Hope. And Hopeless.

Hope…and,

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It’s been a long day (Right)

Rohingya refugee children from Myanmar’s Rakhine state rest at a refugee camp near Teknaf, Bangladesh. Nearly 125,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh since a fresh surge of violence in Myanmar began in late August. Photo by: K. M. Asad, Agence France-Presse, Getty Images. (wsj.com, September 5, 2017)


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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

A sewer cleaner cleans road manholes near Jatrabari Dhaka in Bangladesh. For this one-day work, the cleaner gets about $8. (KM Asad, Human Press, wsj.com June 16, 2017)

Breakfast

child-hunger-food-eat

“A child scrapes the leftovers from his meager lunch at a refugee camp in Kutupalong, Bangladesh. More than a million Rohingyas, originally from Myanmar, are living without basic amenities in government camps like Kutupalong.”


Source: Sushavan Sandy, Nurphoto, Zuma Press, February 21, 2017, wsj.com

White T-Shirts

photography

We wait for the phone to ring.
Every Sunday.
For the obligatory college briefing call.
(As long as you feed from the trough, you’ll call home on Sunday. Non-negotiable.)
Rachel jabbering. Eric tight lipped…leaking information on a need-to-know basis.
Not last night.
Big day for me on Tuesday Dad.
I forgot it’s his 20th birthday.
You forgot right?
Of course not.
Of course you did.
You know that I’m leaving for El Salvador on Saturday.
I’ll be taking vitals…blood pressure, temperature…and recording it.
Dad, I’ve been told there will be thousands, all waiting for medical care.
We’ll be readying patients for the doctors and dentists.
And then feeding homeless at night.

I’m dressing for work this morning.
I check the weather app. -5° F with wind chill.
How many children are huddled and shivering in the cold? Hungry. A soda can and not much else in the fridge for breakfast. Not in El Salvador. Here. Right here.
I shudder.
I reach for a t-shirt. Folded. Stacked. Clean. White.
I’m drawn to the label. I squint to read the small print.

XL 100% Pima Cotton. Machine wash warm with like colors. Only non-chlorine bleach if needed. Tumble Dry Low. Warm Iron if needed. Made in Bangladesh.

Made in Bangladesh.


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