Do they know it's Christmas? I think that's none of your business.

I love the Christmas season. I love all the lights and the snow. I especially love hearing cheesy Christmas songs on the easy-listening radio stations. However, there is one song that I can't believe has not been banned in its 23 years of existence. We hear it frequently at this time of year. We listen to the odd lyric, look at one another and lament at how sad the world is, feel gratified at our generosity towards fundraising efforts focused on Africa, and we go on our merry way, singing along to that catchy melody.

*****
It's Christmastime
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

(Here's to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here's to them) underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world

Let them know it's Christmastime again
*****

Perhaps the intention was good. As far as I know, the authors Bob Geldof and Midge Ure were horrified at the famine that had struck Ethiopia in 1984 and thought that bringing it to light in the UK through popular culture would be extremely effective. And it was. The sad thing is that if you really listen to the words, it seems as though all we're doing is creating a greater gap between Us and Them.

Do they know it's Christmas?

First of all, for the most part, yes they do. And if you're implying that their greatest gift is life this year, then why should Christmas be an issue?

Where nothing ever grows [...] No rain nor rivers flow

It's important not to generalise all of Africa and assume the entire continent is rife with people who are desperate and helpless and possess no agency whatsoever. World Vision commercials appeal to your emotions and make you believe that without us Africa would fall apart. Let's remember how they got that way and the part we played there. Nobody seems to remember that. I can't stand condescending industrialised nations.

Tonight thank God it's them instead of you

Bono had a problem with this line and rightly so. He was persuaded later that the meaning was that we should be grateful that our own loved ones are not in this situation. Apparently that makes it appropriate. Are we assuming that people in Africa are so far removed from us and Western culture that they would never hear this song? Again, degrading and compartmentalising. Them and Us. We'll never have to see them or experience their suffering but let's sing about them and be happy we can buy extravagant cars and meals and take extra long showers and leave our lights on all day.

Sexism on Jeopardy?

“Interesting, the lady wins, because of the wager, not because of the response” - Alex Trebek

I believe these were Alex's words on an episode of Jeopardy, aired on August 22, 2007... I was a bit outraged by this comment! First of all, he finds it 'interesting' that a woman won (that's how I am interpreting his tone of voice), then he calls her a lady, which in my opinion brings us back a few decades as this word tends to emphasise the delicacy of the so-called fair sex, and finally he must justify that she won due to her luck in wagering and not by her response which was incorrect... maybe I'm overanalysing this one, but it definitely caught my attention and has prompted me to scrutinise more of what I see and hear on television, even seemingly gender-unbiased and harmless programming such as educational gameshows.

Back from across the pond

In so many ways the south of Italy felt like a developing nation. The mentalities, the bargaining, the pollution, the driving, the feeling of inferiority versus the cosmopolitan North. But how beautiful. Their primordial love and enthusiasm for soccer was so deep you could feel it the day the Napoli football team made it to 1st division and there was nearly rioting in the streets. A car was set ablaze, news reporters everywhere, helicopters, fireworks, the whole town driving scooters in packs in circles, popping wheelies and waving blue and white flags frantically and with sheer joy and excitement. This was on our first night in Naples and it was a bit alarming I must say. But it was truly a sight.

Capri and the Amalfi Coast were gorgeous and hilly with amazing views and waters that alternated between turquoise and navy blue. Capri's beaches were too rocky to allow for swimming without the fear of slipping on a rock and getting wounded but the best part there was the boat ride around the whole island. I highly recommend visiting La Grotta Azzurra. You take a canoe to a tiny cavern that is inaccessible if the water levels are too high. The entrance is so small you marvel at how anyone could fit but once inside you're suddenly in this enchanted pool that's illuminated by the sunlight that peeks in. Magical.

Naples was our base for our first few days in Italy and Capri and Amalfi were day trips. We took a bus to the Amalfi Coast which was as scary as the bus rides in Kenya but, like Kenya, well worth the view. We did our swimming and beaching in the town of Amalfi and strolled through Positano which is mostly good for expensive shopping and expensive sunbathing. It was a great, relaxing way to start off our vacation.

