Humanity

This blog post was written by Anine Kongelf while she was working as a delegate for the Red Cross Youth in Port Sudan in 2008-2009. I used to react with horror to children working at the check points. The young girls begging made me feel sick in the stomach, and seeing the youngsters of IDP’s* take drugs made me angry. Women raising their babies on the streets, while selling sex and expose themselves for HIV used to make me feel sad and depressed. Now I catch myself grow accustom to all the mushkillas**, I don’t cry over the children on the streets anymore. I don’t react to the injustice of the poverty with anger. It doesn’t bother me the way it used to. I see it every day, and I get numb. I feel powerless. Where is the Humanity in all this? At a workshop with the volunteers earlier, ‘Asha was asked to elaborate on the principle of Humanity. When she finished, everyone were clapping and cheering, and one of the men stated; ‘I’m sorry, it cannot be translated to English. She is talking like a poet, and what she said was as beautiful as a poem’. I’m no poet, but as I understood it, it goes something like this: Humanity is to be compassionate, and not to differentiate between my problem and their problems. Humanity is to never forget that we are the same, you and I. Most importantly; Humanity is to feel the pain of others. I don’t want to resign just yet. And I think ‘Asha is right. Humanity is to feel the pain of others. So that is what we have to do. Dare to feel the pain, don’t push it away because it’s uncomfortable. It may even hurt. But I bet it hurts even more for the hungry child. *Internally displaced people **problems This blog post is republished with the permission of Anine Kongelf.