Way down south (18/01-20/01)

This last weekend I went on a jolly to Mongla, a port town in the south west of Bangladesh, perched on the edge of the Sunderbans with a great view of the Bay of Bengal. The Sunderbans are the world’s densest concentration of mangrove forest in the world, two thirds of which are in Bangladesh (the other third being in West Bengal). There are many legends about the Sunderbans (literally meaning, beautiful forest), featuring tigers and devils and a great forest protectoress called Bon Bibi. Recently, the forests have been getting media attention because of the growing number of tiger attacks on villagers who are, due to rising tides and a growing population, increasingly forced to venture into tiger habitats for food and firewood. Needless to say, it was with some trepidation that I ventured south to see what this mysterious tide land was like…

I should probably say that my visit had a purpose higher than checking out these natural wonders. Officially I was there for a VSOB study visit, to learn about an initiative of Rupantar, a large local NGO, aimed at improving the accountability and responsiveness of Bangladesh’s lowest level of local government. It was a fascinating visit, and gave me lots of ideas about potentially transferring these structures and practices to the north. Although there was, as ever, a lot of sitting dazedly as a heated debate flew directly over my head (it being entirely in Bangla), I still learned an awful lot and got to meet a lot of really interesting people (more on this later).

However, despite all that, it was the landscape that excited and enthralled me most. As you travel south here (bear in mind this was four full days of driving for two and a half days of visiting…), the landscape gradually changes. Where I live, it’s quite dry and although there are trees, they are much more familiar looking and somehow more controlled. As you go south, two things happen: it gets more watery and more wild.

Probably it’s is to do with the greater presence of water here, and the friendlier climate, but the further south you go, the more verdant and febrile the vegetation becomes. The trees seem taller, thicker. The greenery seems denser and more energetic somehow, exploding upwards everywhere you turn.

As you drive down roads miraculously raised up on sandy dykes, a lattice of fields rolls out around you in myriad stages of growth, studded with coconut and banana trees. There is the shocking lime of the rice seedlings, the milky green of the transplanted shoots, and interspersed between these, the flooded fields that await planting, gleaming dove grey and misty blue with the haze of the sky.

The raised causeways of tarmac are lined with trees that curve above, forming a lulling, luring canopy as far as the eye can see. Houses and shops, singly or in small, stretched settlements are precariously perched on oases of raised land, but you know that when the rains come, this will make little difference. Narrow paths atop dykes, or spindly bridges of single bamboo poles, are all that connect these abodes to the world.

This is what is means to say that Bangladesh is a delta country. Given the sure knowledge of rain and flood, you know that this land is really on the edge, fighting a constant battle with nature. The fact that this is also cyclone alley begs the question: how does any of it survive? The ramshackle buildings lean crazily over the water, made from corrugated iron, thatch, bamboo weave and banana leaf, and propped up on stilts. All of it seems worringly impermanent, as if the people here know they are living on borrowed time.

The land in the south is beautiful, but brutally so, a constant reminder that it has no sympathy for the thousands of people who cling to it.

*

The Sunderbans themselves

We only visited a tiny edge of the Sunderbans, and very briefly, but it was wonderful to see this so-much-spoken-about forest. It is all rivers and tides. Rivers and tides and trees.

The Sunderbans are where the huge rivers that flow through Bangladesh join the sea, and this is where the distinctions between river and sea, water and land, cease to have meaning. All the waterbodies in the area are saline, for example, and getting fresh drinking water is a constant concern for locals. This also causes huge problems for growing crops, which do not take to salty soil very well.

The land is dissected into islands of trees that rise out of the water at low tide, showing their muddy underbellies to the world, and slide beneath it at high tide, until the water laps the trunks of the trees.

Where the land is protected from the hunger of the tides, where you can walk even at high tide (which is in forest reservation land or in the precarious villages of those who dwell here, which are encircled by fiercely maintained dykes), the forests sing with wildlife. Deer, crocodiles and Royal Bengal tigers are just some of the hundreds of species that reside here, amongst the seemingly impenetrable protection of the forest.

The denseness of the forest and the trials of the weather make you wonder how anyone could possibly live here, and yet live here people do. The litre of wild honey I bought is testament to that: honey which, according to the Lonely Planet, is the most dangerous honey on the planet because of the dangers (tigers, crocodiles, bandits, the police…) collectors brave in order to collect it. It’s just one example of how the people here are forced to battle nature in order to survive.

