Baby Beggars and Boat Boys

At first they’re cute. Then after you’ve been in Rio de Janiero a few days, they’re not so cute.  Now you feel sorry for them; for their tattered clothes; for their grimy little faces.  Before long, though, the scores of children who follow you through the streets wanting handouts become a nuisance. On what’s supposed to be an exciting and fun holiday, big, sad eyes constantly remind you of the social and economic conditions that plague Third Worlds.

Never mind you’ve scrimped to save money for this first-time trip abroad, by comparison, you’re the rich American: Anger at the world’s injustice turns into guilt.

India and Egypt are especially riddled with this army of baby beggars, but big cities of most underdeveloped countries have their share.  How you handle the street kids affects your vacation, perhaps more emotionally than it does financially, for it can slant forever your perspective of, say, Peru, even of the entire geographical region.

My first encounter with youngsters who wanted money from tourists was in Mexico City in the early 1970s.  These children are not to be confused with most of the shy, rural kids who followed me out of curiosity through their village streets.

The Big City kids were on a mission, and some – usually the older ones – were downright menacing: “Protect your car, senorita?”

Although I didn’t appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit at the time, I grudgingly agreed to pay a few pesos for a car intact upon return.  Sometimes the kids were still there, waiting for their hard earned cash; sometimes, they weren’t.  In all but one instance my car was safe, and even then only the aerial was broken off.

Initially, I resented paying them; it was, after all, more threat than service.  But in some places gangs were going to follow me, begging for money anyway, so why not “hire” one of them and get the rest off my back? In fact, somewhere during that three month tour of Mexico I learned a significant lesson from the children—I cannot save the world single-handedly, but I can shape a philosophy for developing young entrepreneurs wherever I travel.

So rather than facilitate bad begging habits, I decided it was incumbent upon me to practice three disciplines that can help educate children. At times it was hard to do, but now it’s second-nature to me:  (1) I never just hand out money, even to the very young.  (2) I always select one child in the bunch, and always insist that he or she do something to earn the money asked for—help me find a park, for instance.  And (3) I always tell the kids why I picked that particular child. She’s the tidiest; he’s the most polite, or speaks English.

Kids need explanations to understand choices; to benefit beyond the few cents I give them. Plus, I don’t feel guilty about ignoring impoverished children. If at all possible, I accompany the child to buy food or clothing just to make sure the kid is the beneficiary, not the parent or the pimp.

Of course, kids are far more creative today. Caribbean boat boys are all over this fluid paradise, and only the most remote islands are free of the entrepreneurial group. Yachties are the targets here.  And while sailboat or power boat vacations suggest we can get away from it all, common sense dictates that the world’s too much into tourism for real obscurity. Eager to be of service in Jamaica or maybe, in the Bahamas, boat boys show up in the harbor before your anchor is set.  In their competitive frenzy for a new customer, they have been known to get in the way of anchoring, which is frequently a tricky activity in a crowded harbor.

I had this unenviable experience in Dominica. And while the captain of the sailboat wasn’t too concerned, the already anchored yachtsmen were in an uproar. Upset with us and our boat skills? Maybe. More likely, they were nervous that the boat boys encircling us like sharks would interfere with the anchoring process and cause us to swing into their boats.

Any time of day, boat boys appear at your bow on surfboards, in dinghies, on floating Styrofoam.  They want to be your shore-link, and they’ll bring you ice or fresh lobster or frozen drinks. They will arrange taxis and tours. They will do almost anything within reason for a fee, much like one interesting young man on Virgin Gorda in the BVI.  He taught me how to clean and cook conch.

But boat boys can be especially frustrating because they can’t be dealt with in a group like children in big cities; hiring one won’t rid you of others.  One comes, he goes.  Another one comes, he goes.  Even when you say “Riggio is our boat boy”, this aggressive lot is undeterred. In some harbors, boat boys keep coming, they don’t respect customer loyalty and they must be firmly rejected before they finally get the picture…and you get some peace.

These young, Caribbean boys have found an honest, though pesky, way to make money in the lucrative tourism industry.  Instead of being cursed, I think they’re to be applauded.  Things could be worse:  Like many youths in the United States, they could tote guns.