"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent'. I just had a huge wake up call about being 'kind'. I volunteer in another country at animal refuges. I care deeply about the condition and plight of animals and saw first hand the challenges faced by the caretakers trying to help the animals. So over the last few years I have developed relationships and a couple times a year I bring suitcases full of things to help the animals and also things to help the people helping the animals. Well, at one of these refuges I have brought stuff to on several occasions, I visited last week with 3 suitcases loaded. Everything in my suitcase is bought by me, I don't work with any organized charity, I just saw a huge need and decided that 'one person could make a difference'.
This time around my 'host' (contact/thought was a friend) takes me to a very expensive tourist restaurant along with another person and orders the most expensive thing possible. The bill--which I of course was expected to pay-- equaled what the average person makes in that culture in one month. I don't live/eat like that in my own country and I would have been quite happy with something much more modest. On the way home I stopped at a tourist grocery store to buy a jug of water and I grabbed two containers of cooking oil for my two companions since it was something they could use and is periodically hard to get in their country. Well, one of them, the one I have known for a while, proceeds to pick out two extreme luxury type items that are not available to the typical resident and she puts them on the conveyor belt for me to pay for. I was shocked. I did not say anything at the time about this bold move but inside I was extremely disappointed since there were items in the store that would have fed the animals I came to support but she didn't select those items.
The final straw was the next day. Another person I worked with and brought supplies for shows up and wants to take me to lunch 'at a friends house'. That turns out to be a taxi ride (I pay) and then it is not a friends house at all but another fancy place where one meal is equal to the cost of a months wages in that country. Then this 'friend' says the other friend (the one who put the expensive items on the conveyor belt) wanted me to wire some money to her husband who was in another country working. That would be the money I gave her for animal food for several months after the stuff I was bringing ran out. She wanted to wire money to her husband to buy some personal luxury items. I said no. The person I am sitting across from in the expensive restaurant keeps saying I didn't understand the request and won't drop it as a topic. I of course do understand. I understand the money I gave to help a cause close to my heart was not going to be used to help the animals at all, it was going to be used for some unnecessary luxury item to enrich a household that had nothing to do with the whole reason I was making a trek to the country in the first place. That was it for me. The last straw. I told the other person to drop it, the answer was no and when she didn't drop it I grabbed my purse and walked out the door.
The person followed me on to the street, grabbing my arm, telling me again I didn't understand the request but of course I did. They were bold enough to claim they weren't asking me for money, just to wire some money-- yeah, the money I gave yesterday!! I don't think I have ever felt so completely depleted and used and disappointed and shocked.... but then I have to own my own part of this. I made the decision to go to that country, to spend my own money, to neglect my own house and needs to try and help. I had to own that behavior and see that I was maybe using this 'mission' to defer dealing with some things in my own house and life that needed attention. Are you being 'kind' to keep blinders on in your own life situation?
I will not let this situation stop me from trying to help animals, but I go into it with eyes wide open and a more modest approach and also with the understanding that maybe when I feel an overwhelming need to try and make a difference in some far flung country I might be hiding some basic truth about my own situation from myself. It is a learning experience. To have kind impulses is a noble positive outlook on life but don't let it be used against you. 'Charity begins at home'-- be kind to yourself first and step back and see where your own weak spots might be leading you to a place that allows someone else to take advantage of you. Walk away and say no and no is its own answer, no need to explain a 'no'. No is no! Don't let one user sour you on others, don't become cynical but don't be a doormat, either.