Kids These Days: Part II

In a recent column, David Brooks gave us an alternative to the young professionals: the unrushed adventurers. What defines them? Well...

After graduation, they’ll spend a few years in different jobs, maybe they’ll go to graduate school and then they’ll figure out something more definite – or not. They’ll live in another country or two before they hit 30, or they’ll spend a year hiking/fishing/climbing/sailing/being outdoors. They are pretty good at packing all of their belongings in a car, or even in a few pieces of luggage. They’re not actively looking for “the one” and they’re not planning on doing anything permanent anytime soon. In life, in love or in work, they’re open to the idea of changing any plans they had because they don’t know all their options yet. They've got nothing against stability, but they don’t see a need for it, personally. They have long-term goals… they’re just not sure what they are yet. They are floating through their Odyssey years.

Wait, did I say they? Cause it sounds a lot like a lot of my friends and more than a little like me, dabbling in various interests, ambitious if uncertain, easily excited and uneasily committed. Yuck, it's always annoying to be pegged (by David Brooks, no less).

It’s definitely a luxury to be able to dawdle through our twenties like this, but according to Brooks’s column, everybody who can is doing it these days. "Odyssey years" is his term to describe the time when we’re off trying to figure things out before life requires that decision be made. No longer is finding yourself just a college thing. We’re extending the indecision into “real life.”

Personal mentality is part of it, but even more than that, it’s a function of a cultural change (hence the merit as a Times Op-Ed). The whole transition lifestyle has become a perfectly valid post-graduation option these days, right up there with going to work for the man or starting a family. And if my friends are any example of the larger population, it’s actually way more popular. Just to take a handful of examples:

Brian and Stephen went to Ramallah in the West Bank to teach in a Quaker school, neither of them Quaker or having extensively studied the Middle East. Anna took a road trip across the country and worked as a waitress in Oregon. Heather and Amon are working on environmental something-or-other in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a year. Robert left Wall Street and is traveling to a different Asian city every week and writing a novel. Then there are the friends in Peace Corps, Americorps, and Teach for America, all programs which last a year or two by design and draw in students from every background. And I’m in a country I had never heard of until last year, unsure of where I’ll be two months from now, or eight months from then, but I imagine it will be two different places.

The adventure itself is good. The tricky thing is we aren’t always sure of our reasons for taking it, and that’s where we should be wary. Brooks writes that we’re not just wasting time; on the contrary, people are doing it with very professional goals. We’re very aware of how we can use these experiences in the future… what's disconcerting is that we might be primarily using them for those goals. We’ve been heavily groomed in interview skills and programmed to pursue extra curriculars and encouraged if not forced to seek out unique life experience that will impress someone at some point. We're so conditioned that we’ve almost made routine the quest for adventure, forgetting that the adventure has its own inherent value.

To some degree, it’s fine to combine those experiences with more concrete objectives. What’s not okay is how doing so can keep you from living in the moment. Contextualizing youth in terms of adulthood keeps us from indulging in full revelry, and leads us to take ourselves and all we do much too seriously. And on that point, Brooks paints a very vivid picture of the ambitious kid who has lost the free-spirited excitement for life. In a different article, he wrote about professionalized adolescence with a clever allusion to modern-day interpretations of Kerouac’s On The Road. It’s worth reading, but to sum up:

“If Sal Paradise were alive today, he’d be a product of the new rules. He’d be a grad student with an interest in power yoga, on the road to the M.L.A. convention with a documentary about a politically engaged Manitoban dance troupe that he hopes will win a MacArthur grant.”

Though impressive, the new-rules Sal is a tool, almost pathetic in his desire to impress. He’s constantly caught up in how he’ll fit his experience onto a resume, and constantly updating his resume. He goes on adventures bescause that’s what you do now and it makes great cocktail party conversation. He is interested in this stuff, but mostly because everyone else is. The new Sal isn't the protagonist of On the Road, but rather of Getting to the End of the Road.

So the question is – is that why we do it? Do we embark upon these travels and take up these causes because we’re wowed by them or because we know others will be? And if it’s a bit of both, are we finding the right balance?

I thought about this in the context of Nicholas Handler’s article (see previous post), because in a lot of way, Brooks and Handler are describing the same person. Handler’s Che t-shirt kid will soon grow into Brook’s power yoga grad student. He will replace the trendy and impressive activist causes he pursued in college with the trendy and impressive Odyssey years experiences. Our adventures, like our activism, assume a professional veneer inspired by current fads, and we’re a little bit opportunistic about everything.