A glimmer of hope (7/01/09)

This is just a quick update on the work situation, for anyone who was concerned that I might be out here committing violent crimes in frustration at the total lack of progress on the work front.

1. A big meeting was had today, in which myriad things were cleared up. All the big wigs, including from VSOB, and at least everybody is now on the same page.
2. My objectives are now somewhat more clarified, and include: assisting VSOB with its move to integrate indigenous rights programmes within its governance programmes; facilitating the development of greater gender mainstreaming within GBK; organising some basic communications workshops on things like writing reports, case studies and press releases; and running English classes for GBK’s staff who are all desperate to learn English. There go my chances of Bangla fluency…
3. Although I feel more positive and optimistic about work now, I remain a tad sceptical. I will only believe it when the agreed meetings/workshops/trainings etc are actually carried out. I know it sounds horribly cynical, but experience has taught me not to count on time management.

While the nation voted, I went to the beauty parlour... (29/12/08)

The 29th December 2008 was a big day for Bangladesh. The first national elections in six years were held after a state of emergency that has lasted for almost two years was lifted on 17th December. After many delays, and much last-minute wrangling, the election was held peacefully on the 29th. While outside, voters and campaigners mingled on the streets, making the most of the national holiday declared for the election, I and my oh-so-politically-aware friends made a trip to the beauty parlor…

To give you a little background to the election: a caretaker government has been in control of Bangladesh since early 2007, when the serving prime minister (of the Bangladesh National Party) resigned at the increasingly acrimonious and volatile turn in relations between the government and its opposition, which threatened to destabilize the entire country and derail its economic development. The caretaker government has, since 2007, worked to eliminate corruption in Bangladeshi politics and reform the electoral system.

Needless to say, hopes for 2008 were high. Judgments of the caretaker government have been mixed to say the least, with some applauding the significant voter registration drive it conducted, purging millions of false or duplicate names from the electoral roll, and others pointing out that, despite its best efforts, the same people remain very much in control of politics in this country.

Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, leaders of the Bangladesh National Party and the Awami League respectively, have alternated in power since Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971. Both are related to former powerful Bengali/Bangladeshi politicians – Khaleda’s husband was General Zia********, while Hasina’s father was Bangabondhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, ‘the father of Bangladesh’. Despite the caretaker government’s best attempts to remove these two great women of Bangladeshi politics from the scene by imprisoning them both on corruption charges, it was unable to prevent them from leading their parties into the election.

Unsurprisingly (to anyone following the situation) the Awami League won. Hasina’s victory had been widely predicted in the days running up to the election, and greater support for the AL was certainly reflected in the allegiance of the majority of the rallies, marches and demonstrations I encountered in Dhaka and elsewhere. What was perhaps more surprising, however, was the scale of the party’s victory. The AL won by a triumphant two thirds landslide, leaving the BNP with seats in double figures. Although the majority of my friends and acquaintances here favoured the AL over the BNP because of its more liberal stance on most issues, the fact that the election was, essentially, a two-way contest between Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina does beg the question: has anything changed? And perhaps more importantly, will anything change?

Alas, only time will tell, but as I sit here writing this in mid-January, it appears that any change that may occur is not going to be rapid.

****

Ever since our arrival in Bangladesh, we have been bombarded with security briefings and updates from VSOB, advising us of the changing dates of the upcoming national elections, and warning us to avoid large gatherings, rallies and marches, and to refrain from expressing support of a particular party in public. As the election drew nearer, the emails from VSOB grew in frequency and insistence: for the three day electoral period, we were to work from home and avoid busy public places; on election day itself, we were not to set foot outside, having previously stocked up on supplies.

Although it was quite possible that things would turn nasty after the election, and that VSOB needed to cover its back by advising all necessary precautions for volunteers, I decided to take all this advice with a pinch of salt. Partly this was because, in reality, avoiding rallies after the state of emergency was lifted on 17th December to allow campaigning to begin was simply not feasible. Although some campaigning was done via painfully loud megaphones hitched to rickshaws, which you could hear coming from miles away, rallies were wont to descend without warning, surround you within minutes, and disappear equally quickly. Bands of marching, chanting men (note that it was always men and boys I saw, never women) would appear around the corner and halt all other activity as they streamed past in a flurry of clapping, shouting and waving banners, then they would be gone again. Taking avoidance measures in such situations would have been completely impractical, unless of course I wanted to behave like a paranoid tourist and, shrieking, force my way out of the crowd and demand sanctuary somewhere nearby.

