Hierarchy in Bangladesh

Coming from a classless society like Canada where at first glance most people seem middle class, it’s astonishing to see how rich and poor live side by side on either side of an invisible barrier that allows them to co-exist without ever experiencing the other’s situation. You can be walking down the street and on a sidewalk to your left you’ll see a barely-clothed family sleeping on the pavement, some meager belongings nestled between them, and across the busy street on your right you’ll see a big shopping center complete with air conditioning, fancy signs and expensive imports of clothing and appliances for sale inside. That shopping center will be teaming with rich locals and foreigners on a buying spree. The rich-poor divide is extreme and astonishing, as it is in most developing countries.


Living in Chittagong for the past two months I have been given the opportunity to encounter many of the different faces of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has tons of local NGOs and is the pioneer of micro-credit programmes. Many of you may recognise names like the Grameen Bank and BRAC. The environment within which I spend regular business hours is part of this NGO culture. Middle-class, educated (the majority of the people I work with have masters degrees), proficient (or semi-proficient) in English. They may not be as well travelled as their upper class counterparts but they are well-versed in current events, shop in semi-expensive stores and are fully aware of the havoc Bush is wreaking around the world. They should because his policies are directly affecting NGO projects worldwide such as, for example, condom distribution. Due to his belief that condoms encourage extramarital sexual activity, US donors such as USAID have not been as generous in providing condoms for our Street-Based Sex Worker Project. The people I work with are very open-minded and we were surprised to hear them talk about reproductive health issues and sex work in such a realistic and matter-of-fact way seeing as they were born and brought up in such a modest and religious country.

A group of people we met quite recently is the foreigners... ‘bideshi’ in bangla... of course we’re also foreigners but I’m talking Caucasian and East Asian foreign. You don’t see too many white faces here, especially in Chittagong, however in Dhaka there is quite a vibrant expatriate community. In my part of town, there is a neighbourhood where you can find not only spacious fancy homes of expats but also something called the Expats Club. We didn’t venture upon that place until mid October when invited by Eden, a Peace Corps volunteer we met. After a month and a half almost completely shielded from western culture, we were quite conflicted as we sat down with a dozen non-Bangladeshis, next to a bar, chatting in good old american English and listening to music we remembered fondly from our clubbing days in Montreal. I had a serious case of where-do-I-belong?. On the one hand it was very familiar and somehow comforting, on the other, we had just returned from an Iftar gathering at a colleague’s house where we had shared Iftari with her family and spent some time on the roof during a power failure singing Hindi songs and listening to the azan that rang out from a distance. It was a paradox like none other that I’ve experienced here thus far. Don’t get me wrong, all the people at the club were really friendly, most were Peace Corps volunteers stationed in tiny villages up north. And of course it’s understandable that you would want to reconnect with people of your own background, but sometimes it felt too much like a group of people who wanted pretend for awhile that Bangladesh didn’t exist. Although we enjoyed the company, I’m not so sure about the atmosphere.

The difference between the non-Bangladeshi foreigners and the next group of people I will describe is that most of them (especially the volunteers) work side by side with locals whereas this group’s relationship with them is usually limited to the master-servant type. There is an abundance of rich South Asians here and although some are ethnically Bengali and have been born in Bangladesh, many of the 1st generation hail from northern India and Pakistan. They have drivers, cooks, live in lavish mansions with air-conditioning and they and their children are often British- or US-educated. They are driven from place to place and can successfully choose to ignore reality if they wish. Not all do of course. One family we’ve come to know owns several tea estates in northeastern Bangladesh as well as some other snack labels; they even have a moor (roundabout) in Chittagong named after them. One time, we were having lunch with the Mrs (who by the way is one of the sweetest people we have met and has been untiringly helpful to us) and she was advising us against travelling by train on long distance journeys alone, and that her bua (housekeeper) could come with us if we ever needed. She even offered her bua to us if we ever wanted some home-cooked food. It was so odd that she offered to lend us a person, like any commodity.

I don’t think she meant anything rude by it, it’s just a natural way of life here, the class system. Although it’s unspoken of, it’s very blatant and very disturbing when you come from an egalitarian land. At our office there live two support staff members that I had mentioned in a previous email. When we come down for dinner, if they’re sitting around the table they will immediately get up and clear the way and they will always eat after us. The cook at our office doesn’t even eat at the table with the support staff, it’s as though she is one notch lower than them. One time I went into the kitchen to throw something in the garbage and saw her having her meal sitting on the kitchen floor. The guard that sits outside our compound and lives right outside our building is a sweet old man who always responds with a hearty “Wa alaykum salaam!” to our “Salaam alaykum”. We noticed however when we walk in or out with our colleagues that we are the only ones that greet him or even look at him. To quote Sehr from her blog: “Here when we say “thank you” to everyone from waiters to rickshaw pullers, everytime without fail they look up at us shocked, because they aren’t use to it. Sometimes they smile at us for it. It’s so crazy. Someone is always someone else’s servent.”

