http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_hajj_and_eid_aladha.html
a Dhaka picture from the set, people leaving the city to go to village homes:
lunes, 22 de diciembre de 2008
Eid around the world
here's a link to a beautiful set of pics of Eid al Adha (feist of sacrifice / end of the Hajj) from around the world.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_hajj_and_eid_aladha.html
a Dhaka picture from the set, people leaving the city to go to village homes:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/the_hajj_and_eid_aladha.html
a Dhaka picture from the set, people leaving the city to go to village homes:
viernes, 12 de diciembre de 2008
domingo, 7 de diciembre de 2008
a christmas story :)
hi everyone! i haven't done much blogging in a while, but i'm going to do share a few stories before coming home!! for the holidays.
Life at school has been incredible. I am stretched in every direction. Every event you can imagine, I have chaperoned it. So many students have I tutored! and so on...
Most of all, I got myself a little too involved in a charity project here. Tia Cris wrote to me, that it is often the projects you get quickly excited about and don't think through all the way that take over your life and energy and don't always produce maximum results: YES. This has been an exercise, a good karma generator that just won't die.
It began with an innocent suggestion that we make postcards of my photos and sell them here in the lead-up to the holidays. However, after paying significant money for less than mediocre print quality it was decided that the prints we bought were too poorly-done to sell. People sadly agreed that they wouldn't have any use for them as they were. So how to re-coop the loss?
And so came the idea to mount the prints on pieces of tag board, and then to do traditional wood-block stamping over top for an authentic Bangladeshi twist. The plan was to make as many "postcards" as we could and sell them at the school Christmas bazar.
And so! With the help of multiple art teachers and about 15 8th grade girls in a huge production line we produced more than 200 cards. On the day of the bazar we were set to sell them. We also ran a make-your-own card booth for the kids. Oh yeah - we charged a high price! A dollar fifty for each one! Trying to make back the money we'd already spent up-front on all the supplies.
Things were not going so well. People meandered by our booth, then looked around at the million other trinkets they could buy - maybe they picked up a postcard or two, but our stack was not going down at any kind of speed.
Thank goodness, a woman came by in the mid-afternoon and was taken by the beauty (haha!) of our strange creation. She bought 100 cards to use as a company Christmas greeting mailer. Ch-ching baby. Then, our superintendent came by and checked out this excellent example of a middle school effort in service learning and Bangladeshi culture - he also asked for 100 cards to take on his recruiting trips this spring! Sold!
And so we recovered our costs, and made about $200 more. Whew, I thought we were sunk - that we came out in the black is a small miracle.
On top of this, the calendar has already made over $200 for the FFC charity -
Oh guys, I'm happy to have had so much support and goodwill toward Bangladesh and these efforts. I now can say that, through the generosity of friends, I'll get to donate about $400 to the FFC orphanage this Christmas. Thank you.
In the next few days, I'll write about Eid-ul-Azha. That's a Muslim holiday spanning 3 days. It takes place this week and it involves the slaughtering of cows, in order to give meat to the poor. Thousands of cows have been shipped into Dhaka in the last week, and every wealthy family kills a cow - everywhere. This will be interesting. I'm going to get out my camera again, which has had several weeks of rest.
I'm also going to write about the Bangladesh political situation, something I have been wanting to tell about for a while. Presidential elections happen while we are gone for Christmas break.... they are the first presidential elections since the military seized power and declared a state of emergency several years ago. In fact, John McCain and Joe Lieberman came here last Tuesday, to Dhaka, for a 10 hour visit on their Asia tour - encouraging a message of free and fair and safe elections... we'll see. The political protest scene happening here now is fascinating and intimidating...
Life at school has been incredible. I am stretched in every direction. Every event you can imagine, I have chaperoned it. So many students have I tutored! and so on...
Most of all, I got myself a little too involved in a charity project here. Tia Cris wrote to me, that it is often the projects you get quickly excited about and don't think through all the way that take over your life and energy and don't always produce maximum results: YES. This has been an exercise, a good karma generator that just won't die.
It began with an innocent suggestion that we make postcards of my photos and sell them here in the lead-up to the holidays. However, after paying significant money for less than mediocre print quality it was decided that the prints we bought were too poorly-done to sell. People sadly agreed that they wouldn't have any use for them as they were. So how to re-coop the loss?
And so came the idea to mount the prints on pieces of tag board, and then to do traditional wood-block stamping over top for an authentic Bangladeshi twist. The plan was to make as many "postcards" as we could and sell them at the school Christmas bazar.
And so! With the help of multiple art teachers and about 15 8th grade girls in a huge production line we produced more than 200 cards. On the day of the bazar we were set to sell them. We also ran a make-your-own card booth for the kids. Oh yeah - we charged a high price! A dollar fifty for each one! Trying to make back the money we'd already spent up-front on all the supplies.
