It finally got to me

Well, it took over two months but it finally happened. The poverty here finally got to me. I went into town for the hell of it after work today to pick up something for dinner and get out of the 'hood. I went to shoprite as usual and picked up some groceries, started to walk back to the taxi park past the usual group of beggars who are under the age of 10. I normally can walk by them with a no and a smile or stonefaced if I'm in a bad mood but today there was this little boy - couldn't be more than 6 years old - sitting there crying with bright white paste covering his forearms and his knees because they were full of small open sores. I don't know what it was but it looked horrible and painful. I can't really describe it properly but something about him knocked the wind right out of me and it was all I could do not to start crying right then and there.

Then less than 10 minutes later as I was on my way home in the taxi, we were slowly driving back past the shoprite roundabout, past all the streetkids again though on the other side of the street, there were the usual kids waving and gesturing at the traffic for money but then I noticed there was one just sitting there, hunched over on the side of the road with some adult's large red winter jacket draped over him the way a guy would put his suit jacket over the shoulders of his date when it got too cold. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and had already given up.

No child should look defeated by life, their lives have barely started.

It's not like I hadn't seen similar things or worse here and especially in the camps upcountry but there was something about these boys that got through all the armour I've set up around myself. Honestly since I've been here, I've seen some horrible things, heard some horrible stories and been exposed to the most vivid and infuriating proof that life is not fair and that there is a huge amount of injustice in this world. Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can do this without it getting to me, destroying my faith in humanity and leaving me a little dead inside. At the same time I don't want to close my eyes and forget about these things and the people who live them everyday because to do that would be to deny their existence and the humanity we all share. I have to notice - it is reality, cruel, hard, unfair and painful reality.