Getting in touch with the community

I’m settling into Bengali culture more now, which means being okay with sweating profusely all day long, washing tons of clothes by hand in buckets, eating rice until I’m blue in the face, and saying “asalaam wailaikum” whenever I greet someone. I have been wearing the traditional shalwar kameez, which is a knee-length tunic and baggy (M.C. Hammer style pants) with an orna, or wide draping scarf, over my chest. I’m also consuming the most wonderfully sweet tea known to the earth, and I really hope my teeth don’t rot before I leave. It’s also fabulous how I am even served tea (twice a day!) while at work. Why can’t we have this is in the U.S.? Another funny occurrence is power outages. They happen multiple times a day at BRAC, and work stops until the generator kicks on. It also happens at home, and we’ve had a few dinner by candlelight, which has been nice.

This past week I spent considerable time in a village about three hours to the north of Dhaka called Mymensingh. It was really refreshing to leave Dhaka and enter such a nice, wooded area with deep green trees and (only half-way contaminated) ponds. We (intern group) took a city bus there, which was replete with spitting, sweat, relentless honking, and life-or-death swerving. I’m not sure if anybody was riding on the top of our bus, but I saw countless busses pass us where this was the case.

We stayed at a BRAC training facility, which means we were able to eat meals and interact with many people who were being trained as new employees for BRAC (primarily many new teachers), which was interesting. This also marked my first (repeated) experience with a squat toilet, and I learned to love them for good or for bad. During our week there we were able to observe Village Organization meetings, which is when the women borrowers come together (weekly) to pay their loan installments to the officer. We saw the lowest loan level, Dabi, the mid-level, Unnoti, and the highest level, Progoti. We were also invited into different people’s homes to interview them and learn about their fascinating life stories, which typically revealed some rather interesting information about how they came to be involved in BRAC. I was really glad that my naïve blinders were loosened a bit, as I learned that village loan officers have a 600 person quota (recently doubled from 300), and they also have to disburse 500,000 taka (about $7,400). No pressure. We heard some eyebrow-raising stories about pressure, corruption, and loss of assets; I am interested in continuing to investigate these issues further. If anything, however, I learned that asking questions and getting honest answers is not as easy as I thought it would be. The women are prepped and guarded in their responses; it’s only natural that relationships must be formed before I can begin to interview them in-depth. One woman, however, went into great detail about how she had felt pressured to buy a cow with a BRAC loan. I asked her how this generated income for her, and she said that it’s not right now. Her sons give her money to pay off the loan. I then asked her why she didn’t just buy the cow with her sons’ money instead of paying interest on a BRAC loan. The officer had blackmailed her.

Our trip also exposed us to a BRAC primary school, and I found it really touching. The kids use really old slates, and I could tell that the teacher was only having them do exercises she was sure they knew well in an effort to impress us. What impresses them, however, is song and dance, so before I knew it I was singing the 50 U.S. states in alphabetical order! They sang some wonderful songs, and I couldn’t get over how well-behaved these kids were (especially because it was a one-room schoolhouse and the kids were of varying ages). I assumed it was just for visitors, but the teacher informed me that being given the honor and opportunity of attending primary school is not taken lightly; they are apparently this well-behaved all the time! It made me really think long and hard about the K-5 students I tried to teach last year and the lawlessness that ensued daily.

I also had the opportunity to sit in on an adolescent peer leaders training, and it was a humbling experience. The girls were talking about menstruation and sexual harassment, which made for lively conversation, but after a while, they just wanted to ask me questions. They started with harmless questions, but then they moved for the big one: “Are you married?” Mind you, I had spent almost a half-hour talking about my family, my studies, travel, etc., and I had an unimpressed audience. The moment I said I have been dating someone for six years, thunderous applause and beaming smiles showered me. I was taken aback by their enthusiasm and brushed it off lightly, but I later got to thinking about just how important marriage is to Bengali women and girls. I had only been validated by a man’s presence in my life. Ouch.

Something I find interesting is that two out of three women get married before the legal age of 18 here. Sixty percent become mothers before reaching 19. Maternal mortality for adolescents is double the national figure. The kicker is that in rural communities, girls cannot leave the home unaccompanied after puberty begins. Basically after puberty hits they are very protected and pass from the hands of their family to the hands of their husband’s family. Something I find interesting is that men can technically have up to four wives here (someone told me this was extracted from a story in the Koran, but I have yet to do more investigation on this one). In addition, men can initiative divorce very easily, but this is not so for women. Therefore, if two young people get married and there’s no dowry involved, the husband may (later) beat her excessively so that she will leave on her own will. This frees the husband’s family from having to pay any money to the girl, and he can remarry and receive a nice dowry if he didn’t get one in the first marriage. Interestingly in 1980 Bangladesh saw the Dowry Prohibition Act, but it has been largely ineffective. Dowries still cause grave problems, and sadly, women are at the losing end.

As I mentioned before, the girls won’t let you leave unless you’ve sung or danced, so this time, I decided that Twinkle Twinkle wouldn’t cut it, and I decided to teach them what I know best: salsa dancing. I hadn’t thoroughly thought through the cultural ramifications of this action, and I soon realized that the idea of dancing with a male counterpart would be extremely taboo, so things became very interesting…quickly! The girls loved it, and I reveled in bringing some Latina spice to the hills of Bangladesh☺ Nothing wrong with dancing with the air!

