I recently visited an orphanage in Somalia where hundreds of hopeless and frightened children are interned in colorless cages with no toys and hardly any human contact. One child in particular caught my attention. In the corner of a hot dark room a nurse pulled back a dirty sheet covering a rusty cage of a crib and there lay this small boy, pupils dilated, shallowly breathing. His face was completely devoid of any sign that he had ever been loved. His small body was covered in lesions and like many of the other children he will soon die from the tuberculosis that was now eating away at his lungs. With no medicine and limited nutrition from their intermittent meals of gruel, these children have no chance. The overflowing latrines filled the compound with a thick smell of sewage as the older children sat lifeless against the dusty crumbling walls. An orphan child is a sad sight at the best of times but there in a nation destroyed by civil war and with no effective government, no revenue for the orphanage and no hope, the orphans of Somalia are the saddest thing I have ever seen. The few volunteers that struggle to keep the children alive are some of the bravest people I have ever met. And still we live in a world of surplus, I'm here on myspace, sitting comfortably, food in the fridge and looking forward to the future. How is it that I can sit here knowing that those children need what I have and not give it to them? I'm ashamed.
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