Perspective

I'm back in Dhaka and since being back I've been having a few too many "terrible, no good very bad days". I've been frustrated that I am still sick (though definitely improving - just a bit too slowly for my liking) - and that work is not going how I expected. And my energy levels have been so low that the smallest of things seem to upset me.

But it only takes a walk down my road to gain some much needed perspective and a reminder that in the scheme of things, my problems are insignificant.

Today as I was walking down my street there was a man, physically unable to walk, who was pencil rolling across the street, yelling for Allah and clutching a bowl for begging. His back was scarred badly, I assume from rolling around on the bitumen road and rickshaws and CNGs were dodging him.

I certainly have nothing to complain about.

Crushed

I apologise for my entries being so few and far between lately (please see the post below for an explanation). Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be able to do a proper update and add some more photos.

One thing I did want to share though is how crushed I have been by an event that happened at work lately. To say I've had a hard time settling into work is a major understatement. I totally underestimated how hard it would be to work within a local organisation when I don't speak Bangla and when I have to rely on a few colleagues who have proficient English to guide me through as I learn about the different projects our organisation is running, while at the same time trying to grasp different cultural norms and work styles - and different attitudes to women (particularly young ones such as myself).

One of my colleagues who has been particularly good to me is a man who was fairly high up in our organisation and was the counterpart of the other Australian volunteer working there (we are each assigned a counterpart who we are supposed to work closely with and 'skills transfer' with). I was so jealous of the other Aussie volunteer, as for various reasons, many of which I am not exactly sure, I have had very little contact with my counterpart (~3 hours in 3 months) whereas these two have had a very close working relationship and the Bangladeshi guy has also been conscious of including me when he can, such as getting us both involved in the flood relief and asking my opinion on a couple of things.

To cut a long story short, this guy has been fired so stealing money and food from the flood relief funds, that he was coordinating. As I haven't been at work for a couple of weeks I don't know a lot but apparently ~$200 and a bag of potatoes and rice were missing. I can't help but feel that he has been wrongly accused - or has been made the scapegoat for someone else's mistakes.

The alternative is too hard to think about - that this lovely, kind, intelligent man would knowingly steal from people who have just had their lives devestated by floods.

I guess it's also a harsh reminder that I am living in what is apparently one of the most corrupt countries in the world (the joke is that Bangladesh bribed Nigeria to not have the top position).

Sick of Being Sick…

My body and more particularly my stomach has really been knocked around here in Bangladesh. I was hit with a bad bout of gastro on only day three in the country and although relatively unwell for my first month, was able to attribute it to the different foods and my stomach taking time to adjust. Since early August, however, I have been particularly unwell with various tummy bugs – and haven’t managed a full week of work since then – or to be completely well for more than two days in a row.

The last week and a half have been particularly bad and every time I seem to be getting better a new symptom arises. I have had a number of doctors appointments, tests etc and have gone through our entire dvd collection (including 20 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy – I am so sick of those monologues!) :)

I am weak and I am tired and I am miserable - and thus yesterday, despite having the option of an all expenses paid trip to a fancy hospital in Bangkok, I made the decision to go home to Australia for treatment and recuperation. Luckily, I was meant to be going for a long weekend in a few weeks for my brother’s 21st and have been able to bring that ticket forward.

I do feel a little pathetic about not being able to get myself better here – and incredibly guilty that I am able to go home to Australia and have access to good medical care, when I have not been able to get better here, despite having access to supposedly the best doctors in the country. What about the average Bangladeshi? The only way I can justify this in my own head is that currently I am no good to anyone here – and there is no way I can last another 9 months like this.

One of the lovely things though about being sick (always a silver lining), is that it has really made me appreciate my Australian friends here. I often complain about the “AYAD bubble” – where we all know each others business and spend an awful lot of time together (hard for me when I’m not such a fan of the ‘expat’ lifestyle) but during times like this the support network available has been wonderful. I have had people to accompany me to doctor’s appointments, call doctors in Australia for me, deliver dvd packages to save my sanity, make me soup, call to check up on me, buy me icypoles and lemonade, make me pumpkin, console me, advise me on medical things (yay for having a nurse in the group) and generally take care of me. I am so grateful to everyone and hope I can make it up to them (though hope none of them get this sick).

So I am looking forward to getting home and getting better...and then coming back here fully well and refreshed ready to tackle the next nine months.

I love India!!

I never would have thought that I would be able to say that I went on a relaxing holiday to India - but now I can!!

Luckily for me, the curfews lifted just in time for me to catch my midnight bus to Kolkata (~12 hour trip) a few weeks ago and together with a couple of friends - Elise and Phoebe - set out on a one week adventure, which involved spending time in Kolkata, Bangalore and Allepey - and more nights sleeping on buses and trains then in actual beds!

