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ASIA|
Development & Community in Bangladesh
1
of 1 reflection
Nothing
could have prepared me for what Dhaka
had in store – women holding three
children at once with looks of utter despair
on their faces; men with no legs crawling
down the road; thousands of homeless children
wandering the streets – miles and
miles of desperately poor people.
Foreigners draw immense attention in this
country. Probably one of the most powerful
moments of my experience is one that I
may not be able to express fully. We were
stopped in traffic and drawing many beggars
to the windows as our bus often did. People
knocked on the windows holding out their
hands, pleading with us in Bengali. One
day, two men approached the bus looking
for any money we could spare… anything,
really. One was probably 16 and he was
holding another man on his shoulders,
also around the same age. The young man
on his friends shoulders was terribly
deformed from malnutrition. Obviously
he could never have walked or stood on
his own – I doubt if he had ever
been able to sit upright. And while his
friend held him high up to tap on the
windows of our bus, I was uncontrollably
drawn to the brightest, most amazing smile
on his face.
This boy, this young man, had a smile
that could have illuminated the deepest
and darkest realm on earth. His expression
was that of one human sincerely joyful,
smiling and saying hello to another human
he had never met and never would. This
was not the smile of a poor boy trying
to manipulate money out of a foreigner
– we were all very familiar with
that act by this time. This was something
deeper, an expression of joy to be alive.
His smile beamed of an untouchable kind
of happiness, love and a peace that you
can't fake. It was an amazing sort of
humanism.
The fact that someone who lived in a hell
on earth like I knew he did, could ever
be able to express that kind of inner
joy… it's the most amazing thing
I've ever had the privilege of witnessing.
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