Rome was a whole new ballgame. We probably walked for 13 hours each day taking only short refueling breaks. Rome almost seemed contrived... how can there be a stunning historical landmark every few steps? I felt like I was on a movie set where everything was strategically placed. We got tired of pizza and pasta and found a lovely Chinese restaurant on our last night. I loved Verona because it was less tourist-infested, it was quiet, charming and it had only two main piazzas to worry about. We visited la Casa de Giulietta, an amphitheatre partially in ruins, similar to the Colosseum, and had a nice quiet dinner.

Venice was probably my favourite place. Canals serve as the main streets and your taxis and buses are all boats, it was brilliant. And unfairly expensive. But what a concept. The tiny alleyways that called themselves streets, walking around in circles and reaching a dead end, not halted by a wall but by a canal with a happy gondolier rowing by, the sparkling Murano glass that enticed us from every single shop window... ahh Venice. To Venice I would return, and to Tuscany. I never got to explore the countryside. We went to Florence but (to everyone's dismay) I didn't love it! Our daytrip to the tiny medieval walled town of Siena was lovely though. And Pisa... yes we had to do it.


Now for another disappointment... I preferred Brussels over Paris... *shame?* Maybe not.. we had four days in Paris to capture all the sights and it felt like all we did was run to and fro. After standing in line for two hours, the top of the Eiffel Tower was suddenly declared closed so we only got to see up to the second floor (which is still ridiculously high) but when we came back down, guess who decided to open up again... the traffic was scary, the food tedious, the metro suffocating... maybe I'll return someday to give it a second chance.

Maybe it's because in Brussels we had more time, less sights, more opportunities to laze about, stroll through the streets, take our time, take in the atmosphere. And we took a day trip to Bruges, a Flemish town about an hour away where it's best if you keep your French skills hidden and just speak English. Beautiful place, more canals, lovely people, lovely waffles, fries, and chocolate :)

I had four weeks in London, England, and it was really wonderful to see my British family. For that I am grateful for my time there. Now the weather was an entirely different story. We were lucky enough to avoid the flooding happening a short distance away. But why didn't anyone tell me to bring more trousers and sweaters and a scarf.. apparently it was uncommon, the weather this summer. Everyday brought more rain, cloud, wind and an overall state of gloom and doom. Perhaps this contributed to my general not-warming-up-to-the-place, or perhaps it was the city itself? The twisty, narrow streets, tube delays and replacement buses, hard water, my frizzy hair, extravagant prices, the elusive sun, and words like 'fizzy drinks'.... all combined to stretch my weeks out a bit. If it weren't for my family, London would have been a bit too much for me. I have to mention some good things of course. The bustling Westend, the eclectic Camden Town, the majestic Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, my cousin teaching me some Cockney rhyme schemes, fish and chips... I have tons yet to see there and I'll probably be back, another place to give a second chance.

Can I handle being in the land that got rich off the developing world?

I'm off again! SW Ontario couldn't keep me still very long and I'm still astonished that I managed to stick it out for a year and some! At least now I know I can do anything ;)

I'm off as of June 8th to Europe, my unchartered continent - except for one day in Amsterdam on a layover where I didn't get to visit anything I wanted to see.. come on, Anne Frank's house was right there and I could only walk by it :(

Anyways so the plan is to spend a couple of weeks in Italy, several in London and one in Paris and Brussels. I'll try to keep this baby up to date for my 1 reader (you know who you are!) lol..

Cheers!

the world hasn't changed all that much

This is a passing note that questions the whereabouts of the emancipation of women. I was scanning a copy of The Londoner, a neighbourhood newspaper and noticed two columns on the same page with short descriptions of the authors, a woman and a man, under their respective pictures. The woman was described as 'London mother, wife and columnist' and the man was referred to as 'teacher and columnist'. You may protest and say that the man may have been single, but he spent about a paragraph discussing his recent wedding anniversary celebration. Apparently it was necessary to inform us that the female columnist was married, perhaps to excuse the fact that there was no career mentioned, unlike the male who was a teacher.

