I saw a woman cry
Ah med school! The wonderful place where people go to become doctors.
Meh,wonderful might be an exaggeration tho lol. Sure, there are a lot of interesting things in med school: like, holding a real human heart during class as if it’s a normal thing to do or, peeling the skin of a dead man whom you know nothing about. These things are kinda fun, um interesting might be a better word. But there are some things, apart from the obvious long ass lectures and never ending exams, that make you wonder, if doctor life is worth it or not.
It was an almost perfect day. The temperature was 28 degrees with 98 percent humidity with no signs of rain (I hate rainy days.) But most importantly, I had finally finished all my classes. Ah! nothing like taking a break from a long day, which in my case usually starts at freaking 8 in the morning.
*Now all I had left to do was to buy some oranges.
What? Oranges?
Yup, you heard me right. MY MOM WANTS ME TO EAT FRUITS EVERYDAY. So yeah, gotta do what the supreme leader says ; )
So I went to the market, which is like really really big. It’s so big that I need to write a paragraph about it lol.
So It’s so so big, like you can get everything here. It’s buzzing with a LOT of people. Someone is cooking, someone is arguing, someone is begging, someone is calling you out. It’s crazy! Heck, there are so many people, you are bound to get lost in the crowd. It’s also dirty, like REALLY REALLY DIRTY. Like with so many people, you kinda expect it to be dirty. But it’s next level dirty, gotta see it for yourself. = ) Your senses won’t get time to rest here.
Everything about this place is in extremes lol.
So, long story short I bought some oranges after going from one shop to another trying to find a better deal (gotta save that money!). But in the end, I got ripped off regardless, because for them, I’m a foreigner (not many foreigners come to this place), and with my half decent effort to speak their language and sound like one of them, they catch me out lol. But, it’s okay, getting ripped off is part of life, you live and you learn = ) BTW, my other friend, with whom I will spend 5 long years together lol was also with me; she wanted to buy a mirror for some weird reason, but we couldn’t get a fair price so we ended up not buying any.
And now that we had completed our somewhat mediocre shopping. Time to go back to our hostels = )
We decided to go through the hospital emergency gate since the girl’s hostel is nearby. But, when we were about to reach the hostel, we heard loud crying noises form the emergency gate. That immediate freaked me out. It’s not like you get to hear grown up people cry everyday. Hmm something was off. As we drew closer, there was a big crowd of people circling the source of crying.
And then I saw it.
THERE WAS A WOMAN IN BURKHA, LYING HELPLESS ON THE ROAD, CRYING PAINFULLY. SO PAINFULLY, YOU COULD ALMOST FEEL THE MISERY IN HER CRIES.
It was an almost perfect day. The temperature was 28 degrees with 98 percent ……….. NOT SO MUCH NOW.
So, I got stressed now. I stared feel weird in my tummy. It was a strange feeling kinda like almost panicking (I can’t handle stress very well). My other friend was also freaked out, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Thankfully, there were some seniors nearby watching the whole thing. To be exact, my SriLankan senior was with his Filipino girlfriend (who had mesmerized me with her makeup and high heels during the get together only to disappoint me in real life lol, she was still beautiful, but not as hot as I had seen her 3 days ago.) So, anyways, we asked her about what was happening and she told us this :
HER BABY DIED ON THE WAY.
Ah man! another blow to my almost perfect day. I stood there watching the poor woman crying her soul out, for losing her child. I just stood there, dumbfounded by what I had seen.
But surprisingly, the seniors were kinda acting normal. To be honest, that freaked me out even more. They were acting as if nothing happened, they were talking about how they will go the library to study (apart from obvious), then have some snacks together or something like that lol. Then maybe, by seeing the looks on our faces, so she told us this, “Ah, it’s nothing to worry about, the loud crying noises used to be my alarm when I was new here”. I was like, ” ugh.. ok”. Like this didn’t really bother her; a mother loosing her child, a woman lying helpless on the road, crying, suffering in pure misery. She had become accustomed to the doctor life, she had become immune, she had become immune to all the misery she saw.
Welcome aboard ! = )
But then I thought about it. I get it, I get it why she was not really bothered. Everyday, I walk from hostel to lectures, on the way I see people being loaded on ambulances, old people who look more dead than alive, and well, occasionally, I see a dead body being lowered from the ambulance on a stretcher by men, whose job is to look after the dead, and soon to be dead. Yup! that’s what I see early in the morning. And that’s everyday. You can’t help it, it becomes normal after a while. There is misery everywhere, you accept it and move on.
Imagine the person, whose job is to see people die everyday. Must be weird way to live life right?
So, yeah after the weird experience, my friend went to her room, and then I went to my hostel (which is like a 10 minutes walk). On the way, I kept thinking about that woman. Not that I wanted to, but I couldn’t help it. The loud crying and the woman kept coming to my mind. I couldn’t get it out of my head for a while.
I reached my room, (which is like a small corner, but hey, at least it’s mine ; ). Kept my oranges on the table, washed up, changed clothes and then laid on my bed. Ah! long day huh? I watched some funny videos of John Oliver on Youtube, (check him out, he’s really good), laughed a little and forgot about the crying woman. Then I slept for like 2 hours, (it’s standard practice here to sleep in the afternoon after classes, only to wake up all night lol). Then got my books and went to the school library to get some studying done. Took a break in the middle, went to cafe and ate some samosas lol. Finished studying, came back, had dinner, talked with my room mates for a while, and then surfed the web until I finally slept around midnight lol.
It amazes me how different my day and the crying woman’s day had been. On one hand, it was like any other day for me, but for her, she lost her child that day, and she will forever remember this particular day. It’s almost funny, how different it had been for us. I saw her suffering in misery, stood there for a while and then forgot about her, while for her it was the most painful thing that can happen to a mother. I couldn’t feel her pain, I couldn’t feel what she was feeling. If I had, I wouldn’t have brushed that experience off as if it was nothing. It made me realize, how limited we humans are as to empathize with each other. We lack empathy by nature. We can see someone suffering, and their pain won’t mean anything to us. We can only feel our pain, and no one else’s. I lacked empathy that day and so did the people who saw the poor woman.
Meh, enough thinking lol.
But yeah, I can only imagine what doctors go through everyday. I can only hope I will be strong enough to move past the misery that surrounds me.
Can’t wait to become a doctor! …… nah, not really ; )
= )
*Apart from the fact that I need to study for tomorrow’s test, which is like everyday.
Honestblogs 