Beggar’s Children – The other day we were stopped at a stop light and I saw the most interesting thing. A tiny little dark-skinned girl was walking quickly beside a light-skinned woman. At first I thought the girl belonged to the woman, but something didn’t seem quite right. I later realized that the little girl was a beggar’s child, and she had been trained to be a beggar. The girl was probably no older than two or three years old, but her mother realized that people would be more willing to give the cute little girl money than to give her, the mother.
In the corner there were three women sitting down and talking to themselves, I suppose of them was the mother. I immediately sympathized with the girl, and wondered if she would be able to accomplish her purpose in this life. I wondered if there would be a way out of poverty and a life of begging for her, and if she would even want it, if given the opportunity.
Ahead of us there were a few boys offering to wash windshields for some money, and periodically, the traffic warden would whiz by with whips to pursue them away, because at least some of them were thieves, and if you were not careful they would steal from the cars while we waited at the stop light.
Then the light changed, and we all went on our way, but the children remained there, and I wondered what would happen to Nigeria’s future, where so many were suffering and had given up.