Things were not going so well. People meandered by our booth, then looked around at the million other trinkets they could buy - maybe they picked up a postcard or two, but our stack was not going down at any kind of speed.
Thank goodness, a woman came by in the mid-afternoon and was taken by the beauty (haha!) of our strange creation. She bought 100 cards to use as a company Christmas greeting mailer. Ch-ching baby. Then, our superintendent came by and checked out this excellent example of a middle school effort in service learning and Bangladeshi culture - he also asked for 100 cards to take on his recruiting trips this spring! Sold!
And so we recovered our costs, and made about $200 more. Whew, I thought we were sunk - that we came out in the black is a small miracle.
On top of this, the calendar has already made over $200 for the FFC charity -
Oh guys, I'm happy to have had so much support and goodwill toward Bangladesh and these efforts. I now can say that, through the generosity of friends, I'll get to donate about $400 to the FFC orphanage this Christmas. Thank you.
In the next few days, I'll write about Eid-ul-Azha. That's a Muslim holiday spanning 3 days. It takes place this week and it involves the slaughtering of cows, in order to give meat to the poor. Thousands of cows have been shipped into Dhaka in the last week, and every wealthy family kills a cow - everywhere. This will be interesting. I'm going to get out my camera again, which has had several weeks of rest.
I'm also going to write about the Bangladesh political situation, something I have been wanting to tell about for a while. Presidential elections happen while we are gone for Christmas break.... they are the first presidential elections since the military seized power and declared a state of emergency several years ago. In fact, John McCain and Joe Lieberman came here last Tuesday, to Dhaka, for a 10 hour visit on their Asia tour - encouraging a message of free and fair and safe elections... we'll see. The political protest scene happening here now is fascinating and intimidating...
check this out! just another funny Bangladesh happening
SONARGAON, BANGLADESH:
A wealthy Bangladeshi film-maker has told how he built a replica of the Taj Mahal so that the poor of his nation can
The life-size structure cost 58 million dollars and was five years in the making, a fraction of the time it took thousands of artisans to build the real thing.
"Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them," said director Ahsanullah Moni.
He said he hoped his version, located 30 km (18 miles) northeast of the capital Dhaka, would prove as big a draw to local and foreign visitors as the original.
Bangladesh makes little money out of international tourism, with just 0.1 percent of visitors to the Asia-Pacific region stopping off there, according to the World Tourism Organisation.
Moni first visited the original Taj in 1980 and made the trip six more times as he followed his dream to replicate it.
He hired specialist architects, sending them to India to measure the dimensions of the real Taj Mahal, and brought six Indian technicians to his building site across the border.
Work finally began in 2003 and will be completed this month, when the new Taj throws open its doors to the public.
Moni imported marble and granite from Italy, diamonds from Belgium and used 160 kilogrammes (353 pounds) of bronze for the dome.
"I used the same marble and stone as in the original Taj," Moni said. "We used machinery, which is why it took less time. Otherwise it would have taken 20 years and 22,000 workers to complete it."
The original Taj was built over two decades in the 17th century by heart-broken Moghul emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved second wife who died during childbirth.
Moni, a successful director in Bangladesh's "Dhaliwood" film industry, has made 20 movies. He owns a cinema hall in Dhaka and a three-star hotel.
miércoles, 3 de diciembre de 2008
Good Question Friedman
Calling All Pakistanis
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai, India?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai, India?
martes, 25 de noviembre de 2008
here are the last notes, and pictures, from the october journey:
-Journey to Bandarban District ("welcome to the hilly green edge of Bangladesh")... close to Burma!
-many ethnic/tribe groups
-permission required to enter this district. many security checkpoints VERY inefficient process
-stayed in 'hillside resort' cabin in the deep woods
-took 5 hour hike through the forest and paddies with a local guide 'Onik' who introduced us to lots of different villages and several different tribal groups along the way. hard hiking...
-Bandarbans looks a lot like W.Va mountains to me!
-Bandarbans means 'monkey forest', but no monkeys inhabit it. sad realization
-that night, did some walking and some shopping in the town at the base of the mountains. Bangladesh is a country of stall-shopping: little one-small-room places side by side that sell much of the same thing everywhere! in particular: bananas, tea, potato chips, flip-flops, scarves
-early the next morning, a stop at Bandarban Buddhist shrine which was BEAUTIFUL and absent of all other people. a visit with the sun just coming up - wow! such a peaceful place
-Travel to Rangamati, small town that is home to a famous Buddhism center!
-A day of much, much driving on perhaps the worst roads ever been on. We were accompanied on the road by many trucks and many many buses so crammed full of people that they spilled happily onto the roofs of their vehicles. we passed one bus with over 30 men sitting on the roof. remember: high speeds, SHARP curves, VERY bumpy and narrow roads. insanity!!!!!!!!
