Grrrrr.

Last week a young woman showed up at our gate selling baskets. The baskets are really nice here, woven from grass and usually with some color. They're very durable and compared to what you'd spend back home, really reasonable. I hesitated about buying at the gate, thinking that if I did this, the word would get out and I'd be inundated with people selling stuff--and my day guard doubles as the gardener so I don't have someone right up front to run interference for me. But she was very nice and the baskets were a good price and they were larger than what I usually see, so I bought 4 for Tsh20,000 (about $16.00). Then she asked if I would buy more.

break for cultural explanation: In Tanzania people generally do not come out and say what they mean. A common phrase is "labda kesho" meaning "maybe tomorrow" but it really means not at all. It's used in combination with "sihitaji" (I don't need it), "sitaki" (I don't want it) or the final "hapana!" (no).

So I said "labda kesho". We had talked about our work here a bit, and she asked if I would buy more for the school. I said no. I said maybe next year--not tomorrow, not the next day, not the next week, not the next month.

Yesterday she shows up at my gate asking for some extra money for rent. I said no.

Right now she's sitting outside my gate with square baskets that she told the guard would be for our school. I told him to her that I would not be buying anything.

This is driving me nuts on several levels. First of all, I'm having the guard do my dirty work. I'm not sure why, except that it's what everyone does. Second, I made my point very clearly and yet she comes back.

I know that by Tanzanian standards we are very wealthy and as such I need to be expected to be hit on for everything from buying stuff to asking for work to flat out begging. That I can accept. Part of our personal mission here is to determine how to use our giving to make a difference in addition to what we are doing with PHF.

What drives me nuts right now is that eventually I'm going to have to go out there and bluntly/rudely tell her not to come back. Then she'll go away thinking that the "rich wazungu" are mean and don't care about Tanzanians. Which is not true at all.

What is true is that Mark and I believe we are stewards of God's gifts to us and we want to use them in the best way possible--which is not by hand outs to every person that comes up to me with something to sell or a story to tell.