5-day village trip and shenanigans in Dhaka

Hello all my lovely friends and family. First off, sorry for the long delay between posts.  The culture fatigue finally caught up with me and my motivation level had been quite low for about a week.  Don't worry though, I am feeling much better and I will tell you what triggered it:

You know how in Canada, when a driver is annoyed with another they will honk or whatever and then speed up to glare at them as they pass? In Bangladesh, everyone honks and chatters annoyedly in Bengali (which, for the record, IS actually the same language as Bangla! Let the language dvd-watching commence!) but nobody looks at each other as they drive.  When I was coming back to Mirpur from Gulshan where my friend Sana lives, I was in a CNG (mini green taxi... sort of lol! More an auto rickshaw) and the driver was SO CANADIAN! He would drive right behind the car in front of him even when there was space to pass on either side, and then when he finally tried to pass if the car in front moved or slowed down or something, he would yell in Bangla and GLAAAARE at them as we went by! I couldn't help but smile! Also, he brought me back a way I hadn't been yet and we ended up driving right along a river or a canal or something, and although the water was brown and the other side had rickety houses a la slum, that is the only place in Dhaka I have seen so far where the trees are actually green and not covered in a thick layer of dust.  It reminded me of the Rideau Canal and Colonel By Drive, which also made me very happy. 

Since I haven't had the chance to talk directly with many of you, I do have some exciting news! Although Sana has been married almost a year, they didn't do any of the ceremonies or celebrations beyond the actual marriage ceremony.  Her wedding is on January 18th, and guess who's going!!! Right now the thing I am most excited for is her Houloud (sp???), which is on January 16th and is kind of like her bridal shower except it has about 150 friends and family and there is daaaancing! And guess who is dancing!  =D My last few visits to Sana's have been dancing lessons, and hopefully on Friday all the dancers will be there to practice their different songs.  I am doing one with two Australian interns Sana works with at CARE Bangladesh, and a bit of another song with a bunch of other people.  I will make sure to get videos for your amusement! I have been given my Houloud Sari as a gift, and am borrowing another for her husband's Houloud on the 17th and another for the wedding on the 18th.  I haven't picked one for Jamil's Houloud, but I am wearing this beautiful pinky-purple and purple-y-taupey one for the wedding.  I am nervous as they are pretty revealing but my blouse is a little longer than they typically wear and I will hike up my petticoat and I'll be fine. So exciting! 

Before I get into the details of the village trip, many have asked about the Independence Monument so here is a picture.  It is quite amazing, and as I said the grounds of the Memorial/Monument are the most beautiful 84 acres in the Dhaka environs.  I can't say they are the most beautiful in Bangladesh, because as many have you have seen in my second album on Facebook the villages and fields are incredible.

In Dhaka city we have spent some time visiting some of the markets and this place aptly named the Pink Palace, which was the seat of power of Bangladeshi leaders for several hundred years.  I can't really tell you much more about it other than there were lots of pictures of Bangladeshis with British folk, and one of the most famous Bengali leaders started the first Bangladeshi political party called the All Muslim League. I made the mistake of pointing out a gargoyle on the side of the building to my Italian friends Daniela and Marco, and was telling them the difference between gargoyles and grotesques within earshot of the manager of tourism of the Palace, who then followed me around pointing things out excitedly because I had told him I worked in tourism back in Canada.  FYI, a gargoyle's function is to move water away from the building so it doesn't damage the walls, whereas grotesques are just decorations.  The ones at the Canadian Parliament are grotesques.  We also explored Old Dhaka by rickshaw, and Old Dhaka is the only place in Bangladesh with any indication of road rules; the roads are so narrow that rickshaw and CNG drivers have to wait in line (GASP!!!) at some busy intersections.  That's the extent of Bangladeshi road law. 

I must say the village trip did not start particulary well for me.  We left Dhaka at 8 am on Sunday, January 23rd, by mini-bus (aka passenger van).  There were 10 interns, a coordinator from Grameen Bank, and the driver.  I was able to sleep for about an hour right at the start, and things went pretty smoothly until after the ferry crossing (where, I cannot say).  By pretty smoothly I mean the roads were wide enough for our driver to crazily pass around the rickshaws, CNGs, huuuuuge busses driving like madmen, and cargo trucks.  The 20 minute ferry crossing gave us a chance to get out and stretch our legs.  By about 3:00 we reached the first Branch Office, where three or four interns were staying and met up with their translator.  We made another couple stops and finally reached Barisal city in the Southwest of Bangladesh at about 5, but we couldn't find the offices we were supposed to go to and drove around until about 20 after when we found it and picked up some Zonal Office staff and the last two interpreters before going off to LUNCH at 5:30.  A very very very long day without food.  As I have mentioned I think, drivers here live on their horns.  By the time we got to Barisal I was litterally ready to cry I was so sick of the constant sound of our driver's horn.  We ate and took off for Bakerganj village, another ferry and about an hour away.  I have never in my life been so thankful to get out of a car, and that is saying something.