Sliminess aside, the most detrimental part of this habit is the toll it takes on the bright young overachievers. College was my Odyssey primer when, with my friends who wanted to accomplish everything and often thought we could, we forgot how not to be stressed and prided ourselves on being able to sleep the least. We obviously cared about what we were doing but we probably cared more about how much we got done, so we lived out an unofficial competition who could collect the most marks of success: exotic travels, fancy internships, leadership titles and competitive grants – these were our gold stars, good for both social status and personal statements.

In the end, we got really good at taking ourselves seriously. We might have gotten a lot done, but the way we did it was a little bit sad. Looking back on that, I want my Odyssey years to be a chance to step away from the exhausting and not very healthy trend of investing all of yourself in everything. Because sometimes you have to remind yourself that some things are more important than the important stuff. That there doesn’t have to be a point to everything, and the trivialities of life are ultimately just as valuable as the big stuff. That walking on a dirt road or dancing like a fool or staying up till sunrise are not the stuff of interview banter but they are the secret behind a reminiscing smile that will far outlast your latest resume. A great thing about those moments and experiences is that they are for you and they are for your friends but you’re not going to be judged on them, in an interview or anywhere else. They are yours.

Brooks ends the Sal Paradise article with this:

“Someday some hypermanic kid will produce a moronically maxed-out adventure odyssey that will spark the overdue rebellion among all the over-pressured SAT grinds, and us grumpy midlife critics will get to witness a new Kerouac, and the greatest pent-up young-life crisis in the history of the world.”

I hope it happens when I’m still in my Odyssey years. It sounds like good fun. :)

Kids These Days: Part I

Lately the New York Times has been all about some commentary on college kids and twenty-somethings and what we’re doing with our lives. David Brooks says we’re taking longer to find ourselves and we’re taking ourselves more seriously in the process. Tom Friedman thinks we’re playing it too cool and says the reserved activism of today is for wussies. A Yale history major’s says we’re writing a revolution, we’re just trying not to look too into it.

Since I happen to be one of those wussies taking myself too seriously and trying to save the world but pretending not to care, I've been thinking a lot about it. This is as much as I could organize the first part of my thoughts, but more to come.

Nicholas Handler set off a comment board frenzy when NYT revealed his essay as the winner of a national student essay contest on “Why College Matters.” His response, a curious effort to blend blasé and idealism, drew enthusiasm from a few sympathizers and harsh dejection from more than a few disappointed readers. So yeah, he didn’t present anything very new, hardly anything cogent and on the whole the article was more annoying than entertaining. In a kind of sad way, he finally answers the question “why college matters” with the unexpected and incredibly uninspiring summed-up response: online organizing. It’s the activist style du jour, the response of the rally cry-skeptics, tired of prefab protests and trying to get at change from another angle. And our parents, and especially Tom Friedman, just don’t get it.

In light of his own lackluster take on activism, I can't help but think he was trying to polish off the essay with something nice and hopeful but he’s not even sure he has convinced himself, so it came out very strained. That said, in some nuggets of his article are very on. This is the passage that stuck out to me:

“On campus, we sign petitions, join organizations, put our names on mailing lists, make small-money contributions, volunteer a spare hour to tutor, and sport an entire wardrobe’s worth of Live Strong bracelets advertising our moderately priced opposition to everything from breast cancer to global warming. But what do we really stand for? Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave together an overarching narrative to our own political consciousness, to present a cast of inspirational or revolutionary characters on our public stage, or to define a specific philosophy. […] We are a generation for whom even revolution seems trite, and therefore as fair a target for bland imitation as anything else. We are the generation of the Che Guevara tee-shirt.”

For the most part, I’m with him. More than a few of the social justice sparkplugs that I went to school with are flippant about getting involved, doing it as much for the t-shirt as to raise the extra $1 of the t-shirt’s proceeds that go to charity. They like the idea of the cause more than they know about the cause. (I’ve already said my piece on the shirts.)

The more interesting thing he hits on is the transformation of activism that results from everyone getting fed up with the over-hyped LiveStrong bracelets. From the sixties picket-sign stereotype, we’ve been strewn in two directions: first plasticization and now professionalism. The first part of it consists of the Che t-shirt (or bikini) wearers who don’t know who Che is. This type is certainly still around and in full force, but the others are coming out of the woodwork now. Handler calls the professional side “the organization kid,” someone who is using savvy and non-traditional methods of activism to make things happen. I think a better term is the divestment kid, (maybe even the DMill), who is wearing suits and attending board meetings to persuade some pretty big wigs to move their money out of Sudan. And ironically enough, those two work very much in tandem on campuses these days.

