Suffering In Every Corner of the World

My experience at the Volunteers of America Food Bank is similar to the experience of Greg Mortenson in the book, "Three Cups of Tea" , by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, in the sense that I had felt invisible at one point, as well as being overcome with grief at the sights I had seen.
In the book, Mortenson feels invisible at one point because no one would listen what he was saying about not promising to build a school for the village of Khane. “I never made any promise,” Mortenson tried, first in English, and then when no one seemed to be listening, he repeated it in Balti. But it was as if the largest person in the room had become invisible.” (Mortenson 89) I had a similar account to this, not as drastic, but I had the same feeling of anxiety and that I was invisible. When I had tried to leave the Food Bank since I was done with my shift, I needed to have someone fill my position at the freezer so that people could still get their food. I was running around in desperation, just trying to find someone in charge, but all I found was chaos. After about fifteen minutes of running around and asking people that completely ignored me, I finally found someone to take over my spot. Unfortunately it wasn’t over. I had to be signed out. The same process repeated for about another 10 minutes, asking for someone who had the authority to sign me out, but I seemed to just be a ghost screaming into the wind. As it turned out I had found someone who said they would sign me out later when she had time, but now im not at all sure that she remembered and what worries me is that my time wont be counted for.
Mortenson had discovered many heartbreaking sights when he first stumbled across the village of Korphe. They had no medical supplies, enough food but no luxuries, and worst off, no school. They were the definition of poverty. “Everything about their life was a struggle,” Mortenson says. “They reminded me of the way Christa had to fight for the simplest things. And also the way she had of just persevering, no matter what life threw at her.”(Mortenson 31) At the Food Bank I got to see this struggle first hand. It was heartbreaking to watch all of these people who came in, dealing with the difficulties of just trying to make ends meet, but still coming up short. I watched the families as they came in, picking food off the shelves, trying to find something nutritious or even a treat, but sometimes having to settle for what was there. I passed out my bags of frozen carrots, one measly bag per family of four, six, some of them coming to us with eight to feed. Passing out what we had to give, hoping that the carrots and maybe a warm smile from me would be enough, but they would come to me and say, “This will have to do,” as they place it in their bag. I couldn’t imagine a worse feeling than what they were going through, having to lose most of their pride just so they could have something to eat.
The experience I had at the Volunteers of America Food Bank was much like that of Greg Mortenson in the novel, "Three Cups of Tea". At one point in the book Mortenson had felt like no one was listening to him. I had a similar experience where people deliberately ignored my questions for help. In the book, Mortenson discovers a village in Pakistan that is of poverty and are struggling to survive. At the Food Bank, I helped a lot of people that were in a similar situation and felt their pain just as Mortenson had. It goes to show that people are in need in every corner of the world, and what it takes to help them out might just mean for us to suffer the heartbreak of realizing the struggles of others, and to jump in and get our own hands dirty.