Lifeline to a World in Need

“We have for centuries, lived in ignorance and indifference to much of the suffering around us – this is no longer possible. Thanks to you the media the world can no longer ignore its poor nor its political prisoners, its starving and dying, its wars, violence and injustice. The media has become a lifeline to a world in need.” – Audrey Hepburn, Brussels 1991

I have spent the past four days in the haor regions of Bangladesh. While this area is no casualty of war nor the most poor, six months out of the year the area is flooded and all cultivation is rendered useless. It is rural, impoverished, and were it not for the field workers of NGO organizations, a natural disaster. I thought I was prepared for what I was to experience.

For years, I have been coming to the villages of Bangladesh and have seen hundreds of deformed beggars on the streets. Thanks to the media mentioned above, I have seen my fair share of swollen bellied babies staring up at me with wide eyes from the glossy covers of magazines and brochures. I have also read about the poor girl who received an education that forever changed her life, the boy who was saved from jail thanks to the work of human rights activists, the wife who escaped her abusive partner, etc. The very first week of my communications internship, we fabricated developing nation stories as exercises for the case studies we were to eventually record. I was able to easily fabricate a three paged story, not because of my imagination, but rather the onslaught of information I’ve been fed through the media’s sensationalized stories. Everyone loves a good hero, and that’s what poverty is to any communication’s department.

Audrey Hepburn was right; the media has been sharing the world’s suffering. I mean, who has ever heard of such a thing as a good news report? But she was also wrong in her belief that technology would make poverty, war, and disease impossible to ignore. We are continuing with the same air of ignorance and indifference, because we have been desensitized. The overwhelming flux of bad news isn’t mobilizing nations to change global injustice, but rather to press the off button on their televisions and proceed with their day as if it was just another war in the Middle East or just another million of people dying from starvation in Sub-Saharan Africa. So, you see, it is with this arrogance that I proceeded to Baniachang, thinking the world had prepared me and this field trip would be nothing new.

I was wrong.

Poverty cannot be seen, it must be felt. When I went to the villages, this was not just another starving baby wearing an orange rag, looking up at me from a picture, but one standing in front of me, in real life. Together we melted under the unforgiving sun as we stood and stared, as if we were cast in some old western standoff. Together, we were attacked by the restless mosquitoes feasting on our blood. Together we faced the pangs of hunger and thirst while fasting in Ramadan. And together we hesitantly smiled.

I am apprehensive to even share my sentiments and experiences for fear that they become just another story of some privileged girl’s experience with impoverished children on some field mission to some third world country. To say so would be doing myself and these children a severe disservice, one that I absolutely will not stand for. So please understand, these are my feelings that I am sharing with you.

It took every ounce of my willpower not to pull each child into my arms and protect them from reality; though if I were to be honest, it would be the children protecting me from their reality. While the time I spent in each of the villages was brief, I grew terribly attached to the kids and was near tears every time the van drove away. My job was to make a video, however I failed. I was too distracted by the twenty or so curious eyes peering at me. I was aware of their crowding presence and the instant connection between us. My priority was not to film the designated beneficiary, but to make the kids laugh, if only for a fleeting second. I raced the boys who were ten times faster than me, despite being half my age and height. I made silly faces every few minutes or so. I even tried learning how to whistle, dramatizing my failed efforts, just to witness their smug smiles. Each time they followed me back to the van and raced after the car as we drove away.

These children do not know my name, nor do I know theirs. I will probably never see them again, and chances are only half of them will even make it to adulthood. But this was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I want to laugh and cry. I feel so powerful and helpless. I am selfish and selfless. My heart was elated and broken. Poverty cannot be portrayed in the perfect picture, witnessed through the glass windows of a car, or passed in the jostling of a busy street. The lifeline to a world in need is not, nor will it ever be the media, but rather the power of human connection. Only when we take a moment to acknowledge one another’s presence and accept the reality of our surroundings, do we really feel. Only then does it become impossible to be ignorant and indifferent to our world of suffering. Only then are we finally compelled to take action.