I’m watching daybreak in Kolkata for the last time on this trip. My mind and heart are full of everything I have seen and felt in the last four days.

I thought by now I’d be aching to go home, yearning for familiar comforts, and disturbed by the brokenness of this place. I feel an ache, but it’s one of sadness at leaving this place that embraced me wholeheartedly and gave me new friends. I feel a yearning to look into the face of every man, woman, and child here and inspire them to believe their own life is of infinite value. And although I see the brokenness here, as I leave I am disturbed by what is missing in America.

I thought I would pity the people here, but I don’t. They don’t need or want my pity. They want opportunity. They want freedom from corruption. They want to better themselves. They want human connection and they have it in spades.

Kolkata is a beehive overflowing with buzzing humanity. By contrast America now seems sterile, cold, and isolated. Here even driving down the road is an interactive experience full of humanity. Take the buses for example, jammed full plus a dozen people on the roof all chattering, laughing, leaning out the windows, jumping on and off as they lurch along. Or the constant blaring of horns which seems like futile insanity until you being to understand that most of it is caring signaling for the safety of pedestrians, carts, and bicycles engaged in the high stakes weaving dance of jockeying for space on the narrow road ahead.

In America we sit alone in our separate cars, staring straight ahead, barely acknowledging the fellow members of humanity we are passing. If you’ve never been swept away by a place like this I probably sound crazy to you, but right now it’s the American version of driving that makes no sense to me.

I came here hoping I could give the people of Kolkata something of what I’ve been blessed with. I didn’t expect to receive so much of what they have been blessed with. I’m leaving here with a bigger heart more deeply in love with the beauty of humanity.