By Pietro Sodani

Dhaka, 9th August, 14,50, waiting for Prof Yunus.

We set off from our hotel about an hour and a half in advance of our meeting, crazy...... one might think.   No, it was absolutely the right choice. Dhaka is not easy to cross, from several different points of view.
Dhaka does not seem like a city, but it is comparable to an sea of people living spilled out into the street. Men, women, children, babies who are moving along these roads breathlessly, imploringly, as if the streets were the only form of sustenance, as if from the street, these people get all that is necessary for life.

Everything is vital in Dhaka to live, garbage collection by children, mud, dirty rags used as clothing, the putrid water of the river Buriganga, where it’s probable a rat of the Tiber River would refuse to swim, but where I saw children playing, taking a bath.
Dhaka is a crowd of suffering that quickly becomes palpable to the touch, eyes, nose.  Dhaka is a concentration of poverty, where talking to the experts, it was explained to us that infant mortality is equivalent to one child per minute and in most cases, families do not know why, what diseases their children are dying from and will continue to die from.
Dhaka is the huge smile of a 7 year old child who, with her little brother in her arms, naked and malnourished,  who smiles at me and my stupid white shirt, while she collects a piece of dirty paper from the ground.

It’s 14.55 and we’re waiting for Prof Yunus. It’s boiling hot, and the thoughts in my head are spinning crazily.  Lots of questions, many uncertainties and so many intentions.
It’s ideas that change the world, sure, it’s true. But ideas are generated by people.   People?   What kind of people?  They are the people who love life and they  are those who manage to change it. Those that do not comply, do not suffer passively, who are not prepared to be told what they can and can’t do, not from any imposition or any market law.  These are the people that change the world.

It’s 15.00. and Professor Yunus joins us.

Hello Professor, my name is Peter Sodani, and, please excuse the gesture, but I want to embrace you.