Finally, one last item I’d like to touch upon is the situation of the rural poor. Different from the urban poor as they have stayed in their villages to rough the climate and continue to harvest whatever small patch of land they have. We visited a village called Sitakund about an hour away and we had the ultimate World Vision experience. You will see in the photos I uploaded of this trip. The people here were warm and friendly and not hardened by the injustices faced by city-dwellers. We visited a meeting of beneficiaries of a micro-credit program for women. It was held in a hut similar to all the surrounding homes, made of a straw roof and thatched walls. Although we were sitting on a dirt floor (and they wouldn’t let us sit directly on it, they quickly brought out rugs for us) it felt clean and the people were happier, less stressed about living within their means. What we’ll unfortunately never is to what extent they answered our questions with embellishments because they didn’t want to say that our NGO might not actually have improved their lives all that much.

Pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=190i8ygb.ebamv8b&x=0&y=liq7fu

Ramadan is upon us...

Experiencing Ramadan, or Ramzaan, in a Muslim country is completely out of our definition of ordinary. Sehri and Iftar times are available in the daily newspapers. There are twinkling (“Christmas”) lights everywhere lighting up large shopping centres and small shops to attract customers and add to the festivities. Because of this extravagant use of electricity, there are extra power failures during the day and they last longer; they call it load shedding, when the government shuts down the power in different parts of the city at different times to economise. The majority of the population is fasting and thus everyone is constantly tired and hungry and work ends at 3:30 instead of 5 to make up for the missed lunch and for the women to go home to prepare Iftari. Those two factors combined with the lack of constant electricity makes me wonder how any work gets done during Ramadan.

Iftar time is amazing, all of the usual hustle and bustle of everyday life comes to a standstill. The previously chaotic traffic virtually disappears as rickshaw wallahs pull over and everyone outside gathers around different tea stalls and in small diners to break their fast with delicious (deep fried) foods. All the small diners and restaurants have Iftari displays outside selling an array of samosas, pakoras, vegetable rolls, bhajias, kababs, jalebi followed by chicken or mutton haleem, khir and dates. At home, families spend Iftar together, traditionally on the floor along with the servants if any. A couple of times we were at internet cafes during Iftar. They stay open but the doors of the actual plaza close so you’re sort of trapped inside for a bit. The men who run the cafe will sit around the front desk and have their Iftari together. Everyone is suddenly so much more religious than usual, everywhere you see men wearing kurtas and topis and most people observe their prayers more frequently than usual. The other day on our way out of an internet cafe at around 8 pm, 20-25 men were seated in the hallway right outside doing namaz on mats as the imam recited the prayers from a nearby mosque on a loudspeaker. We quickly covered our heads with our dupattas and inched away pressed up against the walls so as not to bother them as they gestured and bowed in prayer.

One thing that’s frustrating on the days we’re not fasting is not finding any open food stores before 3:30 pm which is when they start selling Iftari. Out of politeness we sometimes skip lunch, or we’ll eat in one of the offices hidden away in a corner as though we were committing a seriously reprehensible act....

Prices have gone up for produce as well as for salwar kameez and saris for the upcoming Eid festivities. We will get a few days off but we’re not sure when exactly yet because it all depends on the moon. We’re not sure yet but we hope to spend Eid with a family on the first night and then spend the next night or two at the infamous Cox’s Bazaar, home of the longest beach in the world (i haven’t verified that yet but everyone beams with pride when they tell us) which is around 4 hours south of Chittagong.

People are kinder than usual, and smile more despite their hunger as they speak of Eid celebrations. All the women excitedly ask us if we have our bought our Eid outfits yet... I guess we better get on that, seeing as it’s quite an eventful time here.

Ramadan Mubarak!

