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A woman’s home by the side of a mountain, built of rocks and mud, like the most down-and-out thing you ever saw in your life...

INSPIRATION: Marc Gold & 100 Friends

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SOMEONE YOU CAN REALLY TRUST...

LIZ: I’ve heard a lot of stories about people who have gone to India, they tell me that if you give money to a person on the street, that you will be swarmed with people…

MG: Well, if you do it the wrong way, you’ll be swarmed.

LIZ: What’s the right way?

MG: O.K. well you have to be a little bit discreet. Because you don’t just want to go out in the street. I mean look: you’ll be accosted by beggars. And so, just like here, you see homeless people: You don’t give to every one, you don’t give to no one. You give to some. And you don’t wave your money around...you discreetly put the money in someone’s hand, and say, “Here, get yourself something to eat…” or whatever you say, right?

So, I give to people on the street, and I make a judgment. If somebody looks drunk, I’m probably less likely [to give to them] than a mother with a kid, although there are professionals.

I go around looking for people who are not begging. One of my favorites is, there are these people, you’ll see people digging through trash looking for bottles? Lots of people like that in third world countries. They’re recyclers. And I’ve actually been to the place where they take their bags. So these are not people who are going around begging, they’re working. And sometimes I’ll just go up to them and put ten bucks or or whatever, in their hand.

So you want to be a little discreet. You might be staying at a guest house, and get to know the owner, and get a good feeling, and you might just say, “Do you know a particular family, or a mother with a child, you know?

Homeless Children in Ladakh, India

I’ll give you an example. I was in Ladakh, the very northern part of India, right near the Tibetan border. I spent a couple of days looking around, and I’m not doing this 100 Friend thing 24-7, I might just be on vacation, or a traveler, or a Buddhist or whatever.

I didn’t meet somebody that "rang my bell," so to speak. Then one day, I’m sitting in a café and I meet a guy from D.C. We’re talking…and he’s been to Ladakh like 11 times to go on meditation retreats. He really knew a lot of people there. After a while, I told him about my project, and I said, “Do you know a local guy here that you really trust?”

His eyes got big, and he said, “I know the perfect guy.” And indeed it was.

A guy named Phuntsok Wangchuk. He was a tour operator, he took people on treks, and he himself did some giving on the local level. He ended up doing a whole program for me, and he took me to some very remote areas.

One of the pictures I’m sending you is of a woman’s home by the side of a mountain, built of rocks and mud, like the most down-and-out thing you ever saw in your life, and I'm giving away some blankets in this place, because this is a place where there is no money.

Giving Blankets Near the Tibetan Border
Shara Village near Tibet. Yangzon Thering 59 year old Ladhaki woman who lives alone. 100 Friends donation of Kashmiri blankets.

And so, anyway, he kind of opened up the whole thing for me, and he took me to meet some old people who live by themselves underneath buildings, people I would never be able to find...

So you can research it, but there’s nothing wrong with going with your intuition, you can get a pretty good feel as your time goes on and you get to know…

OH, YOU CHEAP WESTERN BASTARD...

Sometimes I’ll give to many people like that, through a contact, and then people on the street will see me and I’ll say, “No.” and they’ll look at me like, “Oh, you cheap Western bastard.”

They don’t know that I just gave away a grand, or 500 bucks. That’s O.K., I know it.

Look, there are a billion people in India. Obviously, even Bill Gates can’t help them all.

So, you can only do what you can do, you’re not God. You’re Liz, and I’m Marc, you know.

LIZ: How do you keep from getting burned out and overwhelmed with all the need that you see?

MG: It’s just how I’m built. I’ve been to the largest slum in the world, which is in Bombay, and is right near the largest red-light district--a quarter of a million sex workers. A lot of them are little girls, they’re being sold for as little as 30¢ per sexual encounter... it’s unbelievable.

And you know what? I go there, and I do some good, and I feel good afterwards, I know I’ve helped some people a little bit. And it just doesn’t get to me, because I know I’ve done something. And I know I can’t do everything. And I know the world has some f*cked up things about it.

But, you know, when I go to the slum in Calcutta, people are not sitting around weeping… they’re having their festivals, and they’re doing their jobs, and they’re doing their family things, and they’re fighting, and they’re dancing and they’re living, you know?

I worked with dying patients at Alta Bates for a year and I saw about 30 people to the very end. I was there and it affected me, but I don’t take it home, that’s how I’m built.

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