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Spare Change Is Big Business in a Culture of Generosity
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Candace Feit for The New York Times Mamadou Sorro, center, approached a car last week in downtown Dakar, Senegal. He makes ends meet by asking passers-by for donations. ![Article Tools Sponsored By]()
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Candace Feit for The New York Times
Mamadou Sorro, center, approached a car last week in downtown Dakar, Senegal. He makes ends meet by asking passers-by for donations.
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DAKAR, Senegal Aug. 16 Every morning at 9 a.m., Mamadou Sorro makes his rush-hour commute through this seaside capital, expertly guiding his wheels through the stream of pedestrians, cars and scooters.
His journey is short from the patch of
sidewalk where he spends his nights to his regular corner, outside a government building. On a good day he can clear $5.
Mr. Sorro is a beggar, one of thousands who ply the streets here in a city famous across West Africa for its generosity. He moved here from Ivory Coast after a war injury left him disabled. He had heard about Senegals tradition of charity, born of its particular brand of Sufi Islam that requires its adherents to give freely in the hopes of increasing their bounty a thousandfold.
These days, though, Mr. Sorro is feeling trapped, and not just by the wheelchair he uses. Dakars benevolence is being strained as ever larger numbers of beggars, many of them from neighboring countries like Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, choke the streets.
Begging here once brought in as much as $10 a day, which is about what a blue-collar worker in the region makes nowadays. But, the police have begun chasing Mr. Sorro and his
friends away from their normal posts, trying to clean up the citys image, and the generous hands of Dakar are growing fatigued.
You cant walk in peace in the city of Dakar anymore, said Aminata Diaw, a history professor here at the University Cheikh Anta Diop, who has studied the culture of charity and begging in Senegal.
Almost all African capitals are crowded with beggars. The World Bank estimates Africas cities are growing twice as fast as the rest of the worlds cities. But Dakar has a special allure for the indigent, and the countrys relatively robust economy adds to its drawing power.
Sixty percent of the beggars come from Mali and Guinea alone because this is a religious country that gives greatly to the poor, said Assan Sagne, an expert
on micro-finance for the governments Project to Fight Poverty. The beggars understand that Senegalese culture is morally obliged to help them.
On a recent Friday, a day of prayer, it was not long before Mr. Sorros first patron dropped spare change into his calloused hands. In 2002, Mr. Sorro, 42, left his wife and two children at home to try his luck here.
I looked at my situation at home, he said. When I had the occasion to come, I did.
Dakar has another category of beggars as well. Impoverished village families often send their boys to the cities to attend Koranic schools, where they are expected to support themselves by begging.
The boys are known as talibé, and 100,000 of them wander the streets of Senegals cities.
Outside idling buses and taxicab windows, the boys chant Arabic prayers for coins, food or sugar cubes. Some find the system exploitative, and rumors abound of imams who amass
significant wealth from their charges.
Nevertheless, people give, freely and often.
It is not only the poor in our society who need this culture of charity, but the rich as well, Professor Diaw said. People give for better luck in their studies, their work, or their lives. They think it is something concrete on the path to heaven.
Even though Amina NDoye, a 27-year-old hairdresser, struggles to pay the rent for her hair salon, she follows the suggestion of her imam and gives milk to a group of hungry talibé. Giving brings blessing and benediction to your work, she said.
A 50-year-old disabled man who calls himself Sensou said: It hits the people of Dakar on the day of prayer to see beggars. They are always more generous. He came to Dakar 20 years ago from the southern town of Fouta, where his family still lives.
Sensou looked around and then quietly opened his hands to show his daily earnings: exactly
three coins so far. He counts on bigger donations on the days of prayer Thursdays and Fridays to help pay his $40 a week rent for a room downtown.
But with Dakar becoming ever more cosmopolitan from ice cream shops to government conferences the beggars do not seem to fit in anymore.
There is a confrontation growing, said Professor Diaw. She said the beggars clustered around the pastry and ice cream shops in the center of the city that are popular with well-to-do residents. Since you are eating dessert, it means you have already eaten and are no longer hungry. Beggars come to confront you because they know you have means.
Babacar Faye, chief of accident prevention for the citys Traffic Commission, recently told local reporters that beggars were posing serious problems, especially on Friday mornings.
Mr. Sorro said he was tired of waiting for Thursday and Friday, and afraid that even those days might soon be
gone.
I usually get enough to eat, and that is all, he said.
If I could, I would be back in Ivory Coast, he said. Dakar is hard. But if you leave, you cannot survive begging. In any case, Im here.
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