Dubai does not Care

I'm so mad that I have to let off some steam here. The reason is this. So my school handed out these little booklets of vouchers that we have to sell for the Dubai Cares charity drive ( [link] ). Each voucher costs Dhs. 20. A bit much, but an amount a lot of people can do just fine without. My friend and I decided to go door to door and sell them.

I thought we could sell quite a few this way. Here are a few of the responses we got:

1. "This really isn't a good time."

2. "My son/daughter has one of those booklets." So you won't buy a voucher from us, but you expect people to buy one from your kid?

3. One guy opened his door a fraction of an inch and all we could see was an eye and his dog's nose. Before we could finish what we wanted to say, he just closed the door in our faces, at the risk of slicing his dog's nose off.

4. "I'm new to this area, so please, ok, hmm?" That isn't even a sentence! And how is that a valid reason?!

5. "No thank you."

6. "No."

The only people who bought vouchers from us were friends of my mother. And there was one other nice man as well who said he had bought a few the previous day, but didn't mind buying one more. After the door-to-door session we ended up with 4 sold vouchers between ourselves.

After this we went to a mall, thinking we'd be more successful there. We started asking random people. It wasn't as easy as we thought it would be, but we got used to it after a while. Here are some more responses:

1. "Oh, I can't hear you. I've got my music on." She keeps walking on after this, Starbucks coffee in one hand, and the other hand not bothering to yank out the earphones. I wish I had done it for her. "Yes, so what do you need?" We went through our routine sentence. "No, not interested, sorry." Aargh! If she can spend 20 bucks on coffee, why can't she do the same for charity?

2. "Sorry, maybe next time." Did they think we were regular fixtures in the mall?

3. "I can't understand what you're saying." I just think the words 'Dhs. 20' rang warning bells in their heads.

4. "Maybe next time."

5. "Can you wait till our manager comes back?"

6. "Maybe next time."

7. "My dear, I am looking for someone to donate some money to me." This came from a girl who was probably my age.

8. Two separate couples didn't turn back and just walked ahead when we tried to get their attention. We said "Excuse me" at least four times!

I don't remember the others, these are a few of the choicest examples. It was so infuriating how all these people, toting their Charles and Keith bags, were so stingy with their money when it came to donating just a tiny fraction of what they paid for those shoes, or bags, or whatever it is Mr. Charles and Mr. Keith sell, to uneducated, homeless little children! At the end we sold another 4 vouchers between ourselves.

Another thing. I think it's just hypocritical of schools to make their kids sell these vouchers when they themselves pay a pittance to the teachers they employ. Doesn't charity start at home?

However, I will say this. The people who did donate to the cause were extremely nice about it. One of them asked us if his name would appear in big letters on a donors list. He was joking, of course.

It is extremely saddening to think that people think twice before donating a small amount of money to a very worthy cause.