Is it a Dream? Is it a Lie? I Think I'll Let You Decide
The Office where I regularly work is one of 5 national partner organizations that we fund and advise. For the last two weeks I've been out of Dhaka, holding workshops with two of our partners. The first was a three day workshop in the northwest of Bangladesh on community involvement in adolescent development.
Here my participants are mapping the influences on adolescents in their communities. The second workshop was three days on AIDS awareness in the north. For this workshop I had the privilege of staying with the Project Director and his family. It was my first time living with a Bangladeshi family and I learned all sorts of things including the vocabulary essential for sibling rivalry ("stupid!", "quit it!" etc.) and also how Bangladeshi's manage to eat dinner at 10pm. (The secret is in the big snack time at 5:30). After the AIDS workshop my supervisor came up, and we went even further north to visit some adolescent groups so that my supervisor could help develop them and I could learn from them and apply the learning to my groups in Dhaka.
Here we are visiting a rural girl's awareness raising group. The next day, we went to visit a new program field of yet another partner. The new field was way out on the northern border, where many native Bangladeshi hill tribes live. The native tribes of Bangladesh are treated very poorly by the Bengali Muslims, the majority group in Bangladesh. In the last 50 years, the Bengali's have stolen the traditionally tribal areas, driving the rightful owners off Bangladesh's plain into the hills of India. My supervisor is from the Garo tribe, and we had had lunch at her mother's house the day before, in another area. When she was growing up the only Muslims she seen were wandering salesmen. Now there are only a handful of Garo families in the village.
After an early breakfast we got in the Land Cruiser and drove on broken concrete roads, until they turned into dirt roads. When the roads got too narrow for the Land Cruiser we doubled up on motor bikes and continued on the little spaces between the rice fields, over sketchy, crackly bamboo bridges and through mud pits to the very end of Bangladesh.
Picture 4 is of a Garo family fixing the roof of their house. The mountains are India, the plain is Bangladesh.
In this field our partner works with the local Bengali Muslims, the predominantly Christian Garos, and another tribal group, the mostly Hindu Hajong. They run a small clinic and are forming awareness raising groups to combat common diseases and also promote literacy, leadership and justice. The field is new so my supervisor had lots of comments and advice. It was good for me to see what things she chose to comment on, and how she suggested fixing the problems the field was experiencing. It was fun to compare these new rural groups with the relatively mature groups that the Office has formed in Dhaka. The potential groups in both areas have to change their community is exciting to contemplate.
Here my participants are mapping the influences on adolescents in their communities. The second workshop was three days on AIDS awareness in the north. For this workshop I had the privilege of staying with the Project Director and his family. It was my first time living with a Bangladeshi family and I learned all sorts of things including the vocabulary essential for sibling rivalry ("stupid!", "quit it!" etc.) and also how Bangladeshi's manage to eat dinner at 10pm. (The secret is in the big snack time at 5:30). After the AIDS workshop my supervisor came up, and we went even further north to visit some adolescent groups so that my supervisor could help develop them and I could learn from them and apply the learning to my groups in Dhaka.
Here we are visiting a rural girl's awareness raising group. The next day, we went to visit a new program field of yet another partner. The new field was way out on the northern border, where many native Bangladeshi hill tribes live. The native tribes of Bangladesh are treated very poorly by the Bengali Muslims, the majority group in Bangladesh. In the last 50 years, the Bengali's have stolen the traditionally tribal areas, driving the rightful owners off Bangladesh's plain into the hills of India. My supervisor is from the Garo tribe, and we had had lunch at her mother's house the day before, in another area. When she was growing up the only Muslims she seen were wandering salesmen. Now there are only a handful of Garo families in the village.
After an early breakfast we got in the Land Cruiser and drove on broken concrete roads, until they turned into dirt roads. When the roads got too narrow for the Land Cruiser we doubled up on motor bikes and continued on the little spaces between the rice fields, over sketchy, crackly bamboo bridges and through mud pits to the very end of Bangladesh.
Picture 4 is of a Garo family fixing the roof of their house. The mountains are India, the plain is Bangladesh.
In this field our partner works with the local Bengali Muslims, the predominantly Christian Garos, and another tribal group, the mostly Hindu Hajong. They run a small clinic and are forming awareness raising groups to combat common diseases and also promote literacy, leadership and justice. The field is new so my supervisor had lots of comments and advice. It was good for me to see what things she chose to comment on, and how she suggested fixing the problems the field was experiencing. It was fun to compare these new rural groups with the relatively mature groups that the Office has formed in Dhaka. The potential groups in both areas have to change their community is exciting to contemplate.
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