Not As Tough As I Thought

I hit my low today. It kind of came out of nowhere. I had spent most of the day at the Labour Court (I'll write about that experience later). I was driving back to the office with my driver and a paralegal (who didn't speak English, so it made for a very quiet ride). We were stuck in traffic for over 90 minutes (getting there had taken under 30). As we were sitting on Gulshan Avenue a child with an adult came up to the car. This child was probably around 10. She had a very swollen head. It was probably twice the size of normal head. She also had a very large tumor growing out of her neck. The old man with her approached and knocked on my window pointing at the child. As I saw her I let out a gasp and opened the window and handed the man Tk.10. The most overwhelming sadness overcame me and I just burst into tears. Minutes later another disabled man with a spinal deformity came up to the other side of the car. I just closed my eyes, tears streaming down my face and hoped he would go away. Minutes after that a man came up to my window with a head full of live ducks that were tied up and wanted to sell me one. Again I closed my eyes and just wanted everything to disappear. I covered my face with my scarf because I am embarrassed to cry in front of people, but I couldn't make myself stop sobbing. I don't know why today, and what it was about that child that so effected me. I really thought I had become immune to this. I think what has happened is that the past few weeks when I thought I was just adjusting to all the horrors of Dhaka I was actually in a state of denial and not allowing myself to process it. Today that ended.