I’m snuggling my baby today. He got his first shots yesterday, so he’s a little fussy today. He wakes up and squeals a bit; I give him some more Tylenol. My heart hurts for my little boy, but I ache even more for the mother who is holding her child while he dies from one of those preventable diseases. Unable to pay for a doctor or medicine, she rocks her baby hoping to provide some comfort.
My baby weighed at the 75th percentile for his age, but how many mothers around the world watch as their babies, toddlers, even teenagers never know the satisfaction of a belly full of food?
Sudanese girl stalked by vulture, March 1993, Kevin Carter
Images haunt me. The photographer, Kevin Carter, maintained his journalist principles after taking this picture. He walked away because a journalist is there to record the facts and should never interfere.
How could anyone, in the face of so much suffering, just walk away?
How much food could I buy for a starving child with the $2.50 I spend on a package of Oreos or the $1.50 it costs to buy a 2 liter of Coke?
How much does it cost to dig a well so that some other mother doesn’t have to watch her babies die from Typhoid (which is spread through contaminated water)?
Many think nothing of spending $50 for a new shirt when they already have a closet stuffed full of clothes they don’t wear. Five coats in the closet while elsewhere, children go barefoot in the winter. $3.00 designer coffee while families struggle to survive on $1.00 per day (that’s not just for food). Books (my own weakness), $20 or more for a hardcover while children are turned away from school because their parents cannot afford tuition and uniforms.
How can I see the suffering with my own eyes, and just walk away?
Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for this photo in 1994. He committed suicide shortly after winning the prize. In his final letter, he wrote that he was haunted by the memories of the horror and human suffering he had seen around the world.