More photos for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=190i8ygb.18j97143&x=0&y=-h7mop5

More fun observations about the Desh

1. one-day weekend! Friday is the official day off so we work 6 days a week although i heard that a few weeks ago they passed a by-law to change that to a two-day (friday and saturday) weekend... some staff members bargained a little for it at our last meeting so who knows!
2. most of the kleenex is perfumed... you can get men or women’s scented... it really doesn’t help to curb a runny nose
3. some men wear mehndi on their hands on special occasions
4. some Muslim women are traditionally required to wear nose rings once married
5. we only get beef on special occasions cause it’s quite pricey!
6. everyone gives us opposite information, it’s so inconsistent!
7. the spiders here are HUGE but presumably not dangerous
8. if there’s ever any sort of argument on the street like 20 ppl will gather around and get involved; in the end a consensus will be reached by the crowd (i’ve actually seen it happen!)
9. people absolutely adore having their picture taken, at conferences they are camera-crazy, flashes are going off every ten minutes
10. it takes REALLY long to get things done/started here, then again, the subcontinent is where brown standard time started right?
11. if we ask if something is appropriate ppl usually answer ‘ok ok no problem’ with a slight head tilt... it’s really unclear though if it’s really ok or if they’re making concessions cause we’re foreigners!
12. the men here often hold hands as a simple sign of friendship (but you’ll never see a man and a woman holding hands in public)
13. there is a very sharp contrast between wealth and poverty living literally side by side.. i guess that’s the story of all developing countries. For example, we were at the Bangladesh Institute of Management at a training session and we looked outside during our break and there was a small slum right below in the back, where we saw a young girl looking through her mum’s hair for lice... it’s really tragic and just reading about it at school wasn’t enough to understand it
14. everyone has something to sell, whether it’s books displayed by someone for cars stopped at a roundabout or small stalls with bananas on the side of the road or medium sized grocery stores with everything from chips to lightbulbs or fancy air conditioned saree stores... always with male shopkeepers!
15. whenever the muezzim begins the azaan (call to prayer) throughout the day no matter where we are (in a conference or in the street or anywhere) Muslim women immediately cover their heads.
16. there are often strikes and protests here – bangladesh is super politically active – almost everyday you ride past a group where someone is ranting on a loudspeaker
17. everyone loves to sing! They’re always singing, men and women, it’s too cute
18. the funniest thing happened twice to us.. we were at a store and two of us bought something so we said we’d use the same bag and it confused them so much! One of the shopkeepers actually took the second empty bag and put it in the first bag and we had to take it out and give it back, explaining that we didn’t want to waste two bags for so few items and they laughed! In a country where the people lack so much, they want to make use of what they have and splurge when they can...
19. there are always sooooo many stores in a row that carry the exact same thing.. like five or six stores in a row that sell random biscuits, bottled water and chips, a dozen in the same mall that carry salwar kameez, sarees and material, another dozen that carry DVDs... i wonder how they all stay afloat and whether the demand actually meets the level of supply available?? (yes i did an econ minor)
20. one thing we’ve noticed frequently is that people always always always keep their cellphones on and even during meetings they will pick up their phones and talk quietly (which is actually a little loud cause they’re really not capable of whispering)... it’s like completely normal, no one is disturbed by it!

A Day in the Life of Me

Many of you have asked me what my typical day is like and what kind of work I do here so I shall elaborate upon that here.

For the first couple of weeks we were up at around 6 am but now that we’ve adjusted to the timezone we struggle to roll out of bed at 9:30. Luckily my office is just two floors below my apartment and we soon discovered that time is a very loose concept and therefore strolling into work at 10 am has never been a problem.

Okay, so I get up from inside my cozy mosquito net canopy, usually because the hammering upstairs from the construction is deafening. Other morning sounds are men yelling out what goods they have for sale and rush hour traffic (lots and lots of nonstop horns blaring). I get ready, put on a cotton shalwar kameez and go downstairs to the office with one of my roommates, Sehr. My other roommate Shelina has probably already left by this time because she takes a bus to her office which is in the Pahartali area, around 20 mins away.

Once downstairs we ring the doorbell and a member of our support staff opens the door. We have two, Noyun and Nazim, both boys around 20-21 years old and they live in the office and are in charge of general maintenance, security and doing odd jobs around the office like delivering things from one project office to another and assisting the programme manager on different assignments. They’re really nice and helpful and a little shy; we try to practice our Bangla with them which brings them great amusement.

Next we’ll go say hi to our manager and the other people who work with us. Usually we’ll then read the English newspaper that they have delivered for us, either the Bangladesh Daily Star or New Age. Before I go on I’ll explain the organisation itself and my job. I’m working for an NGO called YPSA (Young Power in Social Action) which is leading several projects to promote poverty alleviation and basic rights to vulnerable groups in the Chittagong division of Bangladesh (which Chittagong City where I live is part of). They have several offices working on different projects throught the division and the project I’m working on is the HIV/AIDS prevention project among street-based sex workers. This project has 3 drop in centres located in Chittagong City which are places where sex workers can go during the day to have a meal, rest, bathe, watch tv, etc. This is really important because the majority of them are homeless. At the centres they are taught about STIs, HIV and AIDS, the importance of using condoms with clients and how to negotiate so that clients agree to use the condoms. A doctor visits each clinic twice a week to conduct checkups and provide medicine. Around 20 of the sex workers are peer educators who help conduct training sessions. It’s really a fascinating field and something I knew nothing about before. I just finished reading a book called Sex Slaves by Louise Brown and I really recommend it cause it gives a general overview of the situation of sex workers throughout Asia and how the majority got into this line of work as a result of trafficking, deception or rape. Many of the sex workers we work with here got here in a similar way, it’s really devastating.

