It's 2:46 Dhaka time and all I want to do is sleep, but already the details of the past two hours are getting fuzzy, so I think the best thing to do is hammer it all out now into an incoherent mess... which is actually quite suiting to my last two disorienting hours.
Our plane landed with a little boy screaming bloody-murder behind me and kicking the back of my chair, while his sister joyfully cried "Oh my God, Bangladesh! I am in Bangladesh, my true home country!" She spoke with the faint accent of a child who is growing up in an English-speaking country but has not yet started school and subsequently been scrubbed clean of the music in her parents' voices. But as much as her exclaimations made me smile, the fear of the unknown that I was about to walk into made me wonder if perhaps her little brother had the right idea.
I've heard people talk about the humidity when you get off a plane in India. I had always assumed that they had been on one of those planes where you walk down the set of stairs onto the tarmac and then into the air-conditioned airport. Not the case. How can I describe walking into Dhaka's airport? Ever been to a butterfly exhibit at the zoo? Like that but without the animals or exit.
I believe I've seen about 5 women since getting off the place. 1 outside the airport. Then again, it is the middle of the night so I don't know what I was expecting.
As I climbed into the car that was waiting for me at the airport (thankfully!) I noticed a small child in rags standing alone. I am tempted here to use the cliche expression "I couldn't help but notice", but the fact, is I could help it... In reality, I very nearly missed him (or her). As people scurried this way and that around him, managing to give him a foot-wide berth without ever looking at him, I almost wondered if he was a ghost that only I was seeing. And then I looked away. I am here to help people, but the backpack that I arrived with contains $2000 worth of possesions. I consider myself a generous person, but I know - surrounded my all this poverty - that by the end of this trip there will be children that I can't see either. Where is the balance? How can I find it?
The rest of my story tonight is typical. Driver going too fast. No one heeding red lights. Lines on the road with no apparent meaning. Gripping fear of death. Anyone who has travelled to a developing country knows the drill. I calmed myself down by reminding myself that driving in a city like this is survival of the fittest, and my driver is still alive, therefore, he is fittest.
Well, as I told the bellboy an hour ago when I kicked him out of my room and refused to let him listen to my iPod, I really need to sleep. So good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment