Cambodia versus Bangladesh

I have just returned from two weeks on holiday in Cambodia, and whilst I could regal with tales of that small country caught between Thailand and Vietnam, but as this is a Bangladesh journal, it maybe more interesting to look at how the two compare. I did find myself looking at the development projects and policies, to see what Cambodian were doing differently. And some of it is almost amusing: in Siem Reap, the town from which one can see the temples of Angkor, JICA (the Japanese DFID) had installed rubbish bins along the river, resplendent with the JICA logo and the claim of technical assistance from the Japanese people – quite why Cambodians needed Japanese assistance to come up with the idea of rubbish bins is not explained, and it certainly cannot be priority for Cambodia, which ‘boasts’ the largest per capita amputee population in the world due to its millions of landmines.

But what is interesting is how much better Cambodia is than Bangladesh. Its major cities are smart, French like centres with proper paving, flowers, ornamental lighting, clean rivers, and subterranean drainage. There is poverty, but the rural houses are larger, the cattle look healthier, children manage to go to school much more often and gender equality and equity is in a better state. However, what is most striking is that whilst Bangladesh seems to be stagnating, and has ever since its conception, Cambodia really has a future. Possessing possibly the greatest temple complex that humankind has ever created is of enormous benefit and is a major global tourist attraction, but in addition the country has invested in upgrading its roads and cities, has discovered a major oil field of its coast and has a relaxed and welcoming attitude towards difference.

Tourism is a major part of the Cambodian economy, and it already received 1 million visitors a year, only 9 years after the Khmer Rouge were finally defeated and stability returned to the country. Given that Egypt received 8 million tourists a year and that Angkor is on a par with the pyramids of Giza, Cambodian tourism is surely going to rocket in the future. It is true that much of this business is foreigned owned – in Siem Reap it is big foreign hotel chains like Sofitel and Meridian, and bars and clubs owned by expats from Europe and Australia litter the major towns, but these are bringing jobs and development with them, as they require good quality electricity and water supplies, and many, many staff. Around the temples, the kids that sell books and postcards attend school in the morning and language classes in the evenings – many that I talked to already spoke English and German or Italian as well as their native Khmer, at only 7 or 8 years of age, and all wanted to be tour guides in the future. With visitor numbers increasing and groups from China, Korea, the US, Spain, and the Middle East, all of these children seem to have real opportunities: tour guides are well paid and their skills are sought after.

With this education – it can be hoped – comes further development as educated people are better placed to demand their rights and force their governments to be accountable. Corruption is a problem in Cambodia but it is being tackled heavily by the development partners, and with DFID and USAID putting lots into HIV/AIDS, this issue seems to be, at the surface, under control. Cambodia is full of adverts for HIV testing centres, billboards advertising condoms and giving information of HIV/AIDS, all of which are unthinkable in Bangladesh, which is still in denial about the realities of the disease within its borders.

Cambodia felt lighter, more optimistic, more hopeful. It certainly helps to have Angkor as a golden ticket to foreign income, but there is a more diversified economy than just tourism, and more people seemed to be getting a slice of the cake. Bangladesh, on the other hand, looks like it has nowhere to go. Its only real resource is its cheap labour (4-5 times cheaper than Cambodia), and manufactures only tolerate the traffic congestion, lack of infrastructure and poor export facilities because labour costs are so low. But, with tarrifs on textiles about to come down in the US, and Africa being opened up to investment (where labour is even more cheap and new infrastructure can be purpose built), it seems that rather than lift off, Bangladesh is about to face decline. There is no tourist industry, there is visible, widespread poverty (there are more Dhakaians than Cambodians), the cities are shabby and dilapidated, and the urban middle and upper classes engage with the public realm only when they can extract something from it. Cambodia and Cambodians are being exploited by textile manufactures, tourist industries, oil companies, development agencies, human traffickers, logging companies and many others. But Bangladesh is not: in a globalised world it remains the case that the only thing worse than being exploited by a capitalist, is not being exploited by a capitalist. This seems to be Bangladesh’s fate.

Driving with Dignity Launch Night

After six months of planning, proposals, field work, preparation, negotiation and cajoling, yesterday our rickshaw puller photographic exhibition was launched at the Russian Cultural Centre in Dhaka, and was opened by the Dutch and Norwegian Ambassadors. I am writing this entry from the gallery, sitting at a desk in an empty white room surrounded by 30 of my photographs hanging on the walls plus some of the rickshaw pullers own photographs, and the ten stories that they told us. It is very strange to have my photos on display for the Dhaka public to judge and debate, but so far today (and the day is nearly over) only four people have visited, so we are not at risk of being engulfed.

Yesterday was a long day, trying to ensure that everyone could attend, and would do on time. Bangladeshi time is about half an hour (or more) behind our time, and so whilst the two European Ambassadors arrived on time, the Bangladeshis were very late.

Then we had the ‘who are these people farce’. We had met the Norwegian Ambassador and so we were able to say hello, but we had not met the Dutch Ambassador before. He introduced himself to me and we talked a bit, but my ED and Chairman somehow convinced themselves that this was the Norwegian Ambassador’s husband (or someone else entirely), and so when we were sitting in the anteroom waiting to start, they asked me aloud when the Dutch Ambassador would arrive, despite sitting right next to him. Luckily, it seems that being an ambassador in Bangladesh prepares you for such incidents.

Our launch was attended by five of the rickshaw pullers that we had worked with, plus a load of VSO volunteers and some people from NGOs and multilaterals – Wateraid, Concern, Save the Children, UNICEF, and the British High Commission. It ensured that there was a good audience for our guests, and that we had avoided the risk of the ambassadors addressing an empty room full of pictures.

We had speeches from the editors of two national dailies, and also from my Executive Director and Kamal, a rickshaw puller from Mohammadpur who we had worked with. Kamal was incredibly impressive, given that he has never attended school and cannot read or write at all. We briefed him and gave him the microphone and he was able to talk and talk about the problems he faces. Although the long term impact is pretty minimal, at least for those few minutes he was an equal, with ambassadors, expats, development workers and government officials listening to him and being interested in what he had to say.

It was also very moving to take the pullers into the exhibition hall for a private viewing before we opened it up. I think that when, in February and March, we first met them and said what we hoped to do, they were not really certain and bit wary of us. They did not believe we would pay them 200 Taka (which we did) and they did not believe that they would get a camera to take photographs with (which they did), but to see their pictures handing in a gallery, and their stories on the wall was quite startling for them. Most had never been in a gallery before, as normally they are denied access because of their profession and their class. Rickshaw pullers normally drive wearing lungis, but they turned up wearing trousers and their smartest shirts- they seemed very proud to be part of the project.

Unfortunately, Anisur, the 12 year old who we worked with, was very ill. He really looked very drawn and was showing the effects of nearly a year of rickshaw pulling. The event really revealed the lack of knowledge that such people have: I put a little extra Taka in Anisur’s pay envelope and told him that he should buy an icecream to make him feel better; some of the other pullers then began to ask me how they could treat hepatitis, jaundice and HIV. The lack of education is very difficult to comprehend when even the most ill educated in the West know so much: it was incredibly sad that what I hoped would be a small treat for someone who cannot afford them was actually interpreted as a genuine medical treatment.

Overall my organisation should be very pleased with the outcome. We looked very professional, and lots of people came along. The television stations were there as were the newspapers. My article was published on the day in New Age (click here and scroll down to see it) and this attracted some people. I made the staff give out brochures and their business cards and to talk to people so that they could start to build up a relationship with different organisations.

The aim of the project – to establish my NGO as the leading authority of rickshaw pullers in the country, and to advocate for a respect agenda for rickshaw pullers – was in some way fulfilled. Our media coverage and contacts have ensured that some people are talking about it. The challenge now is to build on the momentum and really drive the organisation forward. I think there are about six weeks in which to do this, and afterwards this opportunity will be lost. So I am hoping that my NGO will start to take some initiative.

The rickshaw pullers, I hope, have valued being part of something and finding someone to pay attention to them. This time round they were laughing, joking and trusting, and there is a strong rapport there that can be built upon for future work. The biggest problem with development work, in my opinion, is when the poor and the marginalised are invited into a new world for a brief moment, then dropped back into their old one and forgotten. I hope that we can sustain the involvement of the pullers that we worked with, as they have powerful stories and are fascinating people.

Up in the Hills

I have very recently returned from spending ten days working in the remote Chittagong Hill Tracts area of Bangladesh. This comprises three small districts squashed between India, Myanmar and the plains of the Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas, and is incredibly different to the rest of Bangladesh.

The hill tracts are so named because they contain the most unusual of geographical features in Bangladesh – hills. These are not very impressive hills, being a sort of afterthought to the formation of the Himalayas when India crashed into Asia millions of years ago. Compared to the unending flatness of Bangladesh (a flatness that is almost unbelievable), however, these are starkly different.

The other noticeable difference comes with the people. Some of Bangladesh’s 50 or so indigenous ethnic groups live in the hill tracts areas, a result of centuries of struggle across the Bengal plain. Mostly these people are Buddhist, though some are Christian and there is also animism in remoter areas. They are also not Bengali, and instead are of Tibeto-Burmese or Mongolian origin, looking much more like Burmese and Thai people than the smaller, darker Bengalis. This contrast is really very fascinating, especially as the indigenous people are rarely seen in Dhaka. The groups, mainly Tripura, Chakma and Marma, but including Monipuri (in Sylhet) and Karsi (in North Bengal) also speak languages related to south-east asian or Tibetan dialects, and have their own scripts (though some are romanised as there was no written tradition).

The obvious question would be, why are they here? Bengal has long been a place to fight over, and the successive waves of immigration and invasion of the subcontinent has seen many dynasties fall and rise and fall again. Before the Muslims arrived in the 13th and 14th centuries, this part of India was Buddhist and then Hindu. As each new group came in, took over and began converting, so the tribal peoples moved further east. Eventually, the last of the Chakma moved into the hills in around 1768 after losing a fight with Muslim-Bengali armies. They have remained there ever since, the remnants of a once powerful and dominating culture.

Under the British, the hill tracts had a special status and only the indigenous people were allowed to own land, but when Pakistan took over, all this changed and Bengalis began to move into Khagachuri, Rangamati and Bandaban to settle. The result has been a few decades of strife, freedom fighting/terrorism and general misery for the indigenous people, from not being taught in their own languages at school, to seeing hunting and farming land submerged by the new Kaptai artificial lake in the 1960s. The long standing dispute was finally ended in 1997 with an ‘internationally acclaimed accord’ but implementation of that has been very slow indeed.

The oppression still goes on. Last year, in a major land grab, thousands of poor Bengalis were allowed to come off the plains and take land in the hill tracts, with out compensation to the indigenous people. The wounds of the conflict are still very much open, and the army and police presence is omnipresent. For foreigners, there are huge restrictions as to where you can go, and the general feeling is of a place under occupation.

However, the tribal people that I spoke to certainly do not feel occupied. They are definitely, passionately even, Bangladeshi, and see themselves as Tripura or Marma within a wider cosmopolitan Bangladesh. They are certainly culturally very different. The women were wrap around tube skirts, and colourful scarfs, and the food is much more Thai like – very spicy, creamy, lots of bamboo. They drink (a lot): mainly rice wine, the local potcheen, but also rice beer. The women smoke openly on the streets, and in general people are more relaxed. They do not keep asking you where you are from, what is your country, why are you here, what is your name or any other of the millions of questions Bengalis all ask bedeshis. Up in the hills – a little cooler, and a little remote – a very different culture is going on, and one which is much more similar to something that bedeshis come from. It is no wonder that the VSO volunteers here do not like leaving.

I was working in Khagachuri (mainly Tripura and Chakma), the most remote of the three districts at Zabarang, Georgia’s NGO. I gave training on participatory research skills, report writing, proposal writing and monitoring and evaluating research. It in general seemed to go down very well, and made sure that my short intervention (as VSO likes to call these things) got a good balance of work and play.

Some things were different. I had frog curry (or ‘Mr Frog’, as the office staff called our dinner guest), which was a bit of a non-event, given that it was small and quite tasteless. Seeing them for sale in the market was something else though. We also had pork curries, a real change, and I managed to avoid the napi, a disgusting dried fish. There was also rice wine, and copious litchis.

Walking out into the villages at the weekends was really lovely, the setting so very different from what the rest of Bangladesh has to offer, and so relaxing. I was able to clear out 8 months of Dhaka pollution from my lungs (it has since returned) and see deep green fields, towering clouds, rising hills. And of course, lots of army.

At the second weekend, Georgia and I made a trip over to Rangamati, the largest of the three hill tracts towns, where we were able to enjoy a boat ride along the lake, an indigenous meal at the house of one of her colleagues, and a few walks through this lakeside town. The first day was a bit of a washout and was enough to make us both sick of Bangladesh however. It all started at the gate.

Before you can enter the hill tracts you need written permission from the district commissioner who will then send you a fax to present at the gate. You could feel the other passengers on our bus grown when we got on, knowing it would mean waiting at checkpoints as the police confirmed our access. Arriving at the Rangamati district checkpoint, Georgia and I got off the bus and traipsed over to a little hut in which a big man was sitting. This guy was incapable of doing anything without shouting, so we got the ‘WHERE ARE YOU FROM?’, ‘WHY YOU COME TO BANGLADESH?’, ‘WHAT IS YOUR COUNTRY?’ spiel much, much louder than normal. A farce quickly developed, as it turned out that the guy at Georgia’s office who had arranged our permission had given us not the fax, but a copy of the original letter he had sent to them and so we could not get in. The guard thought we were asking him, but had to keep running outside because it seemed he was also directing traffic, he could only get reception on his walkie-talkie if he crossed the road, and he was supervising the digging of a big ditch.

One sullen, boring French Canadian turned up and grunted his way through a conversation, but we discerned enough from him that he had the correct form and though we had permission, we would have to write another request form, which we did. The guard got very exasperated: ‘YOU HAVE PEN?’, no, we replied ‘HMMPF!’ was his shouted, sighing response as he threw a pen at us, and then had to keep taking it back as he had a ditch to manage and probably sudoko to do.

After half an hour we sheepishly got back on the bus to carry on, along with all our fellow passengers who had spent their waiting time staring at us, and were able to enter Rangamati some time later. We went straight to the place we were supposed to stay (a Buddhist monastery) by getting ripped off by a CNG, and after 2 hours, were concretely able to establish that they had no space and that we had to travel back along the road to the other branch of the monastery where we could get a room, a little isolated from the main town, but at least surrounded by tribal monks.

The saddest thing about the hill tracts was that I found myself very resentful of the Bengalis there who had taken land and business and were making the money whilst the tribal people remained impoverished. Of course, the Bengalis themselves are the poor who have come off the plains when offered the chance of land. The Bengali experience of the last 200 or so years has been one of exploitation, oppression and aggression, but it seems that rather than develop a compassionate humanity, they have simply learnt how to do the very things done to them. Like the world over, oppression seems only to teach the oppressed how to oppress those even less fortunate than them. This is the sad reality of the hill tracts in Bangladesh today, and it will be some time before a harmonious situation develops.

Falling Down in Bangladesh

Many urban cultural geographers have used the Michael Douglas film ‘Falling Down’ as evidence of the cultural products of post-Fordist urban dystopia. Why they have had to use a film and not simply looked at Dhaka I do not know, but I finally think I know how the character Douglas plays feels. For those that have not seen it, a seemingly normal man is one day stuck in traffic, and it becomes the final event that tips him over the edge to pursue a gun toting spree through the streets of L.A. Ultimately, he is driven to despair by grim reality of urban life in L.A. Bare this in mind whilst reading the following tale.

At the end of next week I am going on holiday to Cambodia, via China. This is the cheapest way of getting to the former, using China Eastern Airlines to fly via Kunming where I get a free overnight stay each way. About two weeks ago, I went to get my ticket, and was able to make a reservation. I was told that the office needed my work permit and a copy of my passport when I came to pay. This seemed relatively easy, and so I was able to go to work in the Hill Tracts (see next post) happy in the knowledge that I had my ticket reserved.

