Have I Changed?

Everyone talks so much about how Peace Corps changes your world view and how you see your every day life. I believe them and then at the same time I find myself questioning that nearly every day. Lately I have been meditating on whether I can discern a change in my behavior.

On at least one point, how I deal with beggars, I find I am completely unchanged. I don't know whether to blame my college years in Berkeley, my American upbringing, my personal attitude or what, but I know that I don't see a change. I am, if anything, asked for handouts more regularly here than anywhere else I have ever lived in my life. Yet I still coldly turn everyone down. It breaks my heart a little every time I sit back and think about it because I want to be different, and at least on face value I am here to help relieve the effects of poverty on Salvadorans.

I don't do it with a cold heart. In fact I really do want to do something to help, but handouts just aren't the way I can see to help. First things first, I am one of the most recognizable people in my town and if I give even one cent to anyone, then everyone will know and come running to me. I can't really have that happening. But that still isn't the whole story. I encounter the same problem of drunks begging that people regularly encounter in the US. It is fairly pronounced, and while they run off to get their liquor, they are actually destitute in every sense of the word. Still I can't bring myself to support that way of life.

I understand there is a cause and effect question here. Perhaps their poverty and nearly non-existent chance at improving that life leads to the alcoholism, perhaps not. There is always the classic "they are drinking their little bit of money away and can't work because they are drunk" argument. Honestly I see both sides, but it doesn't change how I act.

So in the face of all this, what does it really say about me? Am I changed?