Insight into an unfamiliar world

Of my numerous trips to the country of my birth, Bangladesh, the flood ravaged country with some of the poorest people in the world living in it, only one was more significant, and that was in the summer of 1996. This was my probably my fifth visit, but it was still a once in a lifetime experience. I did not enjoy great amusements and thrilling experiences; rather I have had simple adventures. Though I have had some beautiful sensuous experiences, my adventure was an adventure for my heart. I discovered just one more way of looking at part of humanity, the part that we all seem to think we are familiar with, but are probably the least conscious of, the world of the "needy". We know how it is like being wealthy through the wonderful black box called television, but the world of the poor is the one we are least familiar with. In my particular visit I did not get a deep glimpse of it all at once, but gained a deeper image that was formed with the accumulation of previous experiences during visits. My maturity has heightened my experiences, and will continue to throughout my life.

It all may have begun with my early childhood visits to my maternal grandfather’s village when I was visiting Bangladesh. I would play with children of near age to me and experience the thrills of having mud on my hands and frogs to play with, at the same time I would see how every thing we did was based on sharing. It was an innate ability of theirs to be able to share even their most important things such the little piece of bread a mom had given to her child, something I found lacking in the city children with abundant toys including myself. We would run wildly, pretend to lead more interesting lives of adults, and very often I would appear in someone else’s house, an unpretentious child like my friends. The families in the house would treat me with such tenderness that I would be surprised that I am not even related to them. It did not feel as if I had entered unknown territory, but rather a place that gave me the feeling of familiarity that I find in the places of only close relatives. Despite the tin walls with rusty holes and thatched roofs that leaked, I knew I was sheltered by love coming from people that were as removed from me as any solitary man walking on Main Street. I however took these for granted after a while, until I returned to Saudi Arabia, where a deluded love of Bangladeshi people for each other prevailed.

Then there was the one singular experience that will forever strike me as odd. During one visit to a village when I was seven, I was walking with my sister and two cousins of similar age behind a massive group of supporters for the election of my cousin’s father as a rural mayor. We fell behind the group so we decided to slowly and playfully return home, just then a man recognized my cousin as the daughter of the man running for election, he immediately pleaded her to bring us to his home. We yielded seeing no harm, and entered a tiny one room straw hut he and his family called home. Immediately, his wife begged us to stay and have lunch with them, share the meager food they had. They apologized for the lack of food and began to make a drink by stirring some palm syrup into water for us to drink. Their apologies made me ashamed of myself, for still unknown reasons I felt responsible for their misery. We insistently left their home pretending our mothers wanted us, this departure made me feel something inexplicable because I could not decide if it was a good thing. It was not just that they wanted us to share their meal, the wife was making a drink from the little syrup they had, which was never really used to make drinks.

This was just a glimpse into the lives of truly poverty stricken people. Even though they prevail in the Bangladeshi atmosphere, the tiny middle class and huge upper class never seem to understand them. But, I think I am different, because my family had relatives that were poor. My mother and father both grew up with people that are now part of this needy world. During my 1996 visit, I visited a village of my father’s maternal family. In entering every home, we were served with hen’s eggs and duck eggs --considered a delicacy because of scarcity. There was a dominant air of hospitality that I have very rarely experienced in cities I have lived in. The same genuine concern in every house, people remotely related to my father dragging us to their houses, fanning us with straw fans, and serving us fresh coconut milk --as if they have just met their long gone brother. It was all hospitality and warmth unparalleled to most experiences in my life--experiences I could never take for granted.

As I continue to love my life, a life of temporary and unreal contentment, I continue to discover more from poor people, how my life is so different from theirs, not necessarily better. I notice the underprivileged more than ever, thanks to these coveted experiences in my country and during my last insightful visit in 1996. I noticed the Bedouin in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that offered me half of his bread as he was selling something to my father, the humble taxi driver in Madina, Saudi Arabia, inviting us to visit his house, and the former Bridgeport prisoner relating to me his mistakes and befriending me. I am beginning to find a universal rule governing the needy of the world. They are people full of love, a love that money often deprives people of. They achieve their own satisfaction with the simple act of kindness and generosity; other’s happiness seems to be theirs as well. They are not miserable, because even though they may not have food in the table, they are not miserable by wanting the materialism we crave. Even though they may not realize it, they have a greater peace of mind in this world. They do not have the burden of knowing so much yet being unable to do much.

Mohammed Sobhan
November 3, 1997

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