The Question of Humanity

I was stopped by this lady while i was walking around Melbourne Central with Sherman on Friday.
And whatever conversation she had with me left me disturbed tremendously.
Well, not tremendously, but well, I WAS disturbed.

It is really often that i get stopped by people who are helping the poor in Africa, etc. This lady is one aggressive volunteer/worker. I quite like Australia's policy where they get those who really want to help out the poor. They go for long term commitment over one time donations. Then again, i find it impossible for me to chip in a dollar a day for the poor in Africa when i am here living off my parents and trying to save as much as possible. Well, that, and that i just don't have that big of a heart i guess.

This one dollar i donate a day might not reach them in that dollar. And I'm not making up stories. I have worked for these organizations before. The staff work on commission. They sell a ticket, and when they manage to sell off one booklet of 10 tickets which cost $10 each, they get to keep $30. Do the calculations. From the $100 earned from the booklet, $20/$30 goes to the employee, and something along the lines of $10 goes to the company itself. The total money going to these countries? $60-$70?

And they call themselves volunteers.

I'm not sure about Australia, but this was what i did. Never stuck around long enough to even finish the book. I felt so so sorry when i asked this lady once and she tried to find $10 through her pockets and wallet to give $10 to me because she found it so hard to reject me.

How i even survived 3 days i have no idea. It was so tormenting.

Anyway, i digressed.

This lady was really offensive, at least I found her approach offensive. She first launched into a whole full-of-conviction talk about females who had to undergo surgery to remove part of their sexual organ to reduce their sex drive or smth along that line. They would be considered unclean if they weren't dragged to do this surgery and people would avoid them. Sherman looked embarrassed. I could tell, i wonder why she couldn't. There was a guy there, she should be mindful of the words and the content. To make matters worse, she even asked me how i would feel if i was in that situation, and asked him how he would feel if it happened to his mom or smth.

LIKE WHAT?!

After she spent such a long time talking to us, i said no. She doesn't take no for an answer i realize.
Thing is, i said i need to think about it. And she said "well if you went home, you definitely wouldnt think about it and wouldn't take action."

THERE YOU HAVE IT.

You know that we aren't willing to make that long term commitment so why are you pushing us?
After knowing that my no meant no, she decided to target sherman.
and she specifically asked sherman to pick one out of the three options that he could help should he want to help. after he picked one, she went on with statistics on how he can help them with his dollar a day.

How she went to Africa and saw the poverty there, etc. I cue the guilt-trap and tears in now.

Oh and here's a catch. When i was walking by the opposite street again,  i saw her walking out of starbucks with another one which i would believe is her colleague/fellow volunteer. Maybe she was using the toilet (which i obviously don't believe), but I'm quite sure lil miss giving would have chosen a cup of 7-11 coffee if she was really so affected by the problems in Africa wouldn't she?

Well, it also didn't help matters when she was talking to me in broken English. I am unable to tolerate broken English in conversations with me. It is a torture.