Just Another Walk?

One dreary, spitting, muddy morning this week I was headed into the project office via public transportation (which makes it sound so orderly and neat and efficient!). Between minibus stops, I was moving with the jostling crowd, picking my way over mud holes, all the while keeping my hand securely on my bag. I realized how draining this trek was, how assaulting all the reminders of where I was. Noise, constant noise: people, honking, the shrill cry of vendors, diesel engines, the plaintive call of beggars. And there were smells, overpowering smells: the black smoke that fills the sky and lungs, dirtiness, food, sheep, dogs, donkeys. But mostly I was overwhelmed by the sights, the images that are beyond disturbing. Women, children, men in too little tattered, dirty clothing; men and women without arms or legs or both scooting through the chaotic streets on strips of tires; nursing mothers huddled under scraps of plastic, holding out their deformed hands for change. It brought again all the questions: “How do I react? What do I do? Why is it this way? Why them and not me?”
This morning I was confronted with a new thought—what do they, these people on the streets, the crowds I push through, the children who grab my hand—what do they think of me? Of us, the ones who so obviously don’t “fit”? Do they think we are proud, selfish, stingy? Do they look in disgust at us, who think we have all the right answers? Or do they understand the turmoil that their very presence brings?