Again a woman is known by her relation to a man. It's funny how we probably see things like this everyday but we just don't really take notice because it's so minor or so embedded in normalcy that it's unremarkable.

In Bangladesh everytime a woman fills out a form, she must write the name of her husband or father in the space provided. It felt odd writing down my father's name on my own form at the doctor's office, at the eye hospital and at the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka.

But I should have expected it. In many Muslim countries a woman belongs first to her father, then her husband, and finally her son. She does not exist in her own right. Ironically, the prime minister of Bangladesh is a woman, and so is the leader of the opposition party.

At work when I'm looking at a woman's credit file I often see 'housewife' listed under employment. I haven't come across a stay-at-home dad's credit file yet because I have yet to see 'househusband' although I'm sure there is an alternate, less humiliating, term for it.

Now Canada hasn't really had a female prime minister (no, Kim Campbell does not really count, sorry). But when we fill out a form we don't have to write our husband or father's names down to prove we are worthy. We don't even have to check the 'Miss' or 'Mrs' box if we don't wish to. We have 'Ms', a happy anonymous medium. Why is it then that every once in awhile qualifiers such as 'wife' sneak into the descriptions of a talented female columnist who just happens to be married?

Time to Deliver

At the opening ceremonies of the XIV International AIDS Conference tonight, Melinda Gates brought up a brilliant point: by focusing on sex workers, educating them and teaching them about prevention, we are saving husbands, wives and entire families. If one sex worker convinces her client to use a condom, that is one less wife back at home with her children that could potentially be infected. She talked about how public leaders would tour with them throughout countries, visiting people affected by AIDS but once they approached sex workers, these leaders would take leave. The stigma was too much for their image. But how can that be, sex workers are human after all, like any other vulnerable group.

That's because sex workers, regardless of the billions of dollars they contribute to nations' economies, are invisible, worthless non-citizens.

Melinda Gates also talked about how many political leaders believe that distributing condoms INCREASES the risk of AIDS by promoting promiscuous sexual activity. She said that by reducing condom supplies we are promoting not less sex, but UNSAFE sex. I concur.

But I'm furious... granted she can't bash her president, but by living in Bangladesh for a few months and working on an HIV/AIDS Prevention project, I witnessed first hand the effects of that opinion, belonging to no other but the leader of the free world.

(Speaking of leaders, where was ours?)

During the Clinton administration, condoms supplies from USAID to various NGOs throughout the world was free-flowing and plenty. I learned at an executive meeting that since the inception of Bush's reign, condom supplies have been dramatically reduced, including female condoms which are too expensive for vulnerable populations to purchase but are so crucial as they allow women to be empowered.

How is it that as a human race, we have the ability to develop explosives in gel and liquid form, we have tiny cameras that fit on the head of a pin, we have a monorail that flies over the 401 at Pearson Airport and we have an obsession with Hollywood that should make us hang our heads in shame.

Where are our priorities? How can it be that this year is the 25th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS and yet the number of people dying from it everyday continues to climb exponentially? Why are ARVs too expensive and inaccessible to people in rural areas? We can chat on MSN with people across the globe. Ten years ago we were using ICQ. What happened in those ten years. Why don't people have more access to affordable drugs and health care?

The world is a mess, you would think by now we would have the sensibility to not make the mistakes we made in the past and have the expertise to make use of our technologies to improve, not worsen. I just figured that's logical.. but where's the improvement? We need to reorganise our priorities.

*****

PS. go see 'An Inconvenient Truth'... yet another pending catastrophe that we will leave as a legacy to the next generations.

"They think I work in garments"

This is the brilliant book cover designed by Sehr Athar for our labour of love: "They think I work in garments: HIV and Sex Work in Chittagong".