Yesterday morning, I arrived at the Chinese Embassy first thing to get a form for my Visa. I went off to get some photos taken (1 hour) and then was able to return, a little hotter and dustier (it was 42 degrees yesterday) only to find that the minion on the front desk had given me the wrong form. I had already read that there were three forms – Bangladeshi, USA and others – and had repeatedly checked with him that I was not getting the USA form, or indeed the Bangladeshi one. Of course, I had the American version and had to fill it all out again and join the queue at the back. All in all, from arriving at 9 am, I was able to submit my visa form at 12.20, ten minutes before it closed.

I then immediately set off on the 2 kilometre walk in the hot midday sun to Banani where I hoped to buy my ticket. Being prepared, I went to the bank and took out 10,000 Taka, only to find that it would not issue more than 5000 and then broke and refused to give money. I crossed the road to more banks, and after standing in queues and trying different machines, on the 8th go I was able to use my card three times in order to withdraw the 37,000 Taka I needed. Resplendent with more taka than most people here will ever see, I was able to trudge back to China Eastern and try to buy my ticket.

Firstly, I waited, and then had to remonstrate with a Bangladeshi attempting to queue jump (seemingly the national hobby when cricket is rained off) before finally being able to sit down and spend ten minutes trying to spell my name because the guy at the counter refused to let me write it down and make the job easier. Then we had the work permit saga.

I explained, as I had before, that as an NGO worker I was registered with the NGO bureau and not the Board of Industry, and therefore my letter was different. This seemed not to wash, because as well as cricket and queue jumping, the other pastime for Bangladeshis is never being wrong and always doing what they think is best for you, regardless of what you want. I got them speaking to Saifullah, VSO’s admin support and general fixer who explained in Bangla the issue. They had a long debate which ended in Saifullah saying to me that ‘probably they did not understand’ and then hanging up.

After about half and hour I was able to convince them that I could not provide the work permit they so desired, and so I then agreed to pay. This is where it got worse.

It emerged that having my 37,000 Taka in hand was not good enough because I needed to bring an encashment certificate with it to show that I had brought it into the country. ‘But I got it out the ATM said I’. ‘Get a certificate’ said they. I went out to the banks to find that they could not do it as for ludicrous reasons, all the banks close at 3 pm (which was by now the time). Resigned to a second day of misery, I set off to return today.

So came this morning, when I arrived at HSBC at 9 am to get an encashment certificate. They could not do it, but suggested that I go to the Standard Chartered ‘up the road’. ‘Up the road’ turned out to be about 3 km in a steady 40 degree, 98% humidity day and so I arrived, not 3 hours from waking, looking like I had crossed the desert to get there. The woman at the counter was immediately rude when I said I needed an encashment certificate, telling me how could she give one if I did not give her cash. Resisting the urge to explain that this was a ridiculous system anyway, I replied that I intended to give her cash, and I had the taka already. It was at this point that I discovered that the China Eastern office had misled me. For an encashment certificate, one must provide dollars in order to get Taka and a special receipt. The fact that I had not dollars (the currency of a foreign country) but did have ample taka (which Bangladesh issues) was immaterial. Dollars I needed.

I began my trapsing once more, heading up Gulshan avenue and along Kemel Attaturk Avenue to where I had seen an American express sign and hoped that this could be of use. Unfortunately, only the travel arm of Amex is in Bangladesh, not the useful travellers cheques side but the guy jumped on the opportunity to take China Eastern’s business from them, saying he could help and match the fare.

The farce then became more farcical. I would have to change my taka into dollars so that I could change them back into taka and get this bloody certificate and so buy my flight. The banks could not change my money so I had to use a money changer who saw a great opportunity to rape a debeshi, but by 11.30 I had $600 in my hand. I crossed the road to the bank to try to get my certificate. The first bank had exceeded its limit of dollars so could not change them. The next required that you have an account. Another would not accept my passport photocopy (because I had put my passport in the Chinese Embassy) and so turned me away. Yet another was an Islamic bank and had no idea what I was talking about. Eventually I was able to go to Standard Chartered and get in a queue (with some fighting for my turn) and change my dollars back into the taka I had had one hour before (minus various deductions) and get the prized certificate to take to the travel agent. This only took about 40 minutes, so was relatively quick by the day’s standards.

Finally, with a second wad of taka I entered the travel agent and after 20 minutes of fumbling about I was able to leave with a ticket in hand, and can, after a day and a half, go on holiday (assuming that the Chinese give me a visa). After this ordeal (for it was that, on my patience, temper and general disposition towards Bangladesh) I celebrated by sitting in a traffic jam for an hour. I no longer had the Douglaseque urge to leap out, grab a rifle and beat up some Koreans, but as Elias, my Ugandan flat make likes to say in a broad East African accent: ‘If I had a mask, I would kick them thoroughly.’ Quite.

Just Not Cricket (As We Know It)

Even if religion, caste, class and culture continue to divide the subcontinent, one thing is bound to continually unite them: the love of cricket. The opportunity to go to see a game between India and Bangladesh was too good to turn down, and so I was able to have my first real day out in Bangladesh.

India arrived in Bangladesh late last week for a three day ODI series and two tests, to be played in Dhaka and Chittagong. Cricket relations are tense: Bangladesh’s win against India in the world cup sent them out (and also upset many of the betting scams, or so rumour has it) and so the Indians have come over with an air of intent, determined to inflict retribution on their upstart Eastern neighbours.

The first ODI – last Thursday - was a close Indian victory: they scored the 251 they needed with just one over to spare, so for Saturday’s game there was eager anticipation as the whole country debated whether the Desh were up to the job.

Matches start early and we arrived just before 10 am to hear the roar of the stadium as the players took the field. In the belly of Mirpur Stadium the noise that we heard was immense: drums, whistles, shouting, horns, more drums. The concrete shook with the bombardment of sound.

When we entered the stadium, and as we fought our way through 55,000 Bangladeshis, the place was awash with green and red. Some were wearing four or five flags tucked into bandanas, others had small flags painted on their faces. Others carried inflatable tigers (Bangladesh are known as the Tigers for their ODIs), whilst one guy had painted his entire upper body in green with a big red sun on his chest. The game had attracted some real characters, showing early enthusiasm for the match.

Once the game started, the noise rose even more and did not stop for the entire day. The contrast between watching cricket at home and cricket here could not be more stark. Two lads in front of us banged on a snare drum non stop for about 10 overs, others were dancing and waving flats for ball after ball. India batted first, and every time a player fell the stadium left two or three feet into the air, flags and whistles were flung, and all the Bangladeshis were screaming. When Dravid and Dhoni, the two Indian stars that came along went, the celebrations borders on the violent.

The life of the stadium was fantastic. Ice-cream sellers picked their way among screaming supporters to flog chemical-flavoured and luminous green coloured lollies, whilst water sellers lobbed bottles across rows of supporters and money wrapped in paper bags was thrown back. The heat was also incredible – nearly 38 degrees in the shade but we were stuck in the sun, roasting on the hottest day I have felt since I arrived, and slowly burning as the rays beat down upon us. Simply sitting was sufficient for our t-shirts to turn sodden, holding enough sweat to be rung like a wet cloth.

The passion of the supporters was fascinating. The Bangladesh captain, Bashar, is under immense pressure at the moment, mainly because he is quite hopeless, and every time he fielded the ball or failed to stop a boundary he was jeered and whistled and booed. One guy proudly held his sign saying ‘All are Tigers but Bashar is a cat’ for most of the day. Bashar later went on to make a good forty or so runs and got some cheers, so the support was certainly fickle!

Any bedeshis in the crowd were wildly cheered, and Tim and I gained some kudos by having Bangladesh shirts and flags. They also picked us out on the television, as we have been told since. What was most interesting, however, was the openness and liberality of the spectators. Some had take of their shirts, others were dancing and singing, some women were smoking, other women had painted their faces and were wearing flags – it was as if this was the only place in Bangladesh were people could be themselves and really not worry about social pressures. Others took great delight in making us drum, shouting Bangladesh at Tim as loud as they could and generally fooling about. Inside the curved walls of Mirpur Stadium, the rules did not apply.

The game itself petered out a bit. At first India accelerated away, but Bangladesh were able to take a few wickets late on so that the visitors were restricted to 285 for 8 of 49 overs. This was to prove to much for Bangladesh, who started reasonably promisingly, but once they lost star man Ashraful cheaply, the run rate plummeted and though they batted out their 49 overs, they lost by 46 runs. India were never really troubled. It means that the ODI series is lost even though there is one more game to play, but there are still the tests, so hopefully Bangladesh can achieve something there.

