Editor’s Note: Inside India is a series chronicling Sheena McFarland’s visit to India, the country of her birth. Columns will appear as they are received.

I love to laugh. I do it all of the time. I find humor in nearly everything.

I haven’t laughed all day.

This has been one of the hardest days of my life. The only time that’s been harder for me was when my 11-year old brother died five years ago. I haven’t been this weepy and dazed since then.

I woke up this morning excited and ready to explore the country of my birth. It’s now 11 p.m., and I just want to take a hot bath, curl up in my bed and not wake up until I’m back home. I feel guilty because I think I should be handling this much better than I am.

This morning, we walked around New Delhi. We first visited the old part of the city, simply called Delhi, where we saw mosques and forts from the 13th and 14th centuries. We climbed to the top of a tower at one of the mosques, and we could see the entire city. About 14 million people inhabit New Delhi, and the city stretched on for what seemed like forever. A haze from the coal burned to create electricity hangs over the edges of the city, and there is no open land anywhere.

It’s all houses, hotels and shops. As we left Delhi and moved into the more modern part of the city, I understood why everyone I talked to about India told me to prepare myself for this place.

But you can’t prepare yourself for this.

First, the smells of this city are overbearing. I would walk down one street and smell curry, urine and exhaust in the same breath. I spent the first two hours of the day continually trying to keep from vomiting.

The sounds of New Delhi are equally bewildering. Horns honk continually as drivers cut each other off and completely disregard the lanes of traffic. There isn’t even an attempt at a semblance of order in this place.

However, the most surprising sound was the noise of people talking. I’ve been in large cities before, but I’ve never heard anything like this. The noise from automobiles is constant, and vendors continually try to attract people’s attention with their shouting.

This means a person can hold a normal conversation only by yelling. There are thousands of people milling through the alleyways and sidewalks, and it’s impossible not to bump into others. Here, there is no such thing as personal space.

However, the most troubling thing I saw today was the beggars. A mother with a small baby approached me today and begged for money to feed her child. She would point at my stomach and tell me I was so lucky to have food. Then she would point at her baby’s mouth and say she had no food to give him. I kept saying no, and I didn’t give her any money. I’ve never felt so guilty about being overweight.

I can’t help but think that if I had grown up in India and had never been adopted by my American parents, I would be used to dismissing beggars like they weren’t human. The natives of the city simply walk by and act as if these children weren’t there. While I understand the need for that attitude, I just don’t want to shut that part of myself off. Everyone keeps telling me I just need to adjust to it and accept it, but I don’t think I want to; I’d be giving up part of who I am.

Although I saw many adults begging today, the amount of children on the street sickened me. I saw children who live in pure filth and devastating poverty, but they were nearly trained professionals at begging.

Children who weren’t old enough to walk knew how to say “rupee” and gesture for money. I couldn’t handle it when a small boy who looked just like my younger brother came and asked me for money. I couldn’t respond. I just hurried and caught up with one of the people in my group and walked away.

Tonight as we walked to dinner, a young girl, probably only 7 or 8 years old, dressed in a filthy, tattered purple outfit, followed me the entire way to the restaurant begging. She had the most beautiful deep brown eyes I’ve ever seen, and she kept pointing at her stomach, then to her mouth and then at me. She continually chanted Hindi at me in an emotionless voice and grabbed my leg and bowed at my feet. I’ve never felt like such an inhumane person before.

When we left the restaurant, the girl followed me the whole way back to our rickshaw begging. When I finally got back to my hotel room, I just lost it. I sat down at my table and cried for a good half hour. Every time I stop to think, my mind flashes back through the day, and tears well up in my eyes.

Part of me wants to forget every traumatic thing I’ve encountered today, but I know I can’t. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to have to deal with it. My only problem now is figuring out where to begin.

Sheena welcomes feedback at [email protected].