Funny/sad

I'm learning not to get too settled in one mood here, because things can change in an instant.

On my first bus trip to Dhaka, for example, I started to have a bit of a giggle when I saw a huge crowd of people gathering on the busiest highway in the country.  It was really slowing down the flow of traffic!  I whipped out my camera and started snapping away, when I realised

 why everyone was there.  A bus and a truck had collided, with the front of the bus ripped open and the cab of the truck totally smashed.  There was blood all over the road and no possible way the occupants in the front of either vehicle had survived.  I felt like such a sicko for taking pictures (which I immediately deleted), and my desire to laugh was quickly replaced with a desire to vomit.

Today's visit to Bansbaria, a village about 10km away, elicited the same freefall of feelings from amusement & hope to sadness & frustration.

As we walked into a compound of houses, I was greeted by several children.  One of them was holding and chewing on something made of a red latex-type material.  Closer inspection confirmed that it was indeed latex - the kid was playing with a condom!  Another child had one blown up as a balloon, which soon drew tears when his mate tried to snatch it from him and it popped.  Upon entering the house we were heading for, two more children inside were happily chewing on red condoms.  Aside from getting a good laugh, it did make me wonder if this was confirmation that the safe sex message is getting through... or if it's evidence to the contrary!  Were the kids playing with the condoms cos the adults didn't know what to do with them?  Or didn't want to use them as a form of contraception?  Or was the idea to promote acceptance of condoms by introducing them as a toy in childhood and thus making them less foreign when these children are sexually active adults?  (I suspect the reason lies somewhere between these two possibilities.)

Still pondering this, I was led out the back of the house to a shaded area where a woman was lying on the ground being fanned and sponged down by lots of other women.  My colleague filled me in on the details - two days ago, she and her husband were in a car accident in which he was killed, leaving her widowed with two small sons.  The woman needed two helpers to get into a sitting position.  She was struggling to keep her head upright and eyes open.  She answered basic questions in slurred speech, but any kind of assessment of her orientation to time, person or place was impossible because the gathered crowd kept on answering the questions for her despite my repeated attempts to ask them not to.  She had clearly sustained quite a significant head injury and needed to be treated in hospital.  I asked whether she had received any medical attention and was told that a doctor is coming tomorrow.  I quietly insisted to my colleague that this woman was very sick and really needed to go to a hospital in the nearest city.  Her response?  "She is not so sick.  She is just very sad because her husband died."  I explained my understanding of her mourning, but that I also thought her physical condition was not just sadness and she really should be seen by a specialist doctor ASAP.  "Financial situation not good...  Poorest of the poor," she told me.  "Anyway, does she need physiotherapy now?  No?  Then let's go."

Oh the frustrations of the entire system in Bangladesh!  Which is so complex and beyond the scope of this little blog to even attempt to discuss.  It's easy but also incredibly difficult to not take all these things on board.  If everyone is apathetic then nothing will ever change.  But it's not healthy for the mind to feel responsible for every individual out there in the same situation.  What's needed are systemic changes, not quick fixes.  But the quick fix provides so much more satisfaction in the here and now.  How easy it would have been to give the 1000tk or so (about $18) for transport and medical costs for this woman.  But hardly a sustainable solution...  Either in the short term (cos if I did that for every person who needed medical treatment, I'd soon run out of money!) or in the long term (it doesn't change the reason why nobody can afford to access health care and what happens after I'm gone?).

Feeling sad and frustrated, I left her house...  And walked past the kids playing with the condoms again.  Somewhat less amusing than it had been 15 minutes previously.