In Reply to: The New House & Going Home. posted by Bob_Melb on Saturday, 28. January 2006 at 02:25 Bali Time:
this families Guardian Angel. The part about how far to go, well thats a really hard one. My dad worked on a mine site up the mountain from Bogor in Jakarta and there was a girl about 21/22 with a 1 year old baby. Anyway cutting it short she worked part time in a bar, lost her whole family all within a year and moved to an aunts rented room bringing the number to 9 in the one room. He wanted to help so bought her the basics, a small 1 room house with outdoor kitchen, basic furniture, things for the little boy etc. Now this sounds primitive but the area is way less developed than Bali... anyway within 3 months nobody would speak to her in the village, she was robbed a couple of times and beaten when someone took the baby cot. This may sound extreme but jelousy is in all walks of life, only after adding a second room and having 4 of her extended family, an uncle and 2 cousins move in was she again accepted. Through this experience I think you can go too far in trying to help as it is impossible to help everyone and those you cant do envy those that are helped. Maybe just help with food and basics now as your family have a good start with what you have done. I still stay in touch with the girl and deposit money into her account monthly, her son is now 4 and doing well. This is just our story and thought it may shed a little light on some of the not so good things on helping too much.