Facebook, as ever, provides the case in point. NYT shows that three of the most popular tags for Handler’s essay are “facebook,” “activism,” and “Darfur.” Facebook Darfur activism. Our activism is conducted through social, sometimes superficial and incredibly image-conscious means. At its core, Facebook is a tool for expression – yes, you can use it to retrieve information but it’s real purpose is to dish it out. You can definitely still go to a campus Darfur event without a facebook RSVP, but you use it anyway because the planners want to be seen as the planners, the attendees want to be seen as attendees, and the MIAs wait to decide to go until after they see the guest list. It's personal marketing for free. The organization kid knows how important it is and seizes the masses through an e-invite. (The divestment kid goes a step further.)

It all comes down to what I think would be Handler's activism timeline:

1. Activism defined sixties style: Hyped-up, long haired, peace sign, rally crying, poster carrying rebels with a good cause.
2. Activist spin-off causes burst out from the seams: Hunger, AIDS, tsunamis, polar bears… how can one girl choose?!
   
3. Activists and wannabes lose their credibility; kitsch activism emerges: For every 100,000 people that join this facebook group, I will donate $1 to Darfur.
4. The post-modernists point and laugh and turn up the Shins.
5. The new activists decide to change tactics. Welcome Dan Millenson.
   

But as far Handler’s critique of our post-modern refusal to define an overarching theme, can you blame us? You’ve just got to chalk it up to the fact that we are immature and we don’t know what drives us and we’re not rushing to decide to what causes we want to dedicate our lives. And in that sense, it’s okay that we’re a little cheeky with our activism and that dip our feet in here and there without any larger cohesive theme or purpose. Political parties exist to weave an overarching narrative, it’s up to individuals (especially young ones) to figure out where they fit – or not – within that. Fickleness is in part the point and in part the luxury of youth.

It just means we get to embark upon the Odyssey years to figure it all out. (Next.)

Status update

Listening to: Feist “1234” and Regina Spektor “Flyin”

Mood: Frustrated but optimistic

Reading:The College Issue

And by the way: Polish women are my new sheroes.

Nothing like graduating and moving halfway across the world to start questioning, you know, everything. I never liked introspection very much and I’m a little miffed by how much time I have to indulge in just that.

To sum up: I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I am sure that what I’m doing is not the same as what I expected to be doing, nor is it the same as what I want to be doing. Frustration and confusion are duking it out right now for reign over my mind, and on good days confusion comes out ahead.

Today is a good day. It’s beautiful out this morning, I’m going swimming in an hour, I ate a great tomato sandwich for lunch and I’m taking the afternoon off. This weekend I’m playing croquet, visiting my soon-to-be Burundian host family, and going to a bar-b-que for the US-South Africa rugby match. And not to be underestimated, the newly downloaded aforementioned songs are a very important part of the mix.

And some things are about to change. I don’t know yet exactly what that means, but I’ll over-frazzle if everything stays the same so I have no choice but to try to make a few changes. I have a few starting blocks. I desperately need to learn and I really want to be around women but mostly I’m aching for a passion… I’ll see where I get with that.

I’ve finally uploaded some pictures and hesitated to send a link because they don’t begin to depict the whole scene here. But since nothing could: picasaweb.com/taylorsteelman/Burundi.

Did you do something to your hair?

So I realize that compliments are not always genuine. People will toss out a “Have you been working out?” just to say something nice. And even though it might have absolutely nothing to do with your working out (or lack thereof), people might actually think you just look nice and grab a ready standby phrase to express that. A phrase sure to make someone feel good.

I haven’t seen Reverien, our cleaner at the office, in a week or so now because he’s been on vacation. He stopped by this morning to say hello and we indulged in a bit of chit-chat as I was making coffee. When suddenly, as I turn to fill the coffee pot with water, he says from behind me:

“You’ve gotten bigger!”

Oh gosh. I’ve seen this happen to Liz. I sat at my desk while she greeted an old friend (Burundian man) and witnessed him call her fat. Right there, to her face. I think my eyebrows were an inch above their normal resting place but she took it in stride. A gracious nod, a polite dismissal. And slowly I caught on to the dreadfully ironic exchange: he was offering an American woman a compliment – by calling her fat.