While at the BRAC training center I heard some interesting music one night, and I stumbled into a really fun dress-rehearsal for a theatre performance. I sat down to watch, and everyone stopped to introduce themselves to me. After about 30 people spoke, it was my turn, and they skipped me! I cleared my throat and asked to introduce myself because my beginning Bangla class had at least taught me this! I said, “Hello my name is Lauren, and my country is America. I work at BRAC and I am very happy to be here.” I was a bit nervous to say this, so my eyes were fixated on the floor, and the room was S-I-L-E-N-T. I looked up to see what I had done wrong, and as soon as I made eye contact there was an exuberant, unending outburst of applause and smiles! It was awesome! I laughed like the giddy teenage girls I had seen earlier in the day, and I was happy that my little effort in Bangla meant so much to them.

The next day we traveled with the performance group to site of the play in a nearby village. Because we got there so early, things were quite strange, as everyone just gathered ‘round us and stared as usual. I was incredibly uncomfortable with this cold, fish-bowl-esque (non) interaction, so I drew a hopscotch board in the ground. Everybody looked at me like I was nuts, and they were further confused/shy when I jumped around on it. I thought the 40+ kids watching would want a try at it, but most Bengalis, I have learned, are painfully shy. I finally got a man in the “audience” to try it. Everyone cheered, and then he chose the next person. (Tricky of me, I know!) Then we passed more time playing the Bengali favorite: cricket. I had a great time attempting to “bat”, but it was really hard, as the bat was made of the heaviest piece of wood ever.

The performance was wonderful, and it was BRAC-sponsored. I thought it was really interesting/questionable how BRAC brings the idea of microcredit to villages through multiple media. I think performance theater is an ingenious idea because both kids and adults turn up for the free event, and microcredit is presented in a fun, comedic vein that piques the non-borrowers’ interest.

The crowning even at the BRAC center, however, was our last night. I saw some girls outside playing volleyball (which was shocking because I haven’t seen girls playing sports at all). I immediately jumped up from the table to join them. They tenderly and artfully tied my orna (huge scarf) around my chest so that I could be covered and not worry about modesty while playing. The moment you have multiple white girls playing volleyball, however, a crowd forms, so our fun little game soon grew into a really competitive game with men, but I stuck in there! I also played Frisbee with some of the small kids, which was even more fun because they had never seen a Frisbee before, and it was a good (not high energy) activity that the girls took to more.

The trip to Mymensingh had its low points as well. I did my fair share of interviewing, and one young woman really put me in my place. I saw her overlooking a VO (Village Organization) meeting, and I went up to her with a translator (which I also don’t like using, but we’ll see how that goes). I asked her if she currently participated in an income-generating activity. She said, “No, I’m married.” I asked her if she had other married friends who were involved in an enterprise. She replied, “yes, but they have to work, and I don’t .” Okay, fine, I thought, so I asked her if the idea of having her own funds to buy extras or surprise her husband seemed appealing. She looked me square in the eye and said, “Listen, I am happy how I am, and I like my life. My husband takes care of me completely, and that is all I need.” I don’t know why I was so shocked by her answer, but I thought to ask her one last question: “What happens if, G-d forbid, your husband dies?” She had had enough. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” she said.

Other young women blew my socks off for opposite reasons. One 20-year old I met went to university, taught classes part-time, and had a small sewing business that was beginning to boom. She had thought through a marketing strategy and had gone to fancy stores to eyeball the most recent designs so that she could later replicate them! Talk about keen sense of supply and demand! Some of these young girls have amazing energy and innovation, and I am really excited to work with and learn from them more. An interesting roadblock I have confronted, however, concerns fear of loans. Some of the better educated girls are afraid that loans may take away from their studies, and really poor girls are turned off by the idea because they’re frightened that they will not be able to pay the loans back. Therefore, the target populations BRAC works hardest to reach shy away for different reasons, and part of my goal while I am here is to help think of ways to combat this problem.

On a different note, my host family invited me to go on a “boat cruise” on one of the rivers near Dhaka lat night, and I jumped at the opportunity to go. I was sorely disappointed when I realized that they were not in fact going with me. The ticket was also quite expensive, so I assumed that it would be a very interesting glimpse into the life of well-heeled Bengalis. Instead, it was an overpriced tour on a fishing boat for Westerners. We made the best of it, however, and the tour actually took us to a very interesting riverside village. When we got off the boat and started to enter the village, a friend of mine here asked me if I thought we would see child laborers. I said with 100% certainty that we would not because this village was used to inviting tours in, etc. I was really surprised to see many adolescents painstakingly make saris by hand. I asked how many hours a day they work, and first I was told 9 hours, then I did the math with miniscule breaks, and it came to 14. As if that didn’t have my reeling, I entered a really loud umbrella factory, and a young boy was working spools of string. That factory honestly sounded like a train barreling through my ears, and I can only imagine working there all day long.

Being on the river was really refreshing, and we were able to see many children joyfully playing on the banks, swinging from trees, and waving their hands like complete hams to try to get us to wave. Women washed clothes on the steps and stones, men tended to the animals, and others repaired boats. It was a peaceful end to a really hectic, enlightening week, and I am thankful for the opportunities and growth it provided.

On a much sweeter note for those who know me well, don’t fret, I am yet again eating my body weight in mangos!! They are hands down the best I’ve ever had☺