I just saw a man beat his wife. It started just like usual with women yelling. But I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it. What remains is the woman crying. When he struck everything went quiet and everyone left.
All I can think about is how I feel. How is living like this going to affect the way I live the rest of my life? Will I care more? I realize how desensitized I have become from living here for over a year now. It’s so unfair because what matters the least is what I feel.
I feel so far when I’m in it but nothing counts when it doesn’t happen to me.
Even when I found out about Ciara’s (my first host family’s newest addition) death, nothing really hit because she wasn’t my baby. Well, in the eyes of my host family, she was technically my god-daughter, but our absence in each others’ lives didn’t make it real. I didn’t feel the burning, stinging pains after having been slapped in the face like that woman did when her husband hit her. I waited and even wanted to feel it, but nothing. I felt ashamed more than anything because I didn’t hold my responsibility of being a good god-mother. What could I have done living on the opposite ends of the country? How am I to respond to, “It’s the will of Allah!” To scream God doesn’t mean for us to die from preventable diseases like malaria!
But who am I to scream when nothing bad has happened directly to me? Bad things happen to everyone, good or bad, so it’s a matter of when for me. So when it happens what if I can’t handle it? But than I remember God knows how much we can handle. His timing is perfect. He doesn’t cause our sufferings, he uses it.