I swing back around to Reverien: “Huh?!”

To make sure I understood what he said, he smiled jovially and held his arms out around his belly in that limp-ballerina-arm pose to show that yes, it looks like your midsection is expanding. He even looks to Freddy beside him for confirmation, and they both shake their heads, still smiling.

Okay. Thanks guys.

It's Monday

There is a massacre happening around me. Savage actions befall the victims: drowning, beating, squishing. I’m completely complicit in and overwhelmed by it. Almost everywhere I go, I find the desire to kill. It started at home, mainly in the kitchen, but now it’s followed me to the office. I got back from lunch today and saw them there, my enemy and my prey, on my computer. So what else could I do but I huffed and I puffed and I blew the little ant off my laptop! There. Eek – another one! You too, get off. Shoo shoo, off. Countering their defiance, the wind whirls out of my puffed cheeks and I try to tornado them out of the crevices in the keyboard… ah, but what if they just crawl inside?! Ants in my motherboard, arrrghhhh.

I don’t understand where they come from. These ant trails don’t necessarily have any origin, they’re just long lines of ants that start and end from and at nothing. The ants go back and forth from the top of the line to the bottom of the line, in motion the whole time and existing completely independently of everything, it seems. And there is no predictable reason for them coming where they choose to come, they just decide to come and they collect in hordes as if one sprouts out of another every minute. And that must be where they come from, each other. Which would explain the lack of a trail. Illogical, origin-less, pesky tiny ants that never ever sit still.

Like you! How in the world did you get on my arm? When I didn’t feel you crawl up from my elbow where it’s connected to the table, I didn’t even see you on the table, but all of a sudden here you are halfway up my forearm leaving me no other thought but that you magically appeared there, right there. For that bit of trickery I feel no shame in flicking you as swiftly as I can across the room. If flicks had a sound effect it would be a high-pitched, tight-lipped quick and determined *Pinnng* with a tiny little ripple of an echo. Pinnnnng!

Admittedly, still the new girl

I don't mean to be so personal. But I had a doozy of a day.

*****

What does it say about me that after a crummy day made crummy in large part because of unsettling confrontations with personal privilege that I’m sitting in the garden of a nice hotel on a nice afternoon eating chocolate crepes so I can access the internet?

She’s a white girl listenin’ to hip-hop driving on a Tuesday in her daddy’s SUV.

My feet are dirty by the time I get to work. I wore my little red ballet shoes one day and realized that for their sake I oughtn’t attempt it again. It would mean risking the soft red material to the clanging paws of dustbowls a foot off the ground.

Did I mention there’s a splendid view of the mountains from this garden?

*****

“Good afternoon,” he says to me right after I leave the house. As he says it I’m typing in my phone to tell Matt we’ll go for drinks later.

“Good afternoon,” and a curt smile. That’ll do.

A few steps and I think maybe we’ll make it, silence, silence, duck, duck, and then… ah, broken. Goose. Here it is.

“My name is Joseph.” A nice smile though. We shake hands. I smile too. But he… “works with orphans in this area. And we look for help from people around here. We have some letters of support from the administration,” opening the folder in his hand, “if you’ll just take a look.” He pulls out something official-ish and crowds me on the dirt sidewalk.

I used to think I didn’t want to give to people who asked for it because I felt more sympathy for someone with the humility not to ask. But what good does that do if your only strategy left is asking. When you actually need to ask. When you actually need. The thing about the soup kitchen that always bothered me was that most of the people who ate there were overweight. And that’s part of why I’m in sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s hard to tell which I hate more: having a lot or not having enough. Cause if I had mountains of cash then I wouldn’t care about giving away. Yeah, we all pull that line. What does this look like to other people? Through what lens do you see this and does it look like what an H2 looks like to me? That is, completely unnecessary and wasteful and an insult to most any other person and every single tree in the world.

“What do you want me to do?” To the point.

“If you could make a contribution…” he tries.

Yeah? What are you going to say this time, Taylor? You’re not going to just let him get away with that are you. We’re in the middle of the road man, why do you have to come up like we’re in an office or something and show me your papers and pretend it’s normal instead of harassment. You should know that there are boundaries here and you’ve not respected them and you’re just going to get anything done that way. No problems allowed in the no-complaining zone. A zone cordoned off by iPods, cell phones, and nasty American looks.