The first night we just kind of sat around with the Bank staff, and had a late dinner at like 9:30 or so.  The food was really good, it's mostly rice and vegetables and this lentil soup called Dal which is really delicious.  Marco and Daniela are vegetarians but still eat fish, so we had fish with most meals and it was amazing because it was really fresh and not too fishy.  The next three days, we attended a different centre meeting in the morning.  At the centre meetings, all the groups of that centre get together with a centre manager to give their loan installments and savings deposits.  Many people have criticized the Grameen Bank for the authoritarian style of the repayments, with their salute and the fact that most of the centre managers are men.  My experience was that the women were all very proud to participate as members of the peer community, and many would salute us even outside of the meetings as a way of distinguishing themselves as members of Grameen Bank. 

The borrowers are responsible for building their centres.  Most are all small wooden buildings with tin roofs, and as the centres we visited had all been established in the 1980s the buildings were quite dilapidated, with cracks in the walls etc.  Although this kind of negates the development seen in many other areas of the villages, the cracks in the walls did allow me to get this great picture of the attendance register, a stack of Bangladesh Taka (the currency) and stacks of the borrowers' log books.  This is one of my favorite pictures from my trip so far. 

After each centre meeting we visited some of the borrowers' income-generating projects and houses.  The first meeting had a member with a higher education loan for her son, so we had a chance to meet with him and talk about his schooling.  That meeting was quite a reality check for me, as he discussed very openly the corruption of the education services in Bangladesh.  For the last ten years or so, teachers have been "offering'" extra sessions after school lets out for their students.  They charge for these classes, and as well as giving extra help they often give away exam questions and such.  The students who don't need and can't afford to pay for the sessions are targeted and penalized by their teachers, who explicitly give them lower grades.  Our student had taken the classes for several years even though he didn't need them, but in his last year his family couldn't afford them and he had to stop.  As a result, his teacher gave him a lower grade than he had earned on his final exam, and he missed his chance at medical school. He spoke about one of his friends who, because of a three-mark penalty, missed the roster of the districts' best students and also missed out on medical school. All for the ego of a community-based "teacher." Our guy was going to college for marketing in Barisal, with plans to eventually go to graduate school if he can find the money.  He is one of the lucky ones; because of the unbelieveably high rates of unemployment and underemployment, Grameen Bank can't offer higher education loans for college-level education anymore as they are very unlikely to find work and be able to pay back the loan.  He is probably one of the last students to go to college with Grameen money. 

Getting measured for my Kamis

 That first day we also met a borrower who worked out of  her house as a tailor.  She was absolutely lovely, and we were devastated to learn that her son, no older than 13 or 14, has cancer.  Our impression was something in his chest, possibly lung cancer.  It was very sad because she has worked so hard for what she has, and on top of her sorrow in dealing with a cancerous child, including having to travel with him to India for treatments and checkups, she cannot work very much.  Thankfully she has so far still been able to make her loan payments with the help of her friends and family, and the village chief (or similar, I can't remember what he is called) has offered her some financial support for the extensive medical costs. As there is no chance she would have accepted money from us, Daniela and I asked her to make us Kamis, the long tunics the women wear over baggy Salwa pants.


The Tailor with her son





It is a very strong reality check to meet a family whose life is so very fragile. Although far from perfect, it also puts our healthcare system in pretty harsh perspective.  When we visited the Grameen GC Eyecare Hospital in Barisal on the way back to Dhaka, I learned of a Nurse training program the Bank has undertaken with some of the other Grameen organizations which has admitted the daughters of Grameen Borrowers, and who have assured jobs at the Grameen hospitals when they graduate.  This is definitely a step in the right direction.  But back to the village! After the second centre meeting, we saw a borrower with a microenterprise loan for her chicken farm which has about 850 chickens! They have also invested in biogas technology from Grameen Shakti (Energy), and this allows them to run their stove off methane for up to six hours at a time.

Daneila and I with the tailor in our beautiful Kamis!

 They also own a motorbike, which are surprisingly common in the villages all things considered.  The second centre had a few stuggling members, which are beggars to whom Grameen Bank gives interest-free loans with no repayment schedule.  Unfortunately, this woman was not one of the successful struggling members; she had bought chickens and ducks, most of which died, and she lost her house when cyclone Sidr hit the area in 2007 (or 2008?).  Her husband died a long time ago, and both of her children work low-paying jobs in Dhaka city.  One of her sons drives a rickshaw and I can't recall what the other does, but neither can afford to send her any money.  She now lives with her brother-in-law in his small home, quite far from the actual village.  She is very old, and doesn't have the strength to walk far enough to make much money in a day begging, so she has trouble just surviving let alone trying to pay back her loan in order to get a new one. 

We also visited Grameen Shakti's two offices in the village, one which does their solar panel technology and the other which is involved in selling low-cost, energy-efficient stoves.  We saw one in a house and it had significantly reduced the amount of soot in the home because of the chimney-type thing, and also they don't get as hot on the outside so they are safer.  Other than that we were mostly meeting with various Branch and Area Office staff as the two offices were on the same compound. We also went for this beautiful walk one evening through the village and down to the river, along which we walked all the way around for about two hours. It was awesome =) Many of my pictures in the second album are from that walk which was definitely one of the highlights.

Anyways I had almost finished this post last night and then lost some of it when the power went out, so I just went to bed.  I am moving over to Grameen Trust on Sunday and there is plenty of excitement to talk about but I think that'll wait till the next post... which hopefully won't be in two weeks! I will also talk more about the food and Dhaka city. Much lurve, and feel free to keep the comments coming here and on my pictures!