For us, it was strange to able to have a real day out, to be able to do something entirely different and actually with a purpose. The noise and the passion of the supporters was incredible, the atmosphere alien but enchanting. Sadly there are no more series until South Africa come in January, unless the perennial opposition of Zimbabwe are invited (again). Until then, we will just have to hope for some more.

Through the 10th, but still on alert

Without a doubt you will not heard of last week's bombings in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet which brought some islamic inspired terrorism back to the streets of Bangladesh. The bombs themselves were very small, having the explosive power of an overshaken bottle of lemonade, but they have been sufficiently high profile here to get some attention from the embassies and a few emails with lines like 'rest assured, foreigners are a target'. I think the meaning was intended to be different!

The group that planted these bombs also made a specific threat against an islamic sect that does not recognise Mohammed as the last profit, and NGO workers. What links these two is still a mystery, but the message they left on a piece of tin near the bombs was quite clear:

'Stop associating with nonbelievers. Stop working for NGOs by May 10. Or prepare for death. If Hazrat (Prophet) Mohammed is not declared the superman of the world by May 10, all non governmental organizations will be blown up.'

Unfortunately for them, the evidence of last week was not sufficient to suggest that they could bomb all NGOs (of which there are something like 20,000 in Bangladesh); furthermore they did not specify whether they meant those NGOs registered with the NGO bureau or any organisation which was not governmental. And the desire for the Prophet to be superman of the world is simply bizarre, but quite entertaining.

The 10th has been and gone and VSO and all other NGOs are still here, so unless they have a different calender, it seems that we have got through this crisis. On the other hand, we are restricted from using trains, and are supposed to vigilent, so its not entirely a joke. But as seems to be the case in Bangladesh, organisations talk a great deal without actually managing to do anything, and this includes their terrorists.

In other news, I have finally got delivery of our organisations brochure, only 6.5 months after I finished my work on it with the person responsible. I think that this means that I have actually achieved something. Remarkable.

Today in Bangladesh

… 100 children died from diseases relating to a lack of clean drinking water

… 3 people were killed extrajudiciarly by the Rapid Action Battalion in ‘crossfire’ incidents

… 5 children were killed in road traffic accidents

… the caretaker government arrested 1000 people with no hope of trial

… 30,000 new Bangladeshis were born

…. 2,000 of them will have died on the same day

… 120 of their mothers also died

… 26,000 of will have be born without the help of trained medical staff

… 16% of children will not have gone to school.

… 85% of people earned less than $2

… teachers taught 41 children in each class

… half of all children under five remained malnourished

… $5.5 million of national debt was paid off

… 160 women and girls were illegally trafficked out of the country to become sex workers in India

… 75 million people did not have a toilet to use

… 6 million people were more than 1 kilometre from any form of water supply

… 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted

… 2 people died from HIV/AIDS

Sources, UNICEF, UN MDG, UNDP, World Bank

How to Take Over a Country

It probably is not making the news at home – indeed it doesn’t even make BBC World’s Asia Today news programme (though Mumbai’s wedding of the century is everywhere), but in the small corner of Bangladesh, the caretaker government is trying to send into exile the two former prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. It is quite an incredible turn in events. Six months ago Zia was prime minister of the eight largest (if flawed) democracy in the world, and Hasina the leader of a vigorous opposition aiming to recover power in January. By tomorrow, Zia will be removed from the country or face arrest, and Hasina, currently in the UK at the end of a month long private tour of the US and UK has been told she cannot return, and the government has told all airlines not to carry her as a passenger.

On one hand it is very exciting to see how quickly political situations can change; and most Bangladeshis are watching with some glee as these women and their offspring and co-corruptees are arrested, charged and humiliated. Some of the accusations are incredible, for example Hasina demanding a 3 crore donation (£300,000) to the Awami League from a power plant company so that a contract would not be cancelled. Many others have been arrested for hoarding corrugated iron in their houses that had been donated for relief housing to the poor. Bangladesh has no iron ore deposits and so gets almost all (80%) its steel from ship breaking. Any one that has some iron can make a great deal of money by selling it to smelters, even if that does mean that poor people affected by cyclones or flooding continue to be without shelter.

However, as much as seeing the political establishment collapse and once arrogant and dismissive characters pleading and protesting their innocence or lack of knowledge, it has to be a worrying trend. Firstly, whilst the caretaker government has severely attacked the political class, it has not gone after the bureaucrats and military figures who have also been involved in corruption. Secondly, as we move into the fourth month of the State of Emergency, more and more powers are going to the military backed government. It is now illegal to meet political inside or outside, to protest, to march, to write against the caretaker administration, and you can be arrested without warrant at anytime for any reason with no prospect of trial because the government suspects you of something. Some events are very distasteful. The director of Uttaran, a VSOB governance partner was arrested on the 27th January and detained without trail because a local former MP made a submission to the local police station. The reason? Uttaran have been working to counter the affect of shrimp farmers pushing the poor out of fishing grounds. The local MP was also head of a big shrimp-fishing cartel in the area.

As time has gone on, the President (a BNP stooge by all accounts) and now also the chief advisor have been increasingly quiet, whilst the head of the army has become more and more vocal. He has contradicted government statements on the role of religion in a Bangladeshi democracy, and has made dramatic statements about who he will arrest. It is felt that the army is behind the moves to remove Hasina and Zia.

The concern now is what happens next? Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Yunus has gone very quiet and seems content to travel the globe and getting free dinners as he talks up microcredit, rather than launching a party. Perhaps with the top brass gone the AL and BNP can be reinvigorated in a new, open democracy, but the other possibility is that the army steps in and takes effective control similar to Musharraf in Pakistan. The problem here is that if Bangladesh goes once more down the road of military dictatorship, the only viable opposition will be the Muslim fundamentalists, which are growing in the south-east of the country. Last time round, it was Zia and Hasina that brought down Ershad’s 9 year rule. Yet with their dynasties gone, there is no real civilian power that can counter the power of the army; as in Pakistan is facing now, Muslim power would seem the only resistance.

Therefore, it seems that rather than offering vocal support for the caretaker government’s actions, the British and American and other Western governments would be better demanding that Zia and Hasina face legal proceedings in Bangladesh, and that democracy is effectively restored. Not only is this the most likely way to keep Muslim fundamentalism marginalised (a major foreign policy concern of these countries), it also rings true with the objectives of supporting and promoting democracy. Despite the appalling things that Hasina and Zia have done, and the smiles their visible distress is causing, these will probably be short lived. They should face their accusations, not be kicked out. Their rapid fall from grace is fascinating, however, and the quiet ways in which freedoms and rights wash away should be a lesson to those in freer, more democratic countries to protect fiercely what they have.

Kolkata

I have finally left Bangladesh after almost seven months of Muslims, mosques and mosquitoes. I was quite desperate to get a chance to see somewhere new, and get a monetary break from the hugely oppressive Dhaka noise and air, and so Tim, Georgia and I made a quick dash to Kolkata, former capital of the British Raj and Bengal’s eternal city, for a change of scene. We have been reduced to going to Indian cities for some peace and quiet, clean air and relaxed ways of life, which for those that have seen Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata should be an indication of just how miserable a place Dhaka is.

Despite being part of Bengal for somewhere around 600 years, and having only had sixty years and 250 kilometres of separation, the differences between Kolkata and Dhaka/Bangladesh are probably more than between Armstrong’s home town and the moon. The Indians have developed some wonderful innovations that Bangladeshis would do well to emulate. For example, they have underground sewage systems, rather than open ditches in the street. Taxi drivers put the meter on without asking, instead of tell you its broken and they need lots of baksheesh (Dhaka has more broken meters than any other city). Taxis also queue at innovative taxi ranks, where the passenger can approach the lead taxi and ask for a journey, rather than being attacked by rickshaws, CNGs and anything else that will carry you. Once inside, the horn is merely a decoration, used only when necessary, and not a substitute for a battering ram, whilst traffic lights are obeyed and all cars stick to their traffic lanes. In fact, they even have traffic lanes painted on the street! Finally, a driver will actually know where he is going, rather than say that he does and then proceed to drive about the city asking locals for directions.

