Reality Check

 

5/21/2009
From Chris:

Dear blog-readers,

It’s lobby time again here at the G.P. I’m sitting in darkness waiting for the power to come back on, and collecting all the memories that we’ve made since the village visit so that I can pick up where Ronald Singleton Brown the Third left off. Where to begin…

To tell you about the village visit chronologically would take way too much time. So instead, I’ll talk about some of the highlights of our four days there.

The branch was rustic (Trey has already covered that), but there were many things to enjoy about it. The branch manager was a jolly fellow, and his two subordinates were goofs. We really enjoyed getting to know Matin (our translator) and hear about his Bengali upbringing (in an English that we didn’t have to squint and contort our faces to understand). The bugs were bothersome, but I must admit, pointing at Trey’s shoulder and screaming “COCKROACH” elicited some of the funniest responses I’ve seen from him. We would tie on our “lungi’s” (the traditional Bengali man-skirts) and eat our rice and dal (we ate it every day, almost exclusively, 3 times a day, for 89 cents per day). It was during one of those lunches that Matin taught me the Bengali art of eating with your hand (only the right one). It makes eating the sloppy Bengali cuisine just that much more enjoyable (call me uncouth; I call it cultural immersion). Early afternoons were spent reading on our wooden-plank beds, and at night we would sit around the table for a while after dinner. The power would usually go out 3-4 times a night, and when it did, we would bring out candles and set them on the table. We’d scrape a match along the sandpaper side and bring the hissing flame to the wick. And as the candlelight wobbled across our faces, carved from shadows, we would talk about our passions, ideas, reflections on the trip, and whatever perspective on life we could offer. I loved those times.
There was a train track that ran through the village and beside the branch. Several times throughout the day, we could hear the train coming. We would watch it pass by—the cars were so full that people would stand right at the doors, hang off the sides, and whole families would even take a seat on top of the cars, and ride Slumdog Millionaire style (I once counted a family of nine on one car).
We would follow the tracks into the town on our way to visit some of the borrowers. Like anywhere else in Bangladesh, we attracted huge crowds, and groups of kids would follow us on the train tracks on the way back to the branch, laughing at our inability to balance on the rails like they could. In the mornings, we would wake up early and eat a quick breakfast before taking a rickshaw to the next community of borrowers we would interview. In the early mornings, and in the evenings, the rice fields all around the villages were beautiful. The sun would cast a golden reflection on the still water in the fields, and the faint outlines of clouds and the sun could be seen through the small stalks of rice sprouts that peppered the landscape. We would see men with their “lungis” in the fields, harvesting the rice and carrying big bundles of it on their heads to the rice threshers, where the women would feed the severed stalks in, tossing the chaff away as the grains of rice spewed out of the threshers, creating piles of golden grains that women would spread across big tarps with their feet.
We saw the fisheries, the “fuel” sticks the villagers laid out to dry (ask Trey about those), the men and women washing and playing in the ponds, and the mosques. When dark started to set in, the tremolo of the prayer calls amplified by the mosque speakers would sound through the village, calling all the white-clad Bengalis to end their day in piety. The calls ushered us back to the branch before night set in, and with the coming of darkness and potential dangers, the calls had an ominous feel to them. It made the villages feel that much more different from the typical American evening.
But by far, the most interesting thing about our village visit was our interaction with the people themselves. They were so welcoming, and so excited to have us there. Wherever we walked, an entourage of anywhere from 3-12 kids would follow us around, mimicking us, muttering the few English phrases they knew, cheering (lots of cheering. Lots), and screaming “B’deshi!” (the word for foreigner in Bengali) as we walked along the road. It was so much fun. The borrowers would welcome us into their humble homes, pulling out chairs, turning on fans (or having somebody else fan us with these interesting spinning-fan contraptions they have. We would tell them that they didn’t have to do that, but they would get so excited), and offering us coconut milk and other refreshments. The homes would fill up with other on-looking villages of all ages, watching us with curiosity until the host would shoo them out, only to have them crowd back in within seconds.
