Children throughout the world are 99% delightful. But sometimes they can be cruel.
While walking the streets of Kathmandu I came upon these children teasing a homeless man (probably mentally retarded).
Please do not generalize this as characteristic of Kathmandu- it is not. But economically poor countries sometimes let people like this man walk around- as long as they don't harm anyone. In the U.S. he might have been institutionalized. Without meaning to get too engrossed in the complications of the world's societies, I hesitate to suggest that the "western" way is better.
Scanned from an old print.
Thanks for the feedback, guys.
I never sought out such vignettes as I traveled, but I always wandered around the back streets and occasionally came upon "down-and-outers." Only once did I get in trouble for taking their photographs- a tiny, barefoot old woman huddling against the cold on the sidewalk in Istanbul, Turkey- head covered, asleep. I took one picture before a couple of male pedestrians yelled at me to stop. I stopped and walked away.
Partway down the street I stopped again and looked back. No-one had offered to help the woman.
Charlie