The trappings of civilisation do not stop there. Kolkata is resplendent with trees, an endangered species in Dhaka, and has wide open maidens stretching through the heart of the city offering citizens a place to play cricket or walk or sit. In Dhaka, this would become a rubbish dump. The few cows that do walk the city streets are big, well fed and healthy looking. No one asks you why you have come to Kolkata – its obvious – a huge contrast with the constant enquiry of Bangladeshis as to why on Earth you want to come to their country.

Our journey to this ‘sub-continent Paris’ began near midnight in the heart of Dhaka, with the usual waiting and waiting for a bus, in fearful anticipation as to how much the real thing would vary against the beautiful picture on the ticket, and then the rush for a seat and contortionist impressions as anyone over 5’6’’ tries to sit down. Typically, some very old, very loud and very annoying film or music is played, and with another budding Schumacher at the wheel a new death-defying (usually) journey in Bangladesh begins. Our bus was not too bad and so I managed some sleep.

At some time around 6 am we arrived at Benapole, a small border town and the main land crossing into India from the Desh. It is a dump of a place (and that is saying a lot for somewhere in Bangladesh), and exists solely as a place for people crossing the border to spend three hours. The bus stopped on the edge of the town, where we all packed on to rickshaws provided by the company and were driven the 2 kilometres to the border post. Last September this may have seemed absurd, but the idea that the bus stops away from the border despite there being a perfectly good road, and that all travellers descend on a fleet of rickshaw vans is no longer odd: indeed, I’d be surprised if such things didn’t happen.

As a hot Indian sun began to rise over our shoulders, we passed lines and lines of Indian goods carriers packed with aubergines, bananas, rocks and all sorts else, lined up and waiting for the border to open. Most Indian-Bangladeshi trade passes through this border, brought by truck drivers that spend hours traversing Bengal. They also bring HIV with them: Benapole is the main route of the virus in this part of the subcontinent, and truck drivers are a major target group for HIV/AIDS programmes.

After buying an exit pass, getting our passports stamped, getting customs clearance, doing it all again because Georgia did not buy an exit pass, queuing to enter India, getting embarkation cards, watching Tim convince the Indian guards his passport was a fake (apparently they put him off signing his card which is why his signature deviated so much from the passport one) and getting some expensive parathas, we were able to board the Kolkata bus on the Indian side, which conveniently had driven all the way to the border crossing. After just 3 hours of a reasonably sensible driving and much less beeping we arrived in the centre of Kolkata.

This city is entirely a British creation. Before the establishment of a trading post by the East India Company in 1690, there was nothing but a few villages here. Over the years the city grew as the East India Company managed to win more trading concessions in deals with the Mughals of central north India and the Nawabs of Bengal. Due to problems in these empires, and fighting amongst different Indian factions trade was threatened, so the EIC built Fort William on the river and cleared the maidens for protection to lay the basics of the city. People flocked there as it offered protection, and the city grew and grew. It became the centre of trade in the subcontinent, and many people (Portuguese, Armenian, Danish, French, Indian, Turkish and British) became filthy rich. Indian princes seemed happy to be bought off in contracts for trading rights for the EIC and its Dutch, Danish, Portuguese and French rivals, and it was only as late as the failed Sepoy revolt in 1857 that they finally realised how much more they were missing out on and the British government took full control.

British power and wealth oozes out of every street and rushes through the air. The wide roads are lined with huge classical style buildings, or mixed with Victorian era warehouses and the memorials to a past Empire. The Victoria Memorial, which we saw on the last day, would put to shame anything that Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin could have created. Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe or Lincoln’s memorial are nothing compared to this hulk of marble towering above the maiden. Do not forget that all of these others had to build their memorials in their capital cities – Queen Victoria’s is thousands of miles of way on the edge of the subcontinent.

We saw the marble palace – a decaying Raj era house full of Italian marble statues, Rubens paintings and rosewood carvings 8 feet high. It screams its historical wealth at you as you enter inside. We were able to eat real bacon, and Chinese cooked by Chinese people, and full fried breakfasts. Tim and I made a trip out to the botanical gardens and saw what could be the strangest tree in existence. The Great Banyan Tree covers 14,400 square metres in area, and the full canopy is 450 metres in circumference. It is a big, big tree. But what makes it more remarkable is the proproots that support the weight of the branches. The branches of the tree spread outwards and are periodically supported by perfectly vertical roots that plunge 10 or 20 metres towards the ground before they enter the earth. It is truly bizarre to behold, especially as it has no trunk (this was removed in 1925) and is over 240 years old. The roots look like pillars supporting the branches, creating the impression of a forest from what is still only one tree.

We also paid a visit to the Motherhouse, Mother Teresa’s mission and now gravesite. It was interesting to see, but there is not much on display other than her tomb (which is in her office) and her last sandals, passport, pen, plate etc. Christianity is quite prevailing in the city, with major churches and St Paul’s Cathedral therein, and hearing bells at sunset instead of minaret calls is a much more familiar and more harmonious sound – bells always ring true, whereas some Imams definitely cannot sing. And of course, we could sit out at night and have a beer.
Sadly, our three days was quickly up and we took a GMG flight (‘first class all the way’) back to Dhaka. The plane was really two vacuum cleaners hooked up with wings, and despite aspirations to be an airline, we had instead tray tables that did not say up, seats held together with duct tape, no cooling at all and a shaky trip. Landing in Dhaka, back into the grime, dust, manic streets, heat and noise was not pleasant. Nor is the requirement to register at the police special branch every time we leave or arrive in the country, a painful two hour trip. Luckily I have a six month India visa, and so can make many more trips over.

Mob Justice

I haven’t written on here for a while, and this is for a number of reasons. I worked for a week in the VSO office helping with the strategic plan review, which was very interesting and more challenging than some of my placement work, and I have added to my collection of tropical illnesses with giardia, a parasite that has seen me lose a fair bit of weight, be sick and generally feel rrrubbish. Then mum and dad came out to visit and that took a lot of time!

On top of all this, however, I also have now witnessed the darker underside of Bangladesh right in the heart of the area that I live. The poor and destitute do not get much attention or recognition anyway, but the viciousness of the beating that I saw on my walk back home was startling.

I was crossing the green by our flat a couple of weeks ago and heard some shouting down the road. I looked to see a group of people dragging a body along the grass. At first I thought that there had been some sort of accident, but as the crowd began beating the formless shape on the ground with cricket stumps and bats, its was clear that something else was the problem. This group, of between 20 and sometimes 50 people (passers-by seemed to just join in for a bit of mob justice on their way home from work) kept up the repeated beating and dragging across the green. The force with which they were hitting the person in their midst was phenomenonal, bringing the stumps down from way above their heads on his feet, shins and back, and then garnishing this with swift, hard kicks to the back and stomach.

Though sickenly compelling to watch, I decided to go back to my flat and collected some water and my first aid kit, and went to see some other volunteers to ask whether they thought I should get involved. I decided that it would be better to at least try to say something, so having walked back out to the green I went over to the group to try to find out what the problem was.

Luckily, even when they are administering retribution, Bengalis seem deferential to authority (which comes with being a bedeshi) and they stopped their work to let me through. Covered in dust and bleeding from his head, shins, feet and eyes was a kid of about 14 or 15, surrounded by standing, towering middle class Bangladeshis. He had no shoes, and was wearing two old rags made grey by years of washing in filthy water and living in this grimy city. I was the only person who was at his eye level, crouching opposite him as he squatted with his hands bound crudely behind him.

I asked what the problem was and the group said that this kid’s friend had stolen a mobile phone from one of them and got away, and they wanted to know where he had taken it, so where beating the answer out of the alleged accomplice. I asked why they did not go to the police, but they told me that police had given him back saying it was their problem: in this way they were given license to exact their own justice. I was told they would carry on until he revealed where the phone had been taken, assuming he knew.

They would not let me give him water or clean up his face and legs, and said that (now the beating seemed to be over) they had called the police and the doctor. I am pretty certain the first was the only one coming, and the way the police will treat kids like this it is unlikely that he made it through the night without more beatings, if he even made it through at all.

The whole thing was very upsetting, especially the absolute righteousness with which these people delivered their mob punishment. There is no care for the poor or marginalised in Bangladesh at all: no one is asking why these kids are on the street and why they are forced to steal and beg. It’s a very vicious society for those at the bottom.

