they wouldn’t be fed that he came anyway. D’Lynn said Ujeni and Wanuwon were fed so much that they dissed her nsima in preference of the superior Moses nsima they knew was still to come. Trust me, my dogs never turn down food. Well, sometimes Wanuwon does if he doesn’t feel like he’s been pet enough, but Ujen never does.
Moses does this for me just because I’m me and he’s him. I pay him for mopping my floors twice a month and for taking my dogs to dip and for helping with my garden, but I never have to pay him for helping me out in any other way. The floor mopping and dog-dipping he would do for free if I hadn’t offered to pay him in the first place, because those are the kinds of things that Malawians do for their friends.
If all this sounds convoluted and like I’m backing up and contradicting myself a million different ways, that’s because that’s how it is. Each relationship has this barely acknowledged but completely known imbalance, and we all do the best we can to navigate through and around it. Sometimes we are more successful than others. Sometimes we are able to build stronger relationships that can withstand more playing with the line between friends and turning into benefactor/beneficiary.
*That makes it frustrating for the azungu who don’t have more money, and extra especially frustrating to those who don’t even have access to more money through, say, their parents. Although even those who are honestly broke usually have things like computers** which most Malawians don’t even bother to dream of having.
**Since they are necessary for college at this point, most everybody who can afford to come to Peace Corps has one or access to getting one—which raises a whole ‘nother class issues ball of wax on the American side, but I digress. I mean, more than usual.
***We’ve discussed before how screwed our workers and other alms-seekers are when they ask for loans or gifts. They’ve learned from previous azungu that they get a better response if their request is accompanied by some sob story. But I, and a few of my friends, feel manipulated by the sob stories and are less likely to want to help when they are thrust upon us.
On issues of money, I follow my heart. Of course I was raised in generational poverty where there were no other family members to bail anyone out. And, didn’t own a VCR, microwave, or CD player until just before/after I moved out of the house. And, didn’t own a computer until it was given to me.
These issues of assessing potential dependency, or assessing much of anything other than “do I even have anything to give?”, should never happen in equal relationships. Obviously, in foreign countries and in the position of being a “helper” which already makes your relationship unequal the issues are completely different. These distinctions are important.
Of course I’d say I’m in one of those different cultures where money is concerned. I don’t personally know any Native Americans that stress out about money on a deep level, including relationships to possessions, as much as other cultures (and I don’t just mean white people, although that is implied and correct, because white people don’t hold the monopoly of money=security).
I have been attempting to be empathetic to people/cultures that have the relationship to money that the “dominant European” culture has, since my husband has these issues himself. It has been quite a progression of understanding and realization on my part. I had no empathy or understanding whatsoever for most of my life, and in fact was quite critical of the issue even. I’m not quite sure people with those money related issues truly believe others don’t have the same issues. It seems to be a deep; psychological/emotional, issue that some people believe/assume are inherent in all humans. Which are false assumptions to be sure.
I feel like money is one of those things people have/get an unhealthy relationship with, very much like drug addiction.
-Sarah
I’ve been trying to figure out how to reply to this, because well, what you’re talking about is true, but also isn’t exactly what I was trying to get at, for the reasons you listed.
And then I was thinking, yeah, but some of my resistance to addressing what you’re talking about is probably because of the way some of does ring true to me, and not in a way that’s necessarily comfortable.
But, the physical objects/stuff you’re talking about is not the stuff that I view as important–I only care about having a computer because my job would be a pain in the ass without one and because I’m an internet addict
. The objects I have a hard time letting go of are the ones that have a personal story, that make me think of someone whenever I see or use them. Which is its own problem, but I think not exactly what you’re getting at.
I tend not to give money to friends where the friendship isn’t strong enough that they can (in my eyes) waste the money and I won’t care. Because I realize that when you give something away it’s not yours anymore and that I don’t know what the needs are of the people I give money to. And I just think if I’m not going to trust their decisions about what’s best for them, then the relationship isn’t strong enough.
But that’s like a two second addendum to the main decision for me, which is, like you said, “do I have the money?” Although, at times the “do I have the money” question takes some more soul searching. If I’d have to cancel my flickr account and netflix and my bust magazine subscription (this is obviously theoretical, still at home talk) in order to have the money, do I have the money? If I have money sitting in the bank, but I have plans for it in 6 months, or it’s the money I saved for a long time so I’d have a three month cushion when I lose my job, or for that trip to Europe, do I have the money?
cont.