Highlights of the trip included:
- eating yummy fish without bones!! (I have fish for lunch at work 5 days a week that are really small with really small bones and they are driving me insane! Sometimes we even have goldfish sized fish - eek!)
- spending a full 24 hours on a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala in Allepey. It was so amazingly nice to feel relatively isolated and was a massive contrast to the chaos of Dhaka and being surrounded by people constantly
- jeans and book shopping in Bangalore - never before have I been able to find so many long pairs of jeans that fit well!
- being able to go out for a beer and buying a new sari in Kolkata

An interesting thing was that I felt so much free-er in India than I do in Bangladesh. It's really difficult to describe - and probably had a lot to do with the types of places we visited (relatively well off) and the fact that I was on holidays. A major difference though was that I was able to communicate much more easily with people in general, due to English being more widely spoken. It made such a difference being able to communicate! (my Bangla is in dire need of improvement).

Another interesting part of my trip was that the visible poverty in Kolkata was far less than I expected the first time I went there (coming from Dhaka) yet was far more visible on my way back, after having spent time in Kerala and Bangalore. Amazing how our perspectives become relative.

Overall I loved India and can't wait to go back there. But I am also happy to be back in Bangladesh and going away made me realise that I am starting to get a lot more settled here.

Will hopefully upload some photos on here soon - it would seem that I currently have a virus on my laptop that has infected my camera - fabulous!!

"Suspicion of being a student"

Things have certainly settled down here and for the last few days we have only had curfews at night - from 10pm/11pm until 6am the following morning - and hopefully they will end soon.

The riots seemed to have ceased, with the major universities being shut down and students sent home (pretty much all students stay on campus).

There has, however, been some interesting reports - such as someone being arrested "on suspicion of being a student", charges being laid against 80 000 people - the majority unnamed - and reports of a group of ~100 'students' (including those who couldn't prove they worked) being rounded up from a particular area (indoors under curfew) and being beaten.

Here's a link to a BBC report on the situation from a few days ago (hope it works) -http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6961543.stm

Dhaka is in chaos!

We are currently in day three of some major riots in Dhaka, that have spread to other areas of the country. Subsequently, a curfew has been imposed since 8pm last night and I am going a little crazy being housebound – especially as I was home all day yesterday as I was sick. I did just pop out of the house then for about 5 minutes – but the streets were eerily quiet, with only a few shops open and the main road near our house, normally chaotic, was completely empty except for the odd ambulance (they are allowed to move around hence a number of people “hire” them in these situations) and police.

You may have heard in the news at home about the riots so I won’t go into too much details here but what started as students protesting against the army treatment of a student and their presence on campus at Dhaka University, has escalated into a combination of protests against the army backed caretaker government and the lack of democracy - plus hooligans jumping on the bandwagon and joining in the violence. Some strategic places have been targeted by the students such as particular officials houses, but there also seems to be a lot of random hooliganism - for example outside one friend’s workplace yesterday people started throwing rocks at a bus and as passengers started jumping out the windows they set it on fire.

There are a lot of theories and rumours about the bigger picture of what is actually going on. Probably best if I don’t document them on here but will be interesting to see how this all pans out...

Flood Relief

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know some good news in that our organisation has received some funds from our donors and started doing flood relief for people in our project areas that have been affected.

I went along today to see the packages of rice, potatoes, lentils and water purifiers being distributed – and was amazed at how patient and dignified people were.

I also went to visit one of our health clinics in the area. The waiting room was packed full of patients and the clinic was in a semi flooded area.

Here’s a couple of photos:

A Beachside Weekend!

The Lonely Planet states that one of the highlights of Dhaka is “getting the hell outta there”. While I do think that is a bit harsh, I have been craving some clean(er) air and a little less chaos and so last weekend headed south from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazaar for fellow Aussie, Lindy’s birthday bash.

Cox’s Bazaar is apparently the world’s longest (uninterrupted) beach – I’m still working out how/if that can be true – and although it is hard to measure up to our West Aussie beaches at the best of times – it was nice to be near ocean and a lot of greenery.

Highlights included swimming in salwar kammezes at the beach together with a group of children; eating yummy seafood and dancing in the darkness on the sand at the “Mermaid Café”; having a ride home in the back of a paddy van and getting in trouble from a policeman when we tried to get back to Lindy’s place at 2am (oops) – and having the most comfortable bus ride I’ve ever had – with so much leg room and built in massagers in the chairs!!

A celebration (Tuesday 7th August)

Today I was reminded of how generous people can be.