Driving with Dignity

I have spent the last few weeks working on a project with my organisation looking at the social status and dignity of rickshaw pullers. I’ve been surprisingly busy, and hence have not managed to update this for a while. But perhaps this can be a little insight into the work we are doing.

Rickshaws are ubiquitous in Bangladesh: they crowd the roads pulling two or three passengers, fridges, plastic flowers, food (alive and dead) and anything else that can be crammed on the small plastic covered seats. Rickshaws are found all over south and south-east Asia, in many different forms, but it is in Bangladesh that they really go overboard. New rickshaws are covered in garish decorations, streamers, bells and paintings of mosques, lilies, actors, tigers and futuristic cities. They then fill the cities and villages, being the main mode of transport – 57% of all journeys in Bangladesh are on a rickshaw. Rickshaw pulling represents 6% of national GDP, 14 million people (10% of the total population) rely on it directly or indirectly for their livelihoods, and there are 800,000 pullers in Dhaka alone. It is at the economic, cultural and social heart of Bangladesh.

However, rickshaw pullers have some of the lowest social status going. No one wants to be a rickshaw puller: they are beaten by the police, cheated by passengers, abused by other road users, robbed, insulted and generally ignored. There is a real dichotomy between their cultural and economic importance and their social status and public attitudes towards them. So we have devised a small advocacy project designed to target social attitudes towards rickshaw pullers and directly empower pullers to access policy makers and the public in general to demand their rights – that to dignified, respected work.

To do this we have worked with ten pullers who live in garages across the slums of the city. Rickshaw pullers do not own their rickshaws but rent them from local mahajan (strong men) at about 50 Taka a day. The garages are owned by the mahajan, and consist of a small bamboo scaffold with a platform on top, on which the pullers sleep. Often these stick out over swamps or are next to filth-filled pools. In general, conditions are miserable. However, most people in Bangladesh do not know how the pullers live.

Our project has been to take case studies with the different pullers, and match this with photographs of them, their work and lives, and to exhibit this at an exhibition attended by diplomats, development workers and so on. In addition, we have asked pullers to take their own photographs to reflect their ideas of dignity and their social status, which we also plan to exhibit. The pullers will go to the exhibition and talk to visitors. This gives them access to a space that they normally cannot enter, and dialogue with people that never talk to them.

We are also producing (funding pending) a photograph book giving the photographs, case studies, some articles on rickshaw pullers and a brief history to try to expand the scope of the work and to widen the impact.

The exhibition will (hopefully) be held in Dhaka in May, and the book also be produced by that time.

The advantage for my placement is that I can use this as a method of teaching participatory research methods, project planning, dealing with donors, getting funding proposals completed, media and communications strategies, writing newspaper articles and academic journal articles. It should help meet a great many of my objectives for my job and will expose my organisation to the wider development community in Bangladesh.

There should be a tangible impact on the rickshaw pullers we work with as well, as they will actually get a voice to use, whereas normally they are kept silent. Some of their stories are incredible, and when they are all finished we will but them up on a website. One man is 75 and has pulled a rickshaw for 40 years. He spent 5 years in prison for participation in a murder, though he says he did not do it. Another is 12 a year old boy. Yet another has had five rickshaws stolen for him and been beaten by the police. There are some tragic and some funny tales that have come out, and with a bit of luck it will greatly change perceptions of rickshaw pullers, or at least their own perceptions of themselves.

And when the book is ready, you can all buy one.

Bangladeshi Food

Another cultural information to offer some insight into what the average Bangladeshi meal consists of. Few things can get between a Bangladeshi and his food – the multiple breakfasts of the Hobbits have nothing on hungry Bengalis that can put away kilograms of rice a day. This outline is for the traditional meal, not the one that half of Bangladeshis have, that being rice twice a day with a bit of fish or veg if they are lucky. The poverty is such that rice is the sole foodstuff for most people.

Breakfast will be a little curried papaya and potato, served up with chapatis (a flatbread), bananas, and an omelette cooked with lots of katcha morich (green chillies). Cha (tea) is a necessary accompaniment, usually incredibly sweet.

Breakfast is taken at sometime between 8 or 9, and almost always exclusively cooked by female household members. Some people I’ve met have genuinely said that they have not had breakfast because their sister did not get up in time: the ability to stick some bread in a toaster is seemingly beyond them.

At about 11, it is tradition to eat again, taking sweet cha (brewed with cinnamon, cloves, milk and bay leaves) with a shingara (a pastry stuffed with potato, chickpeas, peanuts and lentils) and a samosa. In the small restaurants and shacks, piles of shingaras and samosas can be seen growing each morning. They are usually gone by midday.

Lunch is a liberally timed affair. At work I’ve sometimes managed to get them to eat it at 12.30; occasionally it has been as late as 4.30! That day I was pretty furious, and pretty hungry. A huge bowl of rice will appear, and people will fill their plates with the same amount that before I came to Bangladesh I would have served to four people. On top of this is piled a vegetable curry, or a meat/fish dish. It’s all mashed in together with the hand and then scooped up and stuff down the throat. Once the plate is empty, it starts again with more rice and a dahl, a watery soup of lentils and onions and chillies. On the side is usually a plate of lemon and cucumber slices and green chillies. Most Bengalis will eat these chillies raw. I have been training myself to eat them and can now eat a small one or half a big one before it gets too unbearable. Behind the heat there is an incredible flavour: it’s worth trying.

Lunch will sometimes include a very solid mashed potato, a tomato chutney, fish balls, aubergine balls, tomato, coriander and chilli salad or an egg dish.

In the afternoon the fast food places start again and people will eat dahlpuri, a pastry style savoury snack stuffed with lentils or potato, or some onion bahjis, or chanachur, and addictive Bombay Mix style snack.

Dinner can be between 8 and 11, and is either a repeat of lunch, or will be a kebab. Chicken or beef is well cooked over open coals and eaten with a riata (onion, cucumber and yoghurt) and ruti (naan bread). The local kebab place here does a huge chicken kebab, garlic nan and a coke for 110 Taka (about a £1), and is brilliant. I try to go once a week.

The RAB

I’ve mentioned the RAB briefly before, but these guys really deserve further elaboration. They are only three years old, but already have notched up an impressive 1000 or so extrajudicial killings plus innumerable torturing and beatings. Not only that, they have a penchant for smuggling, corruption and general poor behaviour not befitting their status as Bangladesh’s elite policing force. However, they are immensely cool.

The Rapid Action Battalion was originally to be named the Rapid Action Team, a sort of superhero style naming of a police force (‘who you gonna call’…etc). Wisely they decided that calling out the RAT would not generate the same level of respect and fear, and opted for the more military sounding name. The RAB has a lot of attractions for its members: they get to participate in the best policing events (no directing traffic for them), they get better pay, they get respect and fearful looks from the public, and they get almost blanket judicial impunity.

However, without a doubt, their biggest perk is their uniform. The RAB are the coolest paramilitary/policing unit in the world. Firstly, there are the standard issue black army boots, often highly polished. Tucked into these are black combat trousers, kept up with a utility belt and buckle of which Batman would be proud. Above this is a black shirt, with a RAB silver badge and red lapel badges: some also wear a waistcoat with ‘RAB’ in bright yellow on the back. Black mittens with the fingers cut of is pretty standard, especially in winter, as is an enormous gun (or two) slung nonchalantly across the shoulder or aimed lazily at a passer by.

So far, pretty normal for a militarised police force. But what makes the RAB different is their head gear. They must wear black bandannas, of the sort with a flap hanging down the back of the head and over the neck. It looks like a bunch of rappers coming out Harlem. They also almost universally wear wrap-around sunglasses (black, or course). In all, they look like some bizarre cross between Italian police men, a 1980s US rap group and Bengalis. They never cease to be entertaining (unless they are ‘crossfiring’ you – a euphemism for killing you and getting away with it), and are rarely not posing. My local RAB hang about the corner of the field, sitting on 1970s style white motorbikes, at all times of the day (I think even when they are off duty). Others cruise (and they really do) about the city on bikes or in pick-ups, generally loving the fact that they are RAB.