We interviewed so many borrowers, from all different socioeconomic statuses within the village. I’ll let Banks cover most of our investigative work, as he was our head journalist during our interviews, but I’ll give you one interesting observation I made, that has since sparked several heated discussions. Trey and Banks would disagree with me on this, but I’ve found reason to believe that some of the older, more successful borrowers that have been in the Grameen system for 15-20+ years showed signs of materialism. Grameen’s purpose is to empower it’s borrowers to pull themselves out of poverty, but I believe there comes a point where, after a borrower rises above the poverty line, after the borrower restores their human dignity, after they secure their basic comforts, and after they pursue their noble hopes of sending their children abroad, educating them, marrying off their daughters, etc., the borrowers can become addicted to the accumulation of wealth, their pursuit of dignity degenerates into pride, and they develop a materialistic mindset. It’s still very much a hypothesis, but it’s something I’m very interested to explore on our next village visit.
(blog posting continued the night of 5/22)
So, Banks will tell you more about the village visit. On the last full day we got to visit a private kindergarten. The little boys and girls we met there were so cute—dressed in their ridiculous military style uniforms, endearingly shy. We loved getting to see them. We interviewed the struggling members (the beggars), which was very interesting, and then headed back to the house for the night. The next morning we packed up and drove back to Dhaka. The Grand Prince had never seemed so luxurious as it did when we returned from our four day visit, and we spent the rest of the day enjoying the simple comforts of a hot shower, flavorful food, and a bed not made of wood planks.
The next day, Banks and I rickshawed to Grameen where we met up with everyone else and waited around till 3:30, where we had a very interesting meeting with a Grameen official. We talked to her for a while, asking her questions about Grameen, voicing our insights, until it was time to meet big daddy Dr. Yunnus. It was very exciting. We waited around for a while before he came into the room and started introducing himself to all the interns, shaking hands with them, and posing for pictures. He took many, many pictures. He was happy to know that 4 of the interns were from Vanderbilt, and we got to take a picture with him doing the VU sign (he still knows who he’s with). N.B.D.
That night, Tommy Trey and I went to a party at the Raddison hotel that Samir had invited all the interns to. It was the strangest experience that we weren’t expecting. Imagine this: you let the strange man stamp your wrist and another opens the door to the party. You hear loud techno dance music and step in. You’re met with the jarring flash of strobe lights, and a deep, punching bass. You ask yourself, “where are the girls?” You step onto the dance floor, and decide to make the night as ridiculous as possible. You start to mimic the awkward dance moves of the sweaty Bengali men that surround you, and begin to encroach on your personal bubble. You feel like Indiana Jones, as the temple walls are closing in. You think fast, and decide to turn the dance-floor into a dance circle. You do a silly dance move as the Bengalis shake their hands in syncopated rhythm around you. And then, you retreat back to the couches, just like middle school. Success.
The next day, Tommy and I met up with our friend Shapon (Tommy’s connection from home) and took another micro to a village about 2 hours south of Dhaka. Trey and Banks decided to stay back for the weekend and decompress from our Grameen village visit, but Tommy and I would spent the weekend with H.A.R.D, a smaller NGO that set up community development programs in two rural communities. We were warmly welcomed when we arrived at the H.A.R.D house by people handing us bouquets and throwing flower petals at us. It was maybe just a little bit ridiculous. We settled into the house, and ate a delicious meal. The food we at that weekend was so good. It was sloppy delicious Bengali cuisine, the real kind, and we loved it. Tommy is obsessed with Virgin cola (I know, I hadn’t heard of it either. It tastes like Coke + Mr. Pibb), so we bought about 20ish cans of it and drank every single one of them. After our meal, we explored the village some, helped distribute eyeglasses to the villagers, watched the villagers catch a fish for us (by dragging a big net across a pond, and then picking the biggest flopping fish to eat later that night), and later that night, we ate the fish and then had a Bengali band play at the H.A.R.D. house. They were playing all Bengali instruments, which consisted of drums, finger symbols, a lute, an accordion/mini-piano, and lots of clapping and shouting. A strange man started dancing to the music, so of course Tommy and I decided to each challenge the man to a dance off. I think we lost, but I can’t be sure. There was lots of hip-shaking involved.