But that’s nothing how it is here. Where there’s kids begging in the street in Blantyre and Lilongwe and sometimes you want to give them money, but you know that these kids were pulled from school because they can make more money on the streets and as such they’ll always be on the streets with diminishing returns as they get older and less cute, and knowing that they would’ve been in the village, at least getting some small food and a small amount of education if the azungu hadn’t started giving kids money because they’re cute. And they are cute and you do feel bad for them. Well, until the 5th kid in 4 blocks starts harassing you, “Bwana, please; Boss, please; Madam, please” which throws your privilege in your face when maybe you just want to buy your groceries; and plus there’s all those other kids, the well-fed, well-dressed ones with TVs in their houses who say, “Give me my money” and half of them don’t know what they’re saying but the other half do and they think somehow they’re entitled and some of them even get mad at you and if you say you don’t have money, they just start a litany of, “Give me my . . . ” listing everything they can see in your possession and other things they only guess at.
And then there’s the fact that if you’re in the village and poor, it’s usually ok, and if you’re in the city and wealthy, it’s usually ok, but there are a lot of Malawians in the cities, poor, and chasing the American Dream and it just doesn’t go well, and how do you contribute to that? Should you not bring your computer to work? Should you use the virus infested, old cranky desktops in the library when the students aren’t using them? Should you hide your camera, or offer it up for use to anyone who wants it anytime they want it? What’s fair? What’s right?
Because those things are shifting sands beneath your feet, and they are always there and changing how stable you feel you are and sometimes you feel like you’ve got it figured out and then someone you started out just giving your surplus whatever to begins to expect it and gets frustrated when you don’t hand it over fast enough and great, now he’s dependent on your largesse and were you ever really friends, anyway, if now he only talks to you when he wants something? Or is it your fault–did you draw away the first time he seemed to expect you to give him your surplus whatever, so now the only relationship you have is based on the surplus whatever?
And, does this reflect more broadly, or is it just you and just this guy? And if you pretend to have less and less, can you eventually interact on a people level and exorcise the money between you?
Because that’s how it is here, at least in the cities.
The closest I come to that scenario is my sister.
She’s the product of generational poverty, drug addiction, and abuse. I’m the first family member in several generations to have expendable cash, and even that is very new to me.
So, I move her whole family up here in November. To the tune of $7,000, which I could comfortably afford. While she’s living in my home she starts using my computer and internet, being used to my extras of all the basic needs that she usually has to struggle to even afford, etc etc.
Her husband gets a job making more in a week than he did a year. They move out before they can really afford it, in their impulsive way, and manage to blow the $10,000 he makes in the first six weeks out their asses. Leaving them in debt, and unable to pay bills just weeks later when his work slows down due to the holidays.
Now, we’re trying to move forward financially with things we want/need in life. We’re being asked for money and being resented for buying the things we want with our money rather than denying ourselves to give to them. They come over to “visit” which means walk by me to my bedroom where my computer is, stay in there for 30 minutes, say good bye and leave.
cont..
Do I keep throwing money at her, like down a black hole because it never ends? But if I don’t her kids, my family, literally will not eat. But if I do I have to put off doing things for my own family that I’m only just recently able to provide myself! I know for a fact they have not bought food or paid bills because they expected me to bail them out before they even mentioned they needed help.
Even my niece and nephew flock to me when I arrive because they might get treats or something from their wealthy auntie.
I’m in the situation of not knowing how much I want to talk to my sister because I know she is evaluating my every purchase. I guilt fully wait to be ambushed in conversations for money, in case I have to say “no” or evaluate what to argue with my husband about being able to give her. She’s making comments about how she doesn’t pity me for kid-free weekends I may miss to do things for her, because she hasn’t had kid-free time in SIX MONTHS. So now I owe her babysitting too?
Granted, a lot of the conflict comes from having to navigate my husband’s attachment to the money and her need for it. But we have spent at least $20,000 in the past year, and several thousand in the previous years, helping.
At some point, even if I don’t have the issue with money or not money, it is damaging to relationships. I have to realize that I can love and support her without throwing cash at her, even if she gets upset, or pissed, or hurt that I won’t give her things or money. And, on occasion, I’ll bend and we’ll struggle back to this point again. But, I love her and the process is part of our dynamic if I maintain that relationship, so I’ll have to remain strong in myself and let her be where she is in her self. It all loops back on itself if you over-think it. I think it comes down to what you’re willing/able to give, and how you can stay true/strong in yourself. Maybe that’s not a steady equation all the time.