There was a religious celebration in the Bihari camps and although people couldn’t tell me exactly what the religious significance of the day was, it involved different families taking the responsibility to cook a special type of food for the whole community. A ring is hidden in the food and the person who gets the ring takes the responsibility of providing the food the next year.

We were invited by some of the teachers from our organization who work in the camps to attend the festival. As I mentioned in previous entries, the conditions of the camps are very poor, but today they were alive with festivity and scattered houses full of people eating the food, which was a yummy sweet rice and milk dish (payish) and a fried flat bread (loochee).

We ended up visiting quite a few homes and the generosity of all the families we met, not only to us but to their fellow community members was humbling.

My most humbling experience came in the last house we visited. At that stage I was extremely full but our hosts kept insisting that we eat more. As we sat and chatted, the community members who had gathered started to tell us that there had recently been a government order to destroy the slum they were living in – and that it was due to happen sometime this week. In comparison to some of the other camps/slums, this one was fairly clean and ordered – as it had been destroyed last year by a fire and had been rebuilt.

No provision has been made for where these people are meant to go and the families that I spoke to said they have no plans yet and they will sort things out as they happen.

It is so difficult for me to comprehend being in that situation, but I think that if I was, feeding and entertaining my neighbours would be far from being a priority, yet alone a couple of complete strangers!!

Quote of the Week

“Tinjon mota” = “You three are fat!”
from our language teacher at our weekly lesson. It was elaborated on by telling us how good we were looking because we had got so fat and that no one would recognize us back home in Australia “especially you Amy”.
Think I need to cut down on my daily rice quota!! :)

HitchHiking - Bangla Style

As if the poor rickshaw waller didn't already have a full load - yet alone someone jumping on the back!

Floods are not Fairytales (Monday 6th August)

When I was young, the notion of a flood conjured magical images for me. I imagined being able to jump out of my house and go for a swim whenever I wanted in a never ending swimming pool, to row a boat over to a neighbours house and that a flood could pick up my whole house and transport it to a completely different place, fully intact, where new adventures could begin.

Of course, as I grew older (and wiser) I realized that floods were no fairytales. But it wasn’t until today that I fully comprehended what nightmares they can be.

As most of you would hopefully be aware, devastating floods have hit South Asia, particularly India, Nepal - and Bangladesh. Being located in the delta has meant that we have known the floods were coming, something that has been talked about matter of factly, without any signs of panic. And I guess when a country gets hit by floods every couple of years it does become normal. Even talk about the possibility of this being a “big flood”, that seem to occur in Bangladesh every 10 years (the last one was in 1998), has been focused around the fact that hopefully this isn’t it – as it’s a year early. A big flood will affect everyone. Right now, with almost half of the districts of Bangladesh being underwater, it is the rural areas and some of the poorer slum areas of the city that have been most affected. I think it may be a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for many people.

From my daily trip to and from my home in central Dhaka to work in the north of the city I haven’t seen any signs of the flood. If I hadn’t been reading the newspaper, I would have no idea that the country was going underwater and even then, reading about something is way different to seeing it.

Today I went to visit one of our project areas in the south of Dhaka that has been affected by the floods. I have included some pictures below of what I saw as they probably speak more effectively than anything I can write. We rode around the area in riskshaws, although a boat would have been far more effective. The water was about knee deep, but as the tide came in it rose quickly by another 10cm and apparently at night it rises up to waist depth.
Apart from the obvious problems of peoples houses and belongings going underwater, the major concerns are increasing prices of food and clean water plus the waterborne diseases, such as cholera, malaria, dengue fever, etc. The hospitals are being flooded – with diarrhea patients – and children have died from it. The drownings that are occurring devastate me – but deaths from diarrhea, which should be treatable, absolutely crush me.

While I looked on today, devastated by what I saw (as one of the photos indicate – I promise that wasn’t a posed look) – people seemed to be going about their lives and wading through the water that I was scared to stand in (the smell of it is something that still hasn’t left my nostrils) and looking for options of how to feed and shelter their families.

The children, like I once did, thought that the water from the flood was great fun – and were playing and dunking in it, their parents otherwise occupied looking for necessities.

My perspectives on everything seem to have become relative in Bangladesh. The only glimmer of hope for a fairytale ending now, is for the flood waters to recede soon and that a repeat of the ‘98 flood will not occur.

The only people profitting from the floods are the boat makers...

A day in Old Dhaka (3rd August)

What a lovely Bangladeshi day yesterday was!

I spent the day traipsing around Old Dhaka with housemate Lucy (Hopkins – a Perthy – Sarah Mills, you’re our sole Perth connection so far) and seeing some of the sights.

The highlight was a boat trip in a small local boat – which was the type of image I expected of Dhaka, and provided an insight into how Dhaka would have been in the “olden days”.