If you ever have trouble, you just need to find a RAB and you know that the perpetrator will get crossfired if you need or desire it. I was sorely tempted when 12 eight-year-old street kids mugged me last weekend. A friend – Kathy – had secured some boursin for me from her visiting boyfriend and so I went to the only bakery I know that makes baguettes and spent a whole 40 Taka on one. This makes it a very expensive piece of bread. I had previously been pestered by some kids, and managed to strike a deal that I would take a photo of them in exchange for them buggering off and pursuing a bedeshi who actually had money. Yet a few minutes later, this time laden down with this prized baguette, they were back, surrounded me and grabbed my arms and were generally being annoying, until one little hand slipped into the bag and broke of most of the baguette and disappeared with shrieks of glee down the road, pursued by former comrades and now would be usurpers of the bread.

It is at times like this – when you feel violated, vulnerable and afraid of going out at night carrying expensive bread – that a quick call to the RAB, a whispered request and a promise of new sunglasses beckons satisfying revenge. I can hear the crossfire now…

I should point out that in seriousness, the problems the street kids face are multiple and terrible, and that the reality is that a little bread is the least we can do. The major problem is twofold. Firstly, as volunteers it is genuinely difficult to spare money from our allowance to make such gestures. If some people do this, all bedeshis become a target, which could endanger some people (unlikely, but possible). Secondly, most of the kids that are begging are being run by some local strongman (a real life Fagin – Dickens would have relished Dhaka), and money given goes to these people, not the children that collect it. The British High Commission makes contributions to charities working with street children, and some VSO partners are also involved in this. This is the better way to address the issue: ultimately if kids do not generate donations they would not be needed and could get to school instead (which in Bangladesh is more than a feasible alternative, at least up to the age of 11).

Bangladesh's Chief Rugby Advisor

I managed to acquire a new role yesterday as the chief coach, adviser and pundit to the nascent Bangladesh Rugby Association. A couple of days ago they advertised in a newspaper that the inaugural matches were being launched. Despite five months here I still naively thought that these would be properly organised teams playing real rugby. How wrong I was.

I turned up at the venue to see the Paltan maiden, a bit of dirt occasionally interrupted with grass, and decorated with glass, litter and stray dogs. However, someone had diligently marked out white lines and flags, with rickety posts in place and what must be the only four post protectors on the subcontinent.

I managed to find some of the organisers, one of whom kept asking me of the rules (and later turned out to be the referee!), and after spending 15 minutes stressing that ‘no I was not a professional player and I had not played at the world cup’ to numerous attendees, I saw the teams arrive. To a man they were all five foot six, with a frame more associated with a half-starved jockey than a rugby player. The four teams all had kit however, so there is a little bit of money around this.

The matches started and were incredibly funny. Firstly, the referee blew up for anything resembling a tackle, immediately awarding a penalty. Sometimes scrums would take place, usually for the cameras, with no real reason and certainly not for knock-ons which seem to be within the rules in Bangladesh. Whilst this was all going on I was continuously questioned by different journalists – why are you here, what do you think of the ground, what is the best type of pitch to play on, are these players good, which world cup did you play in – and so on. One of them was asking about the Haka, saying he had seen half of it but got too scared and turned the TV off! Bengalis are a sensitive lot.

I then turned from audience to TV pundit, and was asked first by Channel One (the main private channel) what I though of the game, and the possibilities of rugby in Bangladesh. I then worked my way down the touchline offering Austin Healey-style soundbites to all the crews. I know some people saw my interview on Channel One last night. This morning’s Bangla daily has a quote with the story, saying ‘a non-professional rugby player from England’ and that I think ‘clay or grass that is at one inch high is the best surface’. I am pretty certain that I said clay was not ideal and that I had no idea what length the best grass should be.

However, I may now have secured a coaching role as the referee wants help to know the rules, and the teams all need a lot of work. They seemed quite keen to have this so I will see if I can work out a way of doing it. But unfortunately there will still not be much chance of a game in the near future.

Weddings, Spring and Yunus' Brother

The last couple of weeks have offered some new insights into the strange social worlds of Bangladesh. I’ve been to a Hindu wedding, I’ve had dinner with Professor Yunus’s brother and seen a wet spring festival. On top of all that, I had to chase a stalker away from VSO.

To start with Yunus: last Thursday I went to dinner at the penthouse, very gay pad of Hero, another volunteer’s NGO’s chairman. This was the same guy that tried to recruit me for the Banglalink mobile phone company TV advert (I was too young for the role). He lives in an incredibly smart apartment, with cushions all over the floor, and flowers and art and uplighters, right in the middle of wealthy central Dhaka. His mother and sisters crowd into the rest of the flat that is not his ‘pad’. A few famous Bangladeshi singers, actors and dancers were there, as well as some people from Britain over to visit. We were all chatting, or looking stunned at a room I had only seen in a Dulux paint catalogue before now, when the next guest arrived.

Bangladesh is a thankfully a place where two types of people get idolised and admired. The first are cricket players, Brazilian footballers and Beckham, and the second are intellectuals. Hence Professor Md. Yunus – 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner – has been consistently lauded in Bangladesh since October, when he received this award. He has his own trademarks: slightly long grey hair, a wide, toothy grin and long colourful; waistcoats worn over white Punjabis. Having met the collection of people at this party, this final guest arrived, decked out in the same garb and wearing the same ridiculous smile. Though I would not normally be particularly impressed by ‘celebrity’, it was a little bit a of shock, and it took a moment before someone pointed out this was Yunus’ brother. This was after someone had whispered ‘bugger me, its Yunus’, a little loudly.

The brother is clearly not Nobel potential, spending a long part of the evening watching television. It was like one of those people hired to be at a party as a look-a-like, and a disappointing one at that.

The wedding took place a couple of days earlier, being that of Pullak’s sister. Pullak was one of our language teachers, and also one Bangladesh’s most depressed men. He often would moan about his low wage and how little money he had, which made the lavish 3 lakhs (300,000 Taka or 2,500 pounds) spent on this event seem very out of character. The wedding was a Hindu one, held in a community centre in some subcentre of Dhaka. Only myself and Mikey (a Canadian volunteer) went along, though all VSO people had been invited. This also proved to be a bizarre experience.

Firstly, the hall was sparsely decorated, with lots of tables set out for dinner and two pagoda style seats as the only ornaments besides intrusive fluorescent lighting. Before eating, the groom arrived, looking about as miserable as you possible could on your wedding day. It is custom for Hindus to be solemn on the day, but this was taking it to Shakespearean levels of misery: he scowled his way into the hall and slumped onto the pagoda before sitting there like some sulking teenager as people took pictures and videos. Nothing, however, gets between a Bengali and his/her stomach, and with the appearance of the first plate of food the groom was abandoned to his solemnity as people dashed to spaces on the tables.

Over three sittings, people stuffed as much fried hilsha fish, chicken tandori, goat curry and pilau rice down their throats as possible, before moving on to the sweet orange rice and sweetmeat. And then they left: within ten minutes of each sitting finishing, most had left. For some, the bride had not even arrived! Even when it is a wedding, they come, eat, and go.

The bride did eventually arrive and went upstairs to the mezzanine floor where the second pagoda was sitting, and sat down, at which point some older women began a sort of wailing that sounded similar to a Sioux Indian war cry, but here was to help prepare the bride for the marriage. She also looked pretty miserable, but we were told that they had not met before and so I could sympathise a little. The dowry gifts offered were mainly toiletries and tissue, so if she was hoping for an Ipod she would have been disappointed.

Anyway, it now being 11.15 and the ceremony still not materialising, we excused ourselves from the remaining 40 or so guests (of about 250 who originally arrived). The ceremony apparently took place at about 12.30: with probably three guests left.

Finally, last Tuesday was the first day of spring, at which normally conservative Muslims throw their reservations out the window and done bright orange or yellow saris, marigold flowers and Punjabis and welcome the Hindu god of love and spring. It being spring it also brought the first rains of the year, finally opening up a blue sky other months of dusty, pollution smothered grey. It is a welcome change.

Bangladesh comes together, the flat falls apart

It seems that the state of emergency is going to be in place for some time, possible up to a year, and maybe even beyond that. As someone said to me a couple of days ago: ‘the people are not used to obeying the law, but now they must and it takes getting used to’. Whether that is suitable justification for maintaining the army-backed administration or not is a highly debatable subject amongst Dhakians at the moment.

