Professional beggars

It seems that more persons have acquired their PhD’s in begging. Since many have mastered the art, it is slowly becoming a norm and ‘Beg yu a money nuh” is the new slang phrase.

But with more people becoming aware and less tolerant of the act, nowadays having a mere PhD in begging is not enough. There has to be a particular skill attached, along with the right appearance. And while some may be sensitive to the facts aforementioned, we must also remember that others take age into consideration as well.

If you’re not a child, your face is not cringing in agony, your clothes are not falling off your back and you don’t look as if malnutrition is getting the best of you, then chances are, you will not get the help you requested. And sometimes, even if you have all these ‘symptoms’ some people just won’t help.

But beggars don’t understand this, and some tend to invite you into a verbal clash if you refuse to help. Like the lady who frequents Spanish Town. She appears everywhere, when you least expect her. On one occasion she stepped into a wholesale and begun to beg everyone who stepped inside the building. “Beg yu a $20 nuh,” she asked my mother after I stepped pass her, expecting my mother to do the same. I turned around to see her searching through her purse to give the woman the money. I was upset, because I felt she should not have given it to her.

Here’s why. The woman is about five feet, six inches. She has the demeanour and body-type of someone who could use one hand to tackle you while eating with the other. In short, she is in very good shape to go out and find a job. What got me more agitated was when she begged a man and he exclaimed, “Woman yuh strong. Go look a work,” and she responded, “Mi look like idiot? Yuh a work an yuh nuh better dan mi so why mi fi go wuk?”

On another occasion, I stopped at a gas station. After getting the gas, I went into the mini mart to get a phone card. As I approached the vehicle I noticed a lady dressed in chandelier earrings, shorts and bright green slippers following me. It was the same lady. I went into the car and proceeded to watch her from the rear-view mirror. She approached the door and stared me down. I started the car and begun to reverse. She started to quarrel as if I owed her something.

Beggars need to understand that they are begging. Therefore, they need not expect that everyone will give. And it is a huge possibility that if they look and behave in the same manner as the woman described, people will not be as willing to help them. Being polite may just be a beggar’s defying moment. The point that determines whether he/she gets the help he/she seeks or not.

But beggars will go to great lengths to get money, and as times get harder, their requests get more atrocious. Like the time a man approached me and begged $100. Though I was appalled, I could not blame him. After all, cost-of-living is not decreasing.

Yet, while there are those who work alone on the streets, there are others who make it their jobs, (the entrepreneurs) those who use children to sensitise the issue. Those who visit your homes and proceed to knock down your gate, asking, “yuh have anyting inside? Anyting at all fi mi pickney dem?” Please take note. It is never “anyting for my child”, it is always “pickney dem”. There is never always one child to look innocently in your eyes and cause your heart to sag without them even uttering a word. Never one who you can safely salvage something for. Instead you have to make sure that if you give to one, you have to consider the others as well.

The media is also used to facilitate these professional beggars. But let’s not misunderstand the issue. There are people who beg as a last resort. In that, they have a huge expense (usually medical) that they are no longer able to pay and they ask the public for assistance. But there are also the ones who appear on our televisions with six children and they have no source of income.

Usually these are the mothers who labour about the father running off leaving the family and, “mi nuh know wha mi ago do, because mi no ha no jab”. And we (the viewers) wonder if these people are realistic to have introduced so many children into the world and can’t even take care of themselves, much less the “six starving pickney dem”. And if it wasn’t for the six starving pickney in the background staring longingly into the camera, the mother wouldn’t have gotten any help.

Because like me, and probably the rest of Jamaica, we will all be saying she is careless to have gotten pregnant with six children. After all, a teacher one told me, “sperms don’t see you on the road and attack you”.

But the reality of all this is that, as things and times get more unbearable, there will be many more beggars to come and if the veterans don’t sharpen their skills, then they will be pushed out of the race by the newcomers who are discovering new ways to beg every day.