But how are you going to justify it? Especially since you and he both know you are lying, you’ve got to make it sound good. Make yourself the victim.

“Just right now, I can’t.” Make sure to use poor French, so when you fumble to explain it’s not because you’re unsure of yourself. Just your language.

Possessions. Somewhere a family who considered giving away all their worldly possessions did just that. Somewhere someone just became a nun. Fundamentalism is the only real religion, Alex said the other night. Reformists and compromisers are hypocrites. Unless you’re telling Anna that she can go out to nice dinners with Creighton because she’s so selfless otherwise and to feel guilty about something so standard in our culture would be debilitating. Indulgence allows good deeds.

I’m going to do my good deeds by my own design though. You’re not going to ask me for them while I’m walking back to work on a hot day. If there are times when you do good and there are times when you indulge then what are those times called when you tell a guy running an orphanage that you don’t have the $20 you have in your purse. And who should feel worse for creating that situation, him or you?

I would never donate to an organization that I don’t trust because I want to know that they’re really going to create something valuable with what I give them. We Americans like returns, they make us who we are. Show me that of all the parentless, shirtless kid-centers you’re the one that I should donate to. You need to earn this. For more reason than that you happened to walk beside me. I don’t know you man.

And I’m going to buy drinks later.

“Oh, you can’t…now. Maybe we could set up a meeting?” He’s on to me.

I’ve asked people for things too. But I never did so actually expecting to receive. Okay time out, not okay to put my UNC fundraisers on par with feeding orphans. I fed international NGOs and college students. Nuns probably walk around with small bills so they can give to someone whenever anyone asks. My mom probably does too. But it’s not worth doing if you’re going to feel bad about it, I told Anna. A bitter humanitarian is no good to anyone. Of course I’m not giving anything and I’m still bitter.

The real cinch is that I want to give and you want to take but why can’t you just want to take what I want to give?

Jeffrey Sachs, will you make me a formula please? Would you just design some algorithm or logarithm or some-kinda-rithm that can decide for me when and how much I can give away so that I don’t have to grapple with the decision each time and I won’t be unfair or inefficient but mostly so I won’t feel guilty. I don’t know what it is exactly I feel guilty about: either not giving or not caring enough to give or maybe just having enough so that I’m the one who gets to make the decision. And following guilt is shame at the fact that I stress about not giving money and they have to stress about not getting it. In all scenarios, I have the better end of the stick. It’s unavoidable and I remember my grandma telling me stories about how I was a brat when I was little and never did have patience for other people messing with me, telling me I’m cute.

And I don’t know who actually bothers me more, the men who ask for my money or the men who ask for my number. Both of you are presuming entitlement to something that is not yours and to which in fact, no, you are not entitled.

“Why aren’t you married?” he asks when after 2 minutes of conversation he can hardly pronounce my name.

Because pops, as hard as it might be for you who views me almost singularly as a chromosome-based identity to believe, I’m good for more than that. And for all the students of Mona Lisa Smile of course I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with marriage. All I’m saying is that if I was married or dating, their first question to me would not be “Why don’t you have a job?” or “Why aren’t you in school?” with the standard accusatory tone not very well hidden behind otherwise harmless words.

At home I feel no qualms about blowing people off but I’m treading carefully here, not always sure if the extra respect is merited. Of course I don’t want to disrespect your culture but I don’t want you to disrespect mine either, so don’t assume that I want to go for a drink with you in spite of our 20 years of age difference and having absolutely nothing in common.

“I just think you’re nice and I enjoy your company.”

No. There are prerequisites to having my number. One is a reason to believe that I would either want your number or would want to hear from you. Two is you actually having anything interesting to say to me upon a second meeting. Three is not being sketchy, and though subjective, it’s for me to decide and I won’t pretend that my perception is always perfect but it does affect my level of comfort so you deal with it.

“Why don’t you want to give me your number?”

And here’s where I try not to hurt your feelings.

“Do you have any money you can spare?”

And here’s where I lie in your face. But all I mean is:

Because it’s mine and some parts of me I don’t want to share. Because I would rather offer something than be asked for it. Because I’m short and smile frequently and it’s easy for just anyone to take advantage of that. Because I don’t like to be judged based on my skin color or gender or clothes. Because I think indulgences are important sometimes and because sometimes I delight in overdoing it. Because you need to give me time to think and because I don’t want to feel like I’m being sold something. Because I know how to sell things. Because I’m unsettled by the inequality between us. Because we have different perceptions of what’s important and of what’s appropriate. Because my sense of propriety might be somewhat old-fashioned. Because I don’t know you, I don’t know you, I don’t know you.

