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.

Off to the sticks 14/11/08

If you’ve read this far, congratulations. After a mammoth effort, I think I’m now mainly up to date. My last week in Dhaka was a flurry of Bangla classes, training, shopping, packing and several scintillating social engagements.

Now, I sit here writing all this from the dining room of my swish new pad. Well, ‘swish’ might not be the right word, but it’s pretty great all the same. It’s cool here – not cold, as all the locals insist, wrapping themselves up as if it were Bonfire night – but blissfully not hot.

Ollie and I arrived here in Parbatipur on Friday afternoon, horribly hungover from our leaving party the night before. We were greeted at our new office, the headquarters of Gram Bikash Kendra (meaning Village Development Centre) by Sarah and Mukul. They are program managers in GBK, and are both young, friendly and have good English. We were given flowers, then tea, then snacks, then driven to our new homes.

I have, for the first time in my life, a flat of my own. It has far too much space for only me, and definitely not enough furniture for entertaining, but I like it all the same. There is an open plan dining room, from which all the other rooms open. There is a small but adequate kitchen which I spent yesterday night scrubbing from top to bottom; my bedroom, which has an en suite bathroom; a dressing room, so-called because all there is in it is a chest of drawers and a clothes rail; and a ‘sitting room’, so-called because I don’t know what else to call it – it’s huge and has two balconies, but is empty except for a blue plastic table and bookcase.

My landlord is an amazing lady called Meena. She told me that she will be my Bangladeshi mother, and her sons will be my brothers. On my first night, when I got home from dinner, she ushered me into her lovely flat, which is directly below mine, and plied me with sweets, fruit, crackers and tea until I couldn’t eat anymore. Although my Bangla is terrible, she has quite a bit of English so we had a little chat about our families and our home towns. The people who live in this building are all extremely friendly and curious about me: what I’m doing, how long I’m here, my family, whether I’m married or fancy getting married in Bangladesh, what religion I am (I say Christian to make things easier than explain agnosticism)… I do my best to answer all their questions, but I need to improve my Bangla pronto, or our meetings will soon get boring.

For the last two days, Scannie and I have been getting to know people in the GBK office. Every morning, we are picked up from our flats and driven on the back of motorbikes to the office, which is about 1 mile from my house. We’ve been shown around and introduced to countless people, none of whose names I can remember. Everyone is really friendly, but also really busy. Also, after the top level of staff, the amount of English spoken really declines. I need a Bangla teacher, and I need one fast!

Everything is massively overwhelming still. I can now get from a (my house) to b (the office) via c (the main road), but beyond that I’m still at a loss. We walked back from the office today, and by the end of the trip my face ached from smiling. I still have NO idea what I’ll actually be doing, and I still feel like that I’m horribly under prepared for what is to come, but as everyone keeps saying: you have to do things here aste aste (slowly, slowly), and I’ve got at least a year in which to figure this whole thing out.