The next day was spent exploring the village, seeing all the H.A.R.D development programs in action, and getting caught in a rainstorm. Tommy claims that he sounded the alarm when he saw those rainclouds. I just think he was a grumpus (hah). The long, sweeping rice fields looked beautiful after the rain. We walked back to the house, which required us crossing over a bamboo bridge (3-4 poles of bamboo tied together at the base, and then two bamboo rails coming together in a V shape), and ate another delicious meal. We relaxed for a while, explored the next village, and saw some of the local sights (ruins and such. It was good). And then on Sunday, we visited two of the H.A.R.D. schools and got to see the kids there. They were 6 year olds this time, just as cute as the other school kids, but without the cool uniforms. We gave them jolly ranchers and starbursts, and they introduced themselves and recited jumbled English poems to us. The schools were like hotboxes, and we were sweating buckets, but we loved spending time with them. There’s just something about the kids in this part of the world—they are so joyful in the most mundane of situations. It’s an infectious joy.
After visiting the schools we were off again, back to Dhaka to be reunited with Trey and Banks (who had some great adventures in Dhaka while we were gone). On Monday, we said a sad goodbye to Tommy. If you’re reading this, buddy, we miss you. And your travel pouch. He is currently keeping it fresh in China, so still in the neighborhood I guess. I just killed a large, unidentified bug in my room with a Chaco. Point. We had dinner with Samir that night at a tasty Italian place, and then went for ice cream later (in the ritzy part of town).
Monday and Tuesday during lunch, we volunteered at an orphanage nearby teaching English classes. The orphanage felt a little Matilda-esque, but the kids were great. We really enjoyed getting to know them, and while our teaching wasn’t all that structured, we had lots of fun befriending the kids. We even sang them Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” (but not very well. We unfortunately may have ruined the song for them. Sorry Tay, we tried). Wednesday was a very productive day at the Bank, and we met with four different executives from all the sister companies of the bank. We learned so much, and it was such a stimulating day for us. The rest of that day was very relaxed, mostly spending time with the new interns that have come. There seems to be a new intern every other day. It keeps things interesting around here.
Yesterday, most of the day was again spent with the new interns (and for me, spent writing up this blog and doing associated things), but later that night, Trey and I had tickets to another party that Samir had invited us to. This party even had a name to it, it was called “The Rainmaker”. Pretty similar to the other party, except that this one had an upper level, the exclusive “wet-zone” where one could go and dance on the rooftop of the hotel, request songs by Lady Gaga, escape the eye-stinging smoke and sweaty Bengali males of the first level, and jump/ get pushed into the pool. I was the designated wallet/phone holder, and Trey was the kid that got pushed into the pool with the other silly Bengalis. We splashed around for a while, laughed at Trey’s slip on the dancefloor, laughed harder when it happened again, and felt the rhythm of the night. It was less skeezy than the last party, still questionable, very interesting, and very entertaining.
And then today, it felt like summer. We didn’t have any responsibilities, only loose plans and our fellow interns. We showed up at Samir’s house for a potluck lunch, where we ate some delicious food and had some great discussions with the other interns at the bank. We stayed there for a long time, and when it was time to leave, Sebastian, our tall, crazy German friend came with us to Gulshan. We had some great discussions with him today, and we like him a lot. It’s such a strange feeling to be here, halfway around the world, and be making international friends who have completely different perspectives, and who are so much fun to spend time with. We tromped around Gulshan a bit, explored that part of the city, dared Trey to put his arm around the CNG driver (and he did), and came back to Mirpur for a dinner of roasted Chicken and Knaan (the pita-ish bread they eat here) at a delightfully tacky restaurant near the G.P. Banks and I went out later for some late-night picture taking around the Mirpur streets, and now I’m here.

It’s currently 3:44 A.M. in Dhaka, but I felt compelled to catch up our blog, because it’s been long enough. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about our adventures here in Dhaka, and be sure that there is plenty more to come. Friends and family, we are thinking about you. Thank you for all the wonderful messages you’ve sent our way, we appreciate them so much. This has been our life for the past 12 days. Bangladesh is our reality. We hope that through reading, it’s become a little more real to you. Stay tuned

Keeping it fresh in the Dirty ‘Desh,
Chris

p.s. –I can hear the morning prayer calls right now. This feels like some strange dream.