We chose this title because most of the women we interviewed answered with that - "they think I work in garments" - when we asked them if their families knew about their lifestyles. Interviewing them was heartbreaking. I could hardly believe we were sitting face-to-face and chatting with women who were living these incredible and tragic lives. As they shared their tales with us they would sometimes cry and we had to fight to keep from dissolving into tears ourselves. The sex industry in Asia is enormous and lucrative, generating billions of dollars, and claiming the souls of young girls and women each second. We sometimes got frustrated that all their stories sounded so similar.. we thought it would sound repetitive.. but then we realised that that was the tragedy.. that their stories were all the same, too many women are experiencing this and more people need to be aware. Here are three examples of case studies we featured in our publication.

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Glossary:

coolie - porter
mastan - local terrorist/criminal/bully, often having political affiliations
dalal - agent, pimp

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Nazleen
30 years old

I came to Chittagong when I was very young with a group of women who used to sell vegetables in my village. In Chittagong I lived on the streets for a while, begging and eating scraps of vegetables off the roads. The municipality wanted to clear up the streets one year and sent me off to jail with a batch of other street kids. After staying one year in prison, a woman whom I didn’t know arranged an early bail for me. She told me to go with two men, whom she called “uncle”, and said that she would follow. They took me to a house which I soon found out was a brothel. I learned quickly that the woman was a dalal and had sold me to the two men, keeping me in debt while I thought that I was going to be free. I managed to escape from the brothel and in wandering the streets once again, I arrived at Cinema Palace. It was there that a boy put a sedative in my tea; I lost unconsciousness and was raped. This is how I entered sex work. It has now been 10 years. I got married five years ago; my husband lives in Sitakund and he knows what I do for a living.

Rizwana
18 years old

My stepmother, who was very mean to me, forced me into marriage when I was in class six. My husband worked as a coolie and because of his drug addiction, he hardly ever gave me any money. One day he left me. It was then that I came on my own to Chittagong. I wanted to get into garments, but I knew no one in the city who could introduce me to this profession. I didn’t even have a chance to try; when I arrived at the Chittagong railway station I was raped by a group of both police and mastans. Then they kidnapped me and forced me into this profession two days after I had arrived in the city.

I think that this profession is bad. I think that sex workers are bad. However, I earn more money from this work than I would in garments or labour. I wish I could leave this profession because I read up to class six, and I wouldn’t have to lie to my family about my work if I was in a different profession.

Priyu
25 years old

I escaped from my uncle’s place when I was 13 because he was beating me. I came to Chittagong where I met a guy who arranged a marriage for me with a truck driver who had property here in Chittagong. My in-laws harassed me because I didn’t bring any dowry. When I complained my husband told me to get out and leave our two daughters with him. So one day, after my mother-in-law beat me, I left and started living with this woman that I met, Gulshan. She told me that she was working in a garments factory and that she would help me get a job. One day Gulshan brought a guy to our house who said he could find me a job. She left us alone and he raped me. He was my first client. After the incident, I had to stay with Gulshan because I didn’t know anybody else in Chittagong and had no money. She brought men to the house regularly, and threatened me with a blade if I didn’t serve them. At that time, she didn’t pay me, but when I began to have sex willingly she stopped beating me and began providing me with food and clothing. I became pregnant and Gulshan forced me to leave her home because I was not married. My boyfriend and I moved in together and I became friends with the girl next door who later was very supportive when my boyfriend left me. She told me that there was an educated boy who wanted to marry me. The boy and I got to know each other before marriage, and he was so nice and never touched me. He put me up in a furnished apartment and gave me money. I thought he was a good man so I married him. I soon became pregnant again. I soon found out that he was a pimp; I had really thought that he loved me. But he forced me to have sex with other men. He beat my son because he was the child of another man. When I gave birth to my fourth child, my husband married another girl. He’s now in jail.