Hungry

Back in the saddle at work, the poverty is wearing on me. In the house where we stay, and medical students/doctors/researchers rotate through, they say that there is an expiration date on almost everyone here. A point where you need to get out, go home, something. Usually it’s a combination of the poverty, violence, and badgering that wears you down.

Today as I took the new interns to lunch at the cafeteria I saw a lady that works in my building eating cookies while we ordered huge plates of rice. I asked her why she wasn’t having the plat de jou…She said she can’t pay for that. So I gave her the money to get that. Right, I know, Matthew is against handouts; it just got to me, this lady I work with.

Later I was walking down the hallway and I heard a yell from behind “Dokte! Dokte!” I stopped. It was a young man, very skinny. He told me he was starving and really needed food. Could I give him money to get food. I told him I didn’t really have much today, but I could give him some of the peanuts I had. I took him to my office and gave him my peanuts. Later I saw him vociferously eating them on the sidewalk. The man was quite hungry. Hungry probably isn’t the right word for that.