Imagine

Imagine living day to day struggling to feed your child or send them to school.
Imagine making the choice to choose food over education or education or food.
Imagine that nagging feeling of dependence- dependence on aid, dependence on family, dependence on strangers.
Although I am currently living amongst poverty, walking everyday by shacks and half built buildings, walking by children who are clearly not in uniform and thus not in school, seeing children in the surrounding communities with orange tinted hair a tell-tale sign of malnutrition. I STILL feel disconnected. Have I become oblivious? Have I become desensitized? Now that I am here how do I act?
Yesterday we went into Peitionville to shop as a group of volunteers are leaving this week and wanted to pick up their souvenirs.... across from our tiny market once was a big park like community centre... now it is a huge tent city, packed to the brink. No one mentioned this, no one pointed out the uncomfortable nature of dealing out money while across from the most desperate.
As I walked by one of the little painting shops I noticed a painting, I have so many at home and really didnt need anything but I stopped for a second and the dealer came and asked which one I wanted. I said "oh no thank you I am just admiring it"- of course he didnt take no for an answer. After some battering I offered $15 for this painting, I wasnt willing to pay any more bc I didnt need it but I could afford $15 ... he wanted $20 so I walked away saying no thankyou. He followed of course, they dont usually let you walk away. He added in another small painting that I didnt not like and said he would give it for free if I paid $20. Again I declined, thanked him and walked towards the group. He stopped me by tapping me on the shoulder, he had put the paintings down now and said "please remember I am just trying to make a living and feed myself"- they all say something of this variety, but the sincerity in his voice really racked me. I didnt purchase the painting but I did not have a pit in my stomach.
Imagine relying on foreigners for the basics of life.
We then headed up to lunch at the Baptist Mission just the mountain and then headed back to the main house. It was a quiet afternoon, we played a board game and then took some of the kiddies that were awake up to the balcony for some play time. We headed down for dinner and then headed back up to our house. We were treated to a movie night at Brandon and Nikki's the couple that runs the guest house- with goodies and everything ;)
I was so tired as I settled into bed, little did I know that at 12:30 I would be awakened with the loudest music imaginable. Somewhere down in the valley someone thought it was a great idea to BLAST North American bar like music - I figured it wouldn’t last long but I was wrong, I quickly got frustrated as I am a light sleeper and could not for the life of me get back to sleep. I went into the living room with my laptop, headphones and pillow- I popped in a movie waiting for the music to die down. I drifted in and out of sleep with the movie playing but had to head back to my room b/c I was sweating buckets. FINALLY at 2:30am the music dulled and then stopped completely. I quickly fell back asleep but I still slightly erkked. I have NO idea how anyone slept through that last night.