I was in India some years ago, lived at a guest house for 3 months, had a private "maid" who cooked my meals and did my laundry. We became friends, I got invited for her kids' birthdays, I invited her family to a Chinese restaurant her kids really wanted to try.
She didn't have a lot of money, her husband was working as a painter but had some health issues. They lived in a very small house/hut. They were good people. After leaving I often thought of writing them, but only got to doing it last year. Never heard from them, but perhaps the mail got lost.
Recently joined Facebook, was able to find her there. Added her as friend, wrote her, we've been going a bit back and forth about life in general, she doesn't have much work these days, but her family is good. I'm still unmarried, but life is good.
She now writes that her daughter's 12th grade tuition is hard to pay and asks me for 7000 rupies, if I can please spare them. It's not an insignificant amount of money, but also not a lot of money to me (something like 100 Euros) so I can do it economically. Should I send her the money?
Writing this poll text makes me think the choice is simple enough - yes, send the money, you'd do it in a minute if it was one of your friends in Denmark asking for a loan. But when I got her Facebook message, it didn't feel too good. I've not seen her for so long, just wanted to hear about her family etc. and quickly the conversation turned "transactional". Maybe she's just being practical. I guess it's also because she's not exactly a close friend of mine, and it's weird to have a request like that coming from a somewhat distant friend.
Poll Results
| Option | Votes |
| Yes | 7 |
| No | 3 |
― niels, Saturday, 24 September 2016 08:32 (nine years ago)