My glib attitude to security around the election also stemmed from slightly less logical sources. In the first place, in all the rallies I’d ever witnessed or been dragged into, no violence ensued. What’s more, the thing that I will now always associate with Bangladeshi politics is not rampaging mobs, but the white campaigning posters that were strung up like bunting in every street. I think this demonstrates quite well the peaceful nature of the pre-election period.

I know, of course, that the lack of violence I witnessed doesn’t mean that no violence would ever ensure, but in such an eventuality, I planned to rely on my trump card: my bideshi status. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not arrogant enough to think that being British and charming would win me immediate protection. But the fact is, foreigners in Bangladesh are afforded a number of special allowances and protections here, owing to the Bangladeshi sense of duty to one’s guests. I decided to trust that this would be enough get me out of any sticky situations.

And thus equipped with my blind faith in the Bangladeshi people’s hospitality, I boldly made my across Lalmatia on election day, to a beauty parlour in Dhanmondi. Part of me wishes this tale was more noble – that I flouted VSOB’s security guidelines for some worthy cause, like saving a child from a burning building. Part of me wishes it was more dramatic – I had to dodge raging mobs and gunfire to get to my destination.

Unfortunately (well, fortunately, really), no such situations presented themselves. Polling happened peacefully on the whole, and the streets were full of people milling about, enjoying the national holiday declared for the election and the surprisingly warm weather. I and my friends strolled to the beauty parlour, unmolested by angry crowds, and enjoyed our facials. While neither noble nor dramatic, this will be my abiding memory of these elections. For someone who prides herself on being interested in current affairs, it’s a little embarrassing to admit this. But as with so many things here, my expectations of both myself and the things around me are proving to be way off the mark.

We wish you a deshi Christmas (25/12/08)

Being swept up in the newness of everything, I hardly noticed that Christmas was just around the corner until I was on the night bus (huge error, by the way) heading for Dhaka in order to collect my arriving family from the airport.

Of course, there is no Christmas tat to contend with here, no rubbish Christmas music, no stress and no consumerist convulsions. For these things I am generally hugely grateful. But, much as I’m loathe to admit it, these things do hammer home a sense of Christmassy-ness that I really do love, even if they sometimes hammer it a little too hard (almost every year, hearing The Pogues one too many times makes me want to commit a violent crime). Needless to say, Christmas in Dhaka was going to take some work if it was to feel even vaguely like Christmas…

The Whitaker-Wylies arrived in Dhaka on 22nd December: cue an extremely happy reunion amidst a sea of returning hajjis. It was a little odd to have the fam in Bangladesh, in the way you often feel disorientated when two previously separated worlds collide, but it was also absolutely fantastic to see my parents and sister after such a long time (almost three months – probably the longest I’ve so far gone without seeing my parental units).

Interestingly, I think my dad had come to Bangladesh partly in order to escape Christmas (remember, this is the man who is primarily responsible for the fact that for the last few years, the Whitaker-Wylie Christmas dinner has been something like kebabs cooked on the barbecue outside). As a result, he was not particularly interested in the plans being cooked up in the VSO volunteer community to bring Christmas to Lalmatia.

Luckily this did nothing to limit our enthusiasm. Megan was a veritable powerhouse when it came to planning Christmas (I was busy running tours of Dhaka’s historical sights for the traveling bideshi show, aka, my family), and for this I will be eternally grateful.

Preparations for the Christmas period progressed swimmingly (again, I can’t claim any credit here. Thanks are due to Megan, Ollie, Laura and others). Ollie had gone all out on the alcohol-buying front, and we had a true cavern of delights, consisting of Heineken, Bangladeshi vodka, several litres of Bangla pani (literally meaning ‘Bangla water’, but actually referring to the potent rice wine brewed by indigenous peoples, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and semi-legally transported by VSO volunteers stationed in the CHT in 7-Up bottles), and – fanfare please – WHITE WINE. Yes, Scal had managed to procure a few sweet bottles of vin blanc, of vino bianco.

Seriously, it’s things like this that tempt me to believe that there is, in fact, a god.

