It is not easy to live in a developing country. On a personal level, the challenges of daily living can quickly overwhelm-- nothing comes easily, nothing simply works. To withdraw money, I make the rounds to find the ATM that is dispensing cash today. To get onto the main road, I bump may way down a nearly impassable dirt track that our house is on. To buy bread I learn the time and routine of various shops and show up at the right one at the right time and cross my fingers. Electricity is hit and miss, water can go off for days, and the internet-- well, best not to go into it. The traffic drives me absolutely mad. No one follows rules, no one obeys basic courtesy, cars are in various states of disrepair, and most drivers have negligible (if any) training. Yes, these things are stressful, and yes, they do really get to me at times. But these are all part of choosing to live here, part of what I know I will have to deal with to be in this country.
There are other things that bother me a lot more. Every day, thousands of children from all over the city walk to school. They walk alone, or in small groups, often holding hands. Some have uniforms, some wear snazzy satin numbers from the second-hand market, and a large number are barefoot.
They learn in run-down classrooms, seated in rows on the floor, writing with pencil stubs and poking one another in the back of the head when they think the teacher isn't looking.
Really, they don't learn much. Well, how could they. But they are sweet and friendly, and they still show up most days. Simon's job is developing radio programs to supplement the class work (honestly-- to teach in half an hour what they fail to learn otherwise in the rest of the day). The classes that put it into practice do remarkably well. But that isn't what bothers me.
It is looking at these faces, knowing how fragile these lives are. Knowing that one bout of malaria, cholera or even a basic bacterial infection could be the end of them. Knowing that they live in a country that is so grossly inefficient, there is not the electricity to run the water pumping stations, and when the stations run, 48% of the water from the reservoire doesn't even reach the city as the pipes are in disrepair.
Tuesday morning, on my way home after dropping my children off at school, I stopped because the road was blocked. Looking around the three cars ahead of me, I saw a man pick a limp child off the road and load him into a vehicle. Traffic stopped. People gathered. And after a minute, the car with the boy drove towards the hospital, the driver's face expressionless in shock. The boy had run into the street, barefoot in a uniform. The road was covered with a wide spatter of his blood, too red in that sombre morning light.
And this is what breaks my heart. No cross walk. No street safety training. No one worried about the legislation of such things. It will not even make the paper.
Life is so fragile, and yet it seems too cheap here.