Oh for the price of a coke or a smoke, keep alive those hungry eyes...

Walking through Ulaanbaatar on Monday, the temperature was around -10 degrees celcius. I'm still a bit shaky on the conversion, but I think that's around 11 degrees farenheight. As I walked up the "Avenue of Peace", the main drag here in UB, I passed a little boy sitting on the ground, sort of leaning against a fence across the street from the main square. He looked to be about 10 years old and he was holding a younger child in his lap; I assume it was his brother. He was singing loud and clear and rocking back and forth while his brother sat silently, staring blankly. An upturned hat sat in front of the two, holding a few small bills. I stared, I know I stared, as much as I just wanted to look away, as I passed these two small children, looking at their wind-chapped faces, not wanting to think about how long they'd been sitting in this place or where they would go at the end of the day. I've had a hard time shaking this image. I just can't stop thinking about how bitterly cold it is here, and every time I see another child with their hand out, or singing, or trying to stuff a packet of birdseed in my pocket at the monastery so that I'll hand over a few Mongolian togrogs, I feel a bit sick. I know there is no perfect choice for me here. Giving the money won't really change anything, but not giving the money feels heartless. I feel like this is some kind of traveler's cliche... I know this is something I will continue to face to some degree or another for the rest of this trip... and who doesn't have a reaction to this kind of thing? But it just makes me so sad. I think about the rest of the children all over the world who are sitting on the street, who either don't have a home to return to or have been sent out to beg by parents facing a desperation I surely can't imagine. So what do we do? How can we fix it? I know there are organizations out there that are doing the kind of work that accomplishes things, that solves problems that my handing over a dollar in change never could. Maybe they'll find this boy and his brother and wash them and warm them and give them another choice. But all I can think about as I lie on top of my warm, clean bed in my tourist hotel (however modest) is how unfair life is, and how I wish I could have taken those boys by their hands and led them to somewhere better.