The impact is clearly noticeable, however. I have had yet another experience with the Army, once more not of my own doing. It is almost as though they are following me about. I was at the Stadium Market yesterday with some of my colleagues, trying to find disposable cameras for a project. Underneath Bangabhaban National Stadium are crowded hundreds of small shops and stalls selling anything from batteries to mobile phones, MP3 players to impressively large fridges. Why the national stadium is also the biggest electronics market in the country is not explained, but on a Bangladeshi scale this is not even that odd, and certainly not surprising.

The search for cameras proved fruitless, so we settled for a 500 Taka point and shoot. As we were buying it a huge cry went up from somewhere, and suddenly half the store owners and workers were throwing goods into boxes and slamming down shutters. The guy we were buying from snatched the 500 Taka as his 7 year old staff were pulling shutters, and what had been a typically sedate day suddenly burst into panic. Within seconds the shop was shut and padlocked and the owners had melted into the crowd. The only sound was the crashing of steel doors and the shouting of owners at their boys. The sirens competing with the prayer call for soundspace hinted at what the fuss was about: these usurers (at least of bedeshis) had not been struck by a sudden devout moment, but rather did not want the Army to investigate whether they had any smuggled goods. I think the Army, however, would have an easier job looking for genuine products. It would certainly be quicker.

Not every business is on the list, and so we went into one that was still open to buy film and batteries. It was here that, having handed over a 500 Taka note that the Army turned up. Shopkeepers never have change for a 500 Taka and so send off one of their boys to find change from a neighbour. So I watched my 500 Taka (or rather, VSO’s 500 Taka) disappear and two Army soldiers arrive in its place. Dressed in full kit – helmets, camouflage, rifles – and began poking around the shop, clearing everyone out. The shouting and crashing coming from other parts of bowels of the stadium suggested that those shops not lucky enough to be frequented by a bedeshi at the moment of the Army’s arrival were getting a kicking, mostly of their stock but often to themselves. I was left in the shop, trapped between two (small, but armed) soldiers and all the stock that they wanted to pull off the shelves and ‘investigate’. But I could not leave as I was waiting for my 380 Taka change to arrive. It was rather awkward, having explained why I was not leaving, especially as the boy took ages. Yet because this was for work I needed a receipt, and maintained the farce by asking for one, and the soldiers and I watched the owner writing out the voucher as though this was a totally normal event on a normal day. Like those scenes in Westerns when the fighting in a saloon stops for a moment, I am sure that as I turned the corner, normal practice resumed and the rest of the voucher book ended smashed on the floor along with the other stock.

The law is being enforced on building regulations as well, and thousands of small shacks and shanty houses across the country are being bulldozed. As usual, it is the poor that get affected by this, not the rich. A hut selling cha (tea) is a nuisance for middle class professionals, but it is a lifeblood for the operator. More formal establishments are hit, however. The restaurant that sells what must be the best shinghara and samosa in Dhaka has been closed, the roof ripped off and all the tables, pots and staff removed. The site only had permission for residential, not a café, but until now this was not enforced.

On one hand this sort of action is very good, because the lack of governance and accountability in Bangladesh is startling (the title of most corrupt country in the world since records began does not do it justice, nor does losing the title to Chad this year reflect an improvement: its just that Chad has got much, much worse). The government does need to start to take action to enforce regulations and accountability. However, the vast majority of infringements are made by the urban poor. It is they that squat on government land, and who set up stalls in the street. At the zoo, workers have established their own squat in the grounds. Their injustice is pretty stark: the animals’ conditions are much better than their keepers’. The answer has to be to legitimise illegal squats, accept the reality of the urban poor, and serve them .Of course, with this comes responsibilities, like meeting electricity and water connections to which legal buildings are entitled. And where will the money come from to pay for 6 million water connections in Dhaka? Certainly not from the pockets of the richest who are the real infringers of the law.

Hope has been raised though as 15 former ministers were arrested a few days ago, into investigations of their extreme wealth, and the best friend of the immediate past Prime Minister’s son is on the run. He is worth $85 million, allegedly embezzled. From nothing to this wealth in 5 weeks and his flight to India suggests that the allegations are pretty strong.

Whilst the army-backed government is starting to sort out Bangladesh, for good or for bad, our flat is falling apart. Yesterday the entire light fitting in the kitchen crashed to the floor, leaving live wires floating above our heads and a completely dark kitchen. Also, the cockroaches are back, with at least 15 dead in the last day or two. One was about four inches long, absolutely huge. Our fridge is still has its fever, going from glacial ice sheet to tropical sea but failing to just be a cold fridge and freezer. I still have not decided if I prefer frozen tomatoes or soggy bread.

Ashura

After some lapses in interest following the State of Emergency declaration last month, Bangladesh got back to its religiously zealous best on Tuesday with the occasion of the Ashura festival. This was a national holiday so I went up to Mohammadpur to take a look.

Ashura is the 10th morum – a ten day period of morning and reflection - and seemingly the most eventful day in Islamic history. It is the day on which Adam was forgiven for letting Eve get out of control, the day that Nuho (Noah) landed his ark, the day that Yunus (Jonah) got out of the whale, the day that Yusuf (Joseph) had his accusations in Egypt rescinded and also significant days for Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus). It happens to be the day that the world was created, and also the day on which it will be destroyed.

For the Shia (a minority in Bangladesh), it is also the day that commemorates the death of Iman Hossain. He was killed at Kaballa (now in Iraq) in battle by Shema, a soldier of Yazid’s army. Yazid had taken power to be the Caliph corruptly, and Hossain had gone to war to challenge this. So all in all its an important day.

In Mohammadpur there is an area known as Geneva Camp. This a slum in which the Bihari live. The Bihari are an ethnic group from Pakistan who speak Urdu, not Bengali, and are Shia Muslims. They are technically ‘stranded Pakistanis’, a legacy of the 1971 split. They do not have any state, as they are not considered Bangladeshi and Pakistan will not take them in. They exist a non-existent state, excluded from the meagre offerings that the Bangladeshi government does give to its poorer citizens, and religiously, ethnically and linguistically marginalised. Geneva Camp is a pitiful place, a tiny world of dark streets and darker houses. It has all the elements of some Dickensian nightmare, hiding within its walls the smell and sight of human misery, and the sorts of disabilities and afflictions not seen in Europe in a hundred years.

But on the day of Ashura, they can take to the streets waving Pakistani and Turkish flags, drumming fast beats and carrying small shrines. Iman Hossain was killed by a sword, so to feel the pain some of the more committed attendees flail themselves with knives attached to the end of a chain. Others breathe fire into the air, and many tie green or red bandanas to their heads emblazoned with verses from the Qu’ran. The whole spectacle is really colourful, noisy and messy: children are given scented water to through about, and seemed mainly to through it at us, leaving us pretty wet. Horses are decorated to look like warrior steeds, whilst other people carry huge feathered contraptions with knives sticking out that they make spin round in the middle of the crowd. The game is duck or get stabbed. Not realising there were real knives on it, someone encouraged by to duck as it came spinning out of control towards where I was standing.

The whole festival went on all day, but a few hours in the streets is more than enough and so we wandered away via the Zia monument, where water and money better spent elsewhere was being wasted on a fountain light show. But it is as close to peace and quiet that can be found in Dhaka.

The next evening (Wednesday) I went along to a cultural event being run by another volunteer’s NGO. This organisation represents Males who have Sex with Males (MSM) – which is reported to be 70% of the male population – and the dances were aimed to express the problems they face, including drug culture, in society. This is not just homosexuals, and many who engage in such activity would be horrified if they were thought to be that. It is partly related to sexual repression of Bangladeshi society and the simple unavailability of women, or so the NGO line goes.

The dancing itself was incredible, especially the professionals who were really very good, and mixed traditional tampla dances with more modern sounds in colourful costumes. It certainly made a real change to see something very different here, even if it seems that any attempt to make not doing drugs look cool fails anywhere in the world: I’m not sure a man dressed in a pink and yellow sari that dances about the problems he has after injecting heroin will make kids stop taking it. But perhaps I would be wrong.

This week I’ll be starting a rickshaw advocacy project, which should hopefully work well and will further my NGO’s aims, and then I’ll be running a session on how to write a CV, particularly focusing on what should not be on them. So work could pick up a bit now.