Recalibration

I work with populations that are stressed and traumatized. It starts to get to me, and I don't often realize it. I become calloused and cynical. Babies die, old people get left for dead, women get raped. War passes through towns, entire lives go up in flames, and the sun still rises. My calculations are about the emergency minimum for people to not get sick. Can a family live on 5 gallons of water per day? For how long? My horizons shrink and violence becomes the norm. I lose sensitivity.

I see mothers in their teens, with babies strapped to their backs, hauling water all day. The only redeeming factor of the baby is that it is lighter than the water on their head. Children becomes burdens in this war-torn land.

Then I get moments that break through my calloused shell, that jolt me out of the apathy and cynicism that have become my normal.

I see our driver bouncing a baby up in the air and cooing. A 50 year old man with grey in his beard, beaming like a kid with chocolate. "Aww, is that your son?" "Nope." He's just happy to see a baby.

I pass by a vaccination site, full of people waiting in the sun, crying children, and loud health promoters. A mother takes the time to kiss her child's boo boo after getting vaccinated. She stops crying. I continue on with a lighter step.