But the thing is each time I turn the corner those kids are there and each time I turn another corner Joseph is there with his pile of orphans and what am I supposed to do when the dogs at my house eat more than they do. I just wish they weren’t there every single time and I wish they were wearing shoes that fit them. I’m a fan of charity for people that deserve it and I don’t know what to say when I realize I’m not a fundamentalist charity-giver. It depends on my mood. It depends on how much you upset me. And ironically the less upset I am, the less I’m thinking anything through, and the less I’m prone to give. It’s not religious. It’s unfair, my choices, you being there, you asking me, me refusing, my caprice, our closeness, our being so far apart, all of it.

*****

There are good furrows and there are angry ones and angrily furrowed I also squint out the midday sun and walk back through a road that is too hot to a work that is too slow past people that make me feel bad about having slow work and I don’t want to give you this so please just don’t be nice and that way I’m not making a comparison between you and panhandlers on Franklin St. I know all too well there is a difference and it means something to me that you need what you’re asking for and it means something else that all I can do is spout the easiest fake excuse that comes to mind and when I go back to the States I won’t feel bad about turning down someone on the sidewalk outside a restaurant with access to hundreds of passersby with spare change because I turned down someone who hasn’t fed 20 orphans in 2 days. It’s all bullshit anyway I’m sure and I still wish I had a car to drive so I wouldn’t get my feet so dirty on these roads on dusty days. I don’t want to have to wash my sandals when I get home and I don’t want to sweat. I came to Burundi to see what its like somewhere with real poverty but just don’t show me that much please. We’re all hypocrites for our Club du Lac lifestyle and for swimming with crocodiles but maybe I’d rather just keep doing that and not furrowing my brow like this. And when I get to work give me someone I can talk to, hand me a politician please, a man not even a little bit of the people. We can get along because he is important and I am white but not to the extent that he gets to call me because I am not that important, I am just that white and that, my friend, does not count. And by the way, how am I supposed to act around stick-thin men who do my laundry, clean my dishes, and open the door for me? When I get home and don’t want to talk to anyone can I still blow them off or is that just being a colonialist?

Sometimes it seems the shock of having the comforts of home has somehow entrenched me even more in them and I don’t much feel like not being a hypocrite anymore and I wouldn’t mind going to Paris or New York. Businessman are honest souls because they admit that they’re completely selfish but NGOs are crazy political and selfish even though they claim to be doing everything for the good of humanity. It must be easy to make decisions when your own self-interest is the main concern. I have always been madly indecisive and always equally envious of people who can make quick decisions.

And oh how perfect if those quick decisions were also the right decisions, and if all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops.

Manners lesson

Today I walked home from the bank with 400 USD, dressed in floppy sweatpants and my North Carolina t-shirt, with my iPod stopping up my ears. Such a muzungu.

While I was walking, Bus and Richard were following me. Thanks to the NPR podcast in my headphones I couldn’t hear them but I assumed they might be trying to talk to me. After about 5 minutes when I finally heard “Good afternoon” and responded, they introduced themselves and we kept walking together until my turn, when my little friends finally revealed that they weren’t just having fun with the muzungu but that they were indeed little enterprisers. I heard the standard: “J’ai faim, donne moi l’argent.” “I’m hungry, give me money.” My ears prick each time I hear it: street kids have got the general gist down but completely without manners (they don’t even using the respectful vous form). These seem like nice kids and I want to try something so we have an impromptu lesson there on the corner.

“You know you’ll be much more effective if you’re more polite. Try this: ‘Could you give me some money, please?’”

Their faces are searching to see if I just told them how much I was going to give them. I look closer and motion, hands from me to them to me to them: “Repeat after me,” and I repeat after me. They respond: “Give me money.” Okay, these kids really don’t know French. “No, that’s what you don’t say.” From the look he’s giving me, I think the little one gets it.

I focus on him: “Could you…”
He starts: “Could you…”
“Give me…”
“Give me…”
“Money. Please.”
“Money.”
“Please…”
“Please.”
Well done! And you can throw in the ‘I’m hungry’ part too if you like.

After a few tries they can spiel the whole phrase and I reward them with ten cents. Hopefully they’ll remember it and acquire more with their new manners.