Anyway. For Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas Decorations Party. Keith brought a miniature tree his aunt had sent him from the States. Megan had bought felt tips, blue tack and paper, and everyone got massively excited about making snow flakes and paper chains, which were then elaborately hung around the flat. Someone even bought snow in can, which brought a magical few seconds as we sprayed it around the tree, only to discover that the ‘snow’ was lilac, had the consistency of shaving foam, and evaporated in a matter of minutes. Megan – goddess of organization and brilliant Christmas ideas – had decided to make something that she named ‘Potent Pagla Pani Punch’ (forgive me if I haven’t got the name exactly right, Megbo!). This consisted of Bangla pani (natch), mango juice, 7-Up, apples, oranges and star fruit. It obviously went down a storm…

I thought things couldn’t get any better after that party. But how wrong I was!

On Christmas Day, the festivities kicked off with a Christmas brunch. No expense was spared. Scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes, toast, honey, peanut butter, jam, pancakes, cheese (yes, for the love of God, CHEESE!) were devoured alongside obligatory cans of Heineken and glasses of white wine. None of this might sound particularly exciting to anyone in the UK, but when you have been denied such delights for a few months, suddenly, even bland cheese and vinegary white wine become like ambrosia.

In the evening, the VSO induction flat hosted its second party in two days (god bless VSOB for finding a flat in a building where no-one complains about the noise). Apparently, in the last few years, Christmas amongst volunteers has been fairly fragmented, with the Kenyans, Ugandans, British, Filipinas etc celebrating separately. But not this year, oh no! Everyone came over bearing a dish, and we got down to some serious eating, drinking and dancing. To cap it all off, Scal made his debut as Santa, in a costume constructed from red cotton and cotton wool, dishing out Christmas beers to all and sundry. Oh the japes!

That I spent Christmas 2008 in Dhaka, where it was 20 degrees outside, with so many wonderful new friends and my family around me, eating food from eight different countries and dancing the night away to lilting, eternally cheerful Kenyan and Ugandan pop music, have really made me reconsider my take on Christmas. I don't even like turkey.

Grinding my teeth, Part Two: Adjusting to Bangla Time (16/12/08)

16/12/08
Grinding my teeth
Part 2: Adjusting to Bangla time

When I first arrived here, I was surprised how quickly my jet lag wore off. However, two months in and the painful transition to Bangla time – or the wholly different work ethic here – is still ongoing.

I think, in order for you to really feel my hair-tearing, teeth-grinding, head-banging-against-brick-wall frustration, I’ll give you a couple of reflections to mull over…

- How does anyone plan anything when no-one has a diary? (Believe me, it’s not because they don’t have diaries, NGOs spend lots of money on company diaries, but NO-ONE USES THEM). A certain person (who shall not be named) has likened a certain organization close to us (that shall also not be named) as behaving like Wiley Coyote – i.e. not all that wiley, really, when you consider how Wiley Coyote appears to rush from one slightly dodgy idea to another, without engaging in sufficient monitoring and evaluation of his previous mess-up.
- If the tailor says your shalwar kameez will be ready in a week, allow ten days. They’ll always have an excuse.
- How can anyone get anything done when, in order to make any decisions of significance, the director (who spends at least 80% of his/her time elsewhere) must be present? (Answer: no-one can get anything done)
- If someone says that they’ll meet with you after lunch, what they really mean is: they might meet with you at some point in the near future (for near, read: within the next fortnight, or perhaps week if you really pester hard), if your paths happen to cross.
- Perhaps the reason everyone works ridiculous hours here – not because of the pace and intensity of the work load – but because of the lack of familiarity with the concept of time management that is generally displayed. A sixty minute introductory session is no barrier to someone who wants to give a forty minute oration touching on everything from our common humanity to the American presidential elections, despite the fact they know that they’ve made a power point presentation that will take at least 45 minutes to go through painstakingly, word for word, and that lunch stops at half past one (can you feel the tension?).
- If I have to watch one more person answer their mobile phone loudly in an inappropriate work context, I think I will do something that probably constitutes a crime (seriously: formal introduction to serious meeting, given by director in rare appearance, mid-speech…)
- Even when you’re clearly in a hurry (the bus you’re supposed to be on is pulling away behind you), shopkeepers will insist on wrapping your purchase in newspaper incredibly tidily, and incredibly neatly tying it with brown string to create a handle for you to transport your goods with greater ease (which is handy, as now you have to sprint an extremely undignified thirty yards to catch up with your departing bus).

