Bolivia: The Chicken And the Egg (cont.)

I helped out when I felt I could, but it was never in the 'traditional' handouts or pity-gifts. I believe strongly that this "generosity," in which so many tourists indulge, is just a way to propagate the system that caused the gross inequality to begin with. It serves to alleviate the guilt of the privileged and make them feel more important than they actually are. And, equally troubling, it causes the underprivileged to see all foreigners, not as humans, but as handout machines.

No, I was not going to share my Ritz Bits Sandwiches with that kid just because he had no shoes. It was miraculous that I found such comfort food in the middle of the jungle in the first place. Within minutes the bag was empty. I guzzled from my bottle of purified water and turned back to face the front again.

The kid was still staring at me with that same curious expression on his face.

His grandma's eyes were closed, so I shot him a menacing look. He finally turned away. I closed my eyes for a moment; but when I reopened them, there sat the kid staring wide-eyed. I pulled a dirty T-shirt out of my backpack and draped it over my head.

I dozed on and off for a few hours, until I was awoken by a booming pop. The bus lurched to the left and the driver regained control and eased off to the side of the road. We had a flat tire. All the passengers filed out of the bus and stood around. The driver and his two assistants jacked up the bus and changed the tire with an excruciating lack of urgency. After about an hour we were on our way. In an especially cruel twist of fate, less than twenty minutes later, we blew another tire.

It was approaching noon, and the heat was getting unmanageable. I tried to contain my frustration as I got off the bus, but within minutes I ended up with clenched fists, cursing in English. The bus only had one spare tire, which they already used. The passengers stood around debating theories over what would happen next. I meandered out onto the road and tried to flag down a passing car. Hitchhiking seemed like a viable alternative; surely someone would stop for a female foreigner. But in over an hour only two cars passed, one military; and neither bothered to stop. I walked back towards the bus and sat down on a rock. The old lady and her grandson came and sat beside me.

Without taking his eyes off me, the boy whispered into his grandmother's ear. She nodded and smiled, and he ran quickly onto the bus to fetch the plastic bag she'd left on their seat. "It's not much," she said in Spanish, opening the bag, "but we might as well have lunch since we're going to be here for a while." And then, she broke her one hard-boiled egg in two and handed me half.

I was starving and I couldn't refuse. I plopped the whole thing in my mouth and swallowed it after very little chewing.

"But you forgot the salt,” She laughed and dipped the other half into a small bag of wet salt and handed it to the boy. She then pulled out a meagre, greasy chicken thigh and broke it into three, working the joints easily in her bony hands. She took the smallest portion for herself and handed the other two peaces to the boy and me.

"Por favor, no," I said half-heartedly trying to hand back my piece.

"You're hungry," she said a-matter-of-factly, and shook her head. The boy was no longer looking at me, but concentrating happily on eating his chicken. I thanked her and decided to give Bolivian chicken a second chance.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I chewed. It was a simple yet grandiose lesson, which humbled me on the spot. She had acted unselfishly because it was natural to her. It cut through all my politics and beliefs and showed me the power of generosity at work. It had nothing to do with poverty or wealth, guilt or greed. It wasn't magnanimous. It wasn't overwhelming. It was just half an egg and part of a chicken thigh, from one hungry human to another, and it filled me up entirely.

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