On Morality and Feeding a Hungry Child

First off the bat I think it’s important to make a distinction between “hungry” and “starving”. Hunger is a discomfort that poses no immediate threat to the well being of the individual. Starving is of course a much more serious and potentially deadly condition. I believe there is a moral imperative to feed a starving individual if possible, and hope that even the strictest non-interventionalist would agree with me. But this is not about starvation; I don’t know nor have I known anybody who is starving in Uganda, so hopefully we can avoid that cliché Sunday morning infomercial mindset.  This is about hunger, and exploring the appropriateness of feeding a hungry child.

I’m not sure why David (name changed) took so much of a liking to me last year, a liking that has carried over to the present. I paid him no more attention than any other participant of our program, save for the necessity that suddenly arrived when he became attached to me. David is a boy of around 12, slightly immature for his age with abandonment and security issues. He is an outcast amongst children near his own age, which has led to his role of leader around children half his age who are too young to reject him. Throughout the months I’ve learned bits and pieces about his life: A mother nowhere to be found and a father perpetually too drunk to recognize his own son; an uncle who provides when he can, which is rare; homes that welcome him for a few days before throwing him back on the street for lack of money to feed him.

To be blunt and possibly cruel, I feel no connection to David. A lack of childhood nurture has left him clingy, and his social immaturity manifests itself in issues most children his age can easily handle. None of this is his fault, of course, and he should not be blamed for behavior that came about as a result of parental neglect. I do my best to engage David when I can, but with 30 other children that need attention, it’s hard to handle him when he begins to cry because his favorite pair of boots is being used by another child.

Earlier tonight David was waiting outside as my roommate and I walked out of a local restaurant. He quickly grabbed me by the hand, and as we walked down the hill toward my house he lifted my arm to put around his shoulder. As we kept walking he ignored the questions I was asking him, and finally he quietly said, “I’m hungry.” I apologized to him and tried to change the subject as best I could. He said it again.

I’ve been generally successful about avoiding paying for anything the children who frequent our program ask for. I came to Uganda to teach, to coach, and to help build up a program to become locally sustainable; not to buy children food or pay for their school fees or continue any other cycle of dependence that is rampant in my parts of East Africa. In Nairobi, people say, “For every starving person in Kibera, there is a white person trying to feed them.” They’re probably not far off, and one wonders how long Kibera will remain such a densely populated slum when the children who inhabit it grow up being fed by the hands of a foreigner.

“I haven’t eaten all day,” David said to me as we kept walking. I had no reason to believe he was lying, but this time I told him I didn’t have any money and again tried to change the subject. “I can’t sleep when I haven’t eaten,” he said, knowing quite well I was lying to him. I asked him what he wanted to eat, and he said he wanted a rolex (an omelet held by a chappati that costs 1200 UGX, or roughly 40 cents). I compromised and told him I would give him 500 UGX so he could buy a chappati and beans. He smiled, thanked me, and told me he would see me the next day before running off.

I’m not sure why I broke a cardinal rule I set for myself over a year ago. I’ve turned down countless children who have asked me for money to buy food, simply because I knew the next day they would be unchanged. David and his request were no different, but for some reason I gave in. Had I not given him the money he would have slept through the night, perhaps uncomfortably, but without his life in peril. I’m also well aware that I’ve set a precedent I need to avoid, and at his next request I’ll have to turn him down.

The issue of morality and hunger is not black and white, and when it comes to the question of whether or not I did the right thing I have no answer. If we are to go off the money I gave David, I could feed him twice a day for 175 days at a cost of little more than my daily salary at my last job. I could put him through school for five years with the same amount of money. I don’t know if my refusal to do so makes me morally bankrupt or morally responsible.

If we are to assume that I made a child more comfortable for the night, than we can assume that I did the right thing. But if we are to assume that child now expects that I will relieve his hunger whenever he asks, or that he will tell his friends to ask me for money whenever they want to eat, then the answer becomes murkier. And of course there are issues of health versus dependency and short term kindness versus long term realities that an hour of contemplation cannot attempt to reason with.

Time will tell whether or not I did the right thing. Hopefully the decision will be inconsequential: David will have eaten, the issue will have been resolved, and I’ll forget about it as quickly as I forget any other mundane aspect of life. But I don’t think it will be easy, and I don’t think a good answer will ever present itself. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I hope my decision isn’t one of the tiles that laid its foundation.