A perfect day was capped off by eating bruschetta and drinking wine in the coolness of our rooftop (it was a stinking hot day) while listening to music and looking out over our lake and mosque.

Bliss…

Day trip to Comilla (28th July)

Today we did a day trip outside of Dhaka – to the Maynamati Ruins in Comilla, as part of our in country orientation. It was so nice to get out of the city and into some greenery and although it was an exhausting 3 hour drive each way and with a group of 20 Bideshis felt a bit like a school excursion, it was fascinating to see the ruins of some Buddhist Temples from the 6th and 7th centuries.

Highlights of the day included somehow being convinced to dance Bangla style with a group of Bangladeshis – something that housemate Shelly captured on video which I will try to upload on here at a later date - and being saved by Deepak, Nubia’s fiancé, from a major stack down a muddy path in the rain. Poor Deepak is about half my height but luckily proved be quite strong as he caught me while I slid down. I’m just thankful that Nepali etiquette about touching women is different to Banladeshi, as I’m pretty sure the Bangla guys would, by instinct, have let me fall rather than touch me!

Here’s a couple of photos from the ruins.

Lots of posts just added

I've just added 9 or so new posts - some with photos from the last couple of weeks.

Happy reading!

Having a tough time (27th July)

I don’t really like to admit it – but I have been having a bit of a tough time here – and am finding it a lot more challenging than I expected.

It’s funny because it’s all the new and exciting but also challenging and daunting things of living in a new country which I love – but also find really hard. I’m definitely learning a lot about myself, including new coping skills and have a plan of attack for the coming week that includes a number of proactive actions work-wise, regular exercise (bring on the endorphins) and social activities.

Wish me luck!

A sari night (27th July)

Last night was our “official” welcome to country for all 9 new volunteers and the dress code was set as sari (pronounced sharee) for the girls and the Punjabis (?sp) for the boys. Although the actual buying of a sari – and matching petticoat and blouse – was quite stressful – it turned out to be a lot of fun. Especially when 7 of us Bideshi girls were crammed in a narrow corridor of a beauty parlour creating a spectacle as 7 Bangladeshi women wrapped and pleated and tucked and safety pinned us into our saris.

Here’s a photo of us spunky Aussies – and Badrul, our in-country manager and me in my sari from the front and behind.

Rural Bangladesh (21st July)

Yesterday we had a surprise Engagement Party here for one of the Aussie volunteers and her Nepalese fiancé. We did a lovely boat trip from a place just outside of Dhaka and it was amazing how the chaos of Dhaka city seemed so far away. Here are a couple of photos from along the river:

A random fun night… (20th July)

It is the unexpected that makes living in a different country so much fun and last night was one such random fun night.

Elise and I decided to go to a local cultural centre (that must remain nameless) for a music night – which we were under the impression was jazz music and a quiet sit down affair.

It turned out however to be disco music – with lots of dancing, with the type of environment where men would come up and ask you to dance. And there was alcohol available (it is illegal in Bangladesh) which was equally bizarre.

Certainly not the type of night we expected but was good to know that there’s somewhere close we can go for a dance and a glass of wine!

Had a bad day at work? Child Labour Up Close and Personal (18th July)

So I thought after my experiences with war affected children in Uganda, the child rights abuses that I would experience in Bangladesh wouldn’t affect me so much – boy was I wrong!

Today I went to another school for child labourers that our organisation runs. It was a great visit as the children were really inquisitive about Australia - and I had a hard time answering some of the questions (e.g. – Do children work in Australia? Are the poor people in Australia as poor as us?, etc). The children also asked me to sing an Australian song – and having the worst singing voice of anyone I know – I was compelled to comply – aah. The song I chose… “Give me a home among the gumtrees” (with actions). I asked them questions about their work – and most said they worked about 4 hours a day, mainly in sari designing although this young fella told me he sometimes worked as a welder…


After visiting the school, some of the kids directed me to go in the door across the alleyway – where there were 2 rooms of kids working. They were doing design work on material that is going to be used for ladies shoes – one bead at a time. What surprised me the most about the situation was that they didn’t try to hide anything from me – I thought the older workers may have tried to hide the younger kids from me – but they all spoke very openly and honestly about the situation.

The story that got me the most was of this young boy:

He is 8 years old and has been working for over a year. He works 10 hour days, six days a week, and gets paid a measly 50 Taka a week – less than one Aussie dollar.

What I think I find the hardest is how child labour is such a normal part of society here. And it’s such a complex issue – how can you blame parents who send their children to work when they rely on that income to survive (it is estimated that children provide ~38% of a family’s income in the Bihari camps).

I certainly have my work cut out for me!!