I live in the richest country in the world, so when I travel, I always take the road less travelled and it brings me close to the pulse of any city or town I visit in the world.

When I originally saw this child, I thought he was a “forgotten baby”. This little one was having a bath in a wooden pail in the alley way of his makeshift house. He could barely fit in the pail and he was quite dirty. There was no door on his home and he was just sitting in the pail, soaking. I heard people laughing and talking from inside his home. I sat next to a pile of trash across from his home and sketched him. The image was hastily done with colors added on the plane home.

As I sat there, I thought about how, in America we are told never to leave children in pails, unattended, since they may drown. This was not the USA and it is quite common to bathe children in what’s available in other countries and it’s not because of lack of care.

I’ve found that different rules apply for children based on location, politics, culture, parenting and economics. Not all that is forgotten is lost, sometimes it’s a matter of a different view.

Peace to all and set a time aside to remember!