I could go on indefinitely. I could, but I won’t. I don’t want to bore you.

Those of you who know me will know that I’m quite fond of organization (to put it mildly), so my frustration at this disorganization may not surprise you too much. But I really am trying my hardest to be chilled out, and to roll with the different cultural norms here in the ‘desh. I really am, honestly. Just don’t use this entry as evidence against me if I am tipped over the edge…

Grinding my teeth, Part One: What am I doing here? 15/12/08

(A disclaimer: I’m feeling somewhat bitter and frustrated right now, so apologies if this post turns into a rant.)

Realizing that I haven’t yet written anything about the work I’m ostensibly here to do, I suppose I ought to say something. Although I’ve only been in placement just over a month, I’m quickly becoming acquainted with the joys and frustrations of working in development, and in particular, working in development in Bangladesh.

So: a brief outline of what I’m here to do is probably in order for those of you who don’t already know/didn’t pay attention to my lengthy explanations. I’m here working through VSO, an international development organization that works in 34 countries around the world through skilled volunteers. Although it’s a British charity, VSO also has recruitment offices in Kenya, the Netherlands, India, the Philippines and Canada, hence the mix of volunteers I’m working alongside. In each of its target countries, VSO works through partnership: in Bangladesh, this means there is a central program office in Dhaka, but volunteers are placed with a range of smaller, national and local NGOs all around the country. VSO Bangladesh focuses on three of VSO’s strategic areas: good governance; HIV and AIDS; and indigenous community rights.

My placement is with an indigenous rights organization based in north west Bangladesh called Gram Bikash Kendra (literally, Village Development Centre), which has been working with adivasi (indigenous) communities since 1992. It also has programs in various other areas, such as working with harijan communities (otherwise derogatorily known as sweeper or dalit communities). GBK is fairly large and quite well-established by local standards, and has had at least two previous VSO volunteers before Ollie and I arrived.

Now, what exactly are you here to do? I hear you cry. Well, prepare for a tirade, dear reader... I have no idea. One month in, and I have not a clue. I’m a pretty flexible and adaptable person (one of VSO’s recruitment requirements that they hammer home to you until your sick of hearing it), but even my flexibility is eroded by the intensity of my frustration. When I accepted my placement, it was on the basis of a pretty vague outline of what I’d be doing: capacity building for an indigenous rights organization, including documentation, communication, fundraising, networking and advocacy. Given the massively nebulous nature of most of the words in the above description, I accepted the placement on the assumption that all placement outlines are equally vague. Little did I know, mine would be more vague than I’d thought possible…

During induction, I met several times with my VSO manager and GBK’s executive director, to discuss the details of my placement in more depth. It was only two days before I actually left for the north that VSO decided to inform me that I’d be doing something quite different from what I’d first envisaged. They’d told me initially that I’d be working to build the capacity of GBK’s partner organizations (GBK works through 5 partners of its own – very small-scale community based organizations that work in different geographical areas with adivasi communities), in order that they would be able to work more effectively with local government. GBK would be ‘hosting’ my placement, but I wouldn’t actually be working directly for them. Quite a complicated aim, for sure, but something I could certainly have a stab at.

Then, VSO tell me that, in addition to working with these partners, they also want me to work with about ten of their own partners, based in several different parts of the country and which work in the area of good governance. Now, given that most volunteers work with four NGOs tops, I reckon working with sixteen is quite a tall order, especially when you consider that:
1. Many of these NGOs have no English speakers working for them
2. They are hundreds of miles apart
3. It takes time to build up a rapport with one NGO, let alone sixteen
4. I have no clear idea who I’d accountable to and where professional support comes from (VSO or GBK?)
5. VSO seem unwilling to give me a firm idea of what they want me to do, and GBK don’t seem to care

And so here I am. One month in, and generally not a clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing. Of course, I understand that adapting to a different culture takes time, and that things are done at a different pace here (see next entry), and that it’s important to do things in as participatory a manner as possible (i.e. I’m not going to decide my objectives unilaterally, but try to work them out on the basis of the needs of VSO, GBK and all the partner organizations), but unless I get a little more direction soon, I am going to wind up insane.