This girl in the picture is about 8. She and her friend/sister, who is about the same age, collected dry leaves from the top of Entoto Mountain, and was walking down with the leaves on her back when I stopped and asked to take a picture. I love the expression on her face.
The lajja, or shame in Bangla (lajja is a notorious book by Taslima Nasrin), is that I wanted to give them a ride down to the bottom of the mountain (about a quarter of a mile), where they were going on foot. Since I was going uphill, I drove up, checked out the beautiful St. Mary's church and on my way down got distracted by donkeys carrying firewood and drove past them without realizing that they would reach the bottom about 30 min after me.
Temporary lapse of judgment, many minutes of grief and regret.