One of our assignments thus far has been to compile a book of case studies about the lives of some of the sex workers including how they started doing this work, what their aspirations are and how the drop in centres have helped them. Right now we’re in the process of interviewing outreach workers, the doctor and other social workers in the program in order to add a new perspective to the book.

Another assignment we’ve just started working on is a project proposal to receive funding for a program aimed at helping people currently living with HIV/AIDS in Chittagong. The program hopes to provide antiretroviral drug therapy (which is incredibly expensive for the average Bangladeshi), computer skills training and training in sewing and handicrafts as well as grants to start small businesses. This extra help is necessary for these people because they face horrible social stigma and discrimination.

Back to my typical day. The pace is incredibly slow and we often finish our day’s work before lunch. Sometimes there is no work at all if something crucial is missing like our tape recorder for interviews or access to one of the computers as resources are very low.

Usually everyone has tea at around 11-11:30 and the tea here (cha, not chai) is really delicious. Sometimes we walk to the corner and pick up samosas or shingaras (kind of like kachori or a pastry filled with vegetables). They cost 2 or 3 takas each (exchange rate: 50 takas to 1 CAD; 66 to 1 USD).

Sometimes we’ll take a CNG (baby-taxi) and visit one of the drop in centres for a couple of hours. On average there will be around 10-15 women there resting or watching a Hindi film or having a reading lesson. The majority of them have small children and they bring them along. A project proposal we’re going to write soon will be for facilities for the children of sex workers as well as for child sex workers who require different care from their adult counterparts.

Lunch is around 1-2 pm and I’ve complained about the food in a previous email although sometimes it’s not too bad. However it’s very standard with very little variation. White rice (bhat), watery lentils (daal), cooked vegetables (shobji) and either chicken (murgi) or fish (maach) or boiled egg (dim). The spice it’s cooked in is usually very good but it’s way too spicy for my taste and sometimes our meals can be very painful.

After lunch we’ll meet with our manager to discuss our assignment or any new business that has arisen. Actually that’s quite rare... usually we have nothing left to do (cause we work at a North American breakneck speed!) so we say bye and just take off. We were scared the first time we tried to leave early but no one seemed to care.

So then we’ll go upstairs to our flat and get some chores out of the way like laundry (which we do by hand), and boiling our drinking water.

If it’s not too late we’ll head out to the GEC in a rickshaw (cause we’re quite familiar with it now, unlike that day of mishaps) where we’ll spend some time in an internet cafe and do some random shopping for our breakfast and rent some DVDs. We’re becoming very well-versed in Bollywood and Indian diaspora movies since there is very little else to do to pass the time, except draw and colour pictures to decorate our walls and pursue other small goals we’ve had to create in order to keep our sanity.

We ride back home on a rickshaw, buy some chips or something from a stall near our place and head upstairs to wait for dinner which will be in the office around 8-9 pm. Our dinner usually consists of the same thing we had for lunch and I can’t believe we’ve survived the monotony of it for over a month already. However we do treat ourselves once a week to dinner at Pizza Hut or Tava Kabab House which serves amazing parathas and butter chicken which is such a joy after enduring a week of the same thing over and over. Back in our apartment, before we settle into the common room to watch a movie, I’ll take my cold shower (which I’ve really grown used to), take a malaria pill, and we all write down how much we spent that day and settle monies owed to one another. We feel very productive when we do that which is good cause sometimes feeling productive at work is a rarity.

After the movie is over, around midnight we go to our own rooms, spray ourselves with mosquito repellent and get back inside the mosquito net and under our Cathay Pacific blankets..

Not a bad day, quite routine but sometimes we’ll shake things up and check out some sights in town like Foy’s Lake (I have some pictures up of that trip) and the other evening we went to Patenga Beach which borders the Bay of Bengal. We were late so we missed seeing it in the daylight but there was something really magical about it at night, with the waves crashing over the rocks.

I forgot to mention that throughout the course of our day we are almost guaranteed to encounter at least 2 power failures, several little lizards and if we’re lucky, a huge cockroach that will come out of our kitchen (which we only use to boil water on a gas stove) and join us as we shriek in terror and stumble around trying to figure out what to do.

Pics: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=190i8ygb.12wxa9kz&x=0&y=ib4b63