-more security check points
-a visit to a hanging bridge
-a visit to the tribal 'king's' house; there is still a 'king' today but he has no political power
-sampan rides to and from the sites in this town
-visit to Rangamati Buddhist temple/center. we are told about this place: once a year there is a big ceremony and festival here that attracts 3 million people, from Bangladesh, India, and Burma. the festival is in November, and preparations were underway. the complex was simple, very nice. the Buddhist monks offered refreshing calm and sincerity
-long hours of tense driving
-finally, returning to Chittagong our driver Kalam takes us to see an Islamic prophet's holy burial site from 300 years ago, which is also a pilgrimage place: there is a pond there filled with HUNDREDS of big white turtles who swim around and eat the food that people feed them and let people touch their shells. a very surreal scene at night time - no pictures aloud! and i had to cover up with a scarf. woah, mind-blowing experience! holy turtle pond
Overall Thoughts:
-Life in villages seems better than the life of a poor person in Dhaka city...
-Bangladesh is a land of cement stalls.
-trash is everywhere. all over every street, littered through green spaces, piled in public areas. for me, it makes everything seem so dirty... i have trouble adjusting to this
-so many people, people filling every vehicle to the brim, people lining every street
-Driving is so dangerous. People in every sort of vehicle from pedestrian, rickshaw, baby taxi, car, truck, bus share the same highways of narrow and poorly maintained roads. the country's biggest highway - the Dhaka-Chittagong highway - is a two-lane road not divided. people drive way too fast and pass each other all the time. it is normal to be run off the road... it must have happened to us 50 times on the drive home.
-We (the 3 interns) hired a school driver to drive our car on this trip: Kalam. He is a smart man and we trust him a lot, more than any other driver we've met. He took really good care of us - and we needed his guidance. He was very kind to come, and we also paid him a great salary - as well as money for him to eat and sleep along the way.
so glad we got to know Bangladesh at this much deeper level now - what an adventure it has been this last week. I also feel very grateful that we made it home safely. I went in to school yesterday after we got home, and really enjoyed the kind welcome that the school staff (mostly local folks - our cooks, guards, and janitors) gave. Glad to get busy with school life again - a successful break!
Pics from Jimi and Beckley:
hear no, see no, speak no evil at the buddhist temple
hiking
miércoles, 19 de noviembre de 2008
back to the story - a day in chittagong city
Notes from a day in Chittagong, the country's 2nd biggest city:
-New Market and Jhahor Bazar for saris and garment rejects; many Tshirts purchased
-a stop at the British-built courthouse, nicest building we've seen
-Kalam, our awesome driver, sweet-talked our way into the ship-breaking yards where we saw beached ocean-liners being blown apart and stripped down into every isolated part: floor boards, bells, sofas, kitchen sinks, rope, toilets, etc. These yards got some serious bad press several years ago, and generally they haven't been letting foreigners in to see. go Kalam!
we took stealthy pictures from the hip even though we weren't supposed to. i was used as a distraction by my housemates: i'll post some of their pics too!
-a stop at Foy's Lake, Chittagong's favorite amusement park, where we took a paddle boat ride. not a bad place, but a really weird place
-dinner at an awesome Indian restaurant - what a find! where the guys ordered 'dosas' (fried flat bread stuffed with some delicious curried something) that were 1 meter in diameter. we got lucky with this pick - clean food is tough to find
-i feel i haven't seen many women this whole trip...
in the big shopping center, men pick out wedding saris
scarves
from the car
the courthouse and around it
working at the docks
shipbreaking
-New Market and Jhahor Bazar for saris and garment rejects; many Tshirts purchased
-a stop at the British-built courthouse, nicest building we've seen
-Kalam, our awesome driver, sweet-talked our way into the ship-breaking yards where we saw beached ocean-liners being blown apart and stripped down into every isolated part: floor boards, bells, sofas, kitchen sinks, rope, toilets, etc. These yards got some serious bad press several years ago, and generally they haven't been letting foreigners in to see. go Kalam!
we took stealthy pictures from the hip even though we weren't supposed to. i was used as a distraction by my housemates: i'll post some of their pics too!
-a stop at Foy's Lake, Chittagong's favorite amusement park, where we took a paddle boat ride. not a bad place, but a really weird place
-dinner at an awesome Indian restaurant - what a find! where the guys ordered 'dosas' (fried flat bread stuffed with some delicious curried something) that were 1 meter in diameter. we got lucky with this pick - clean food is tough to find
-i feel i haven't seen many women this whole trip...
in the big shopping center, men pick out wedding saris
scarves
from the car
the courthouse and around it
working at the docks
shipbreaking
miércoles, 5 de noviembre de 2008
For Many Abroad, an Ideal Renewed
Click here for full NYTimes article!
GAZA — From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens.
Even where the United States is held in special contempt, like here in this benighted Palestinian coastal strip, the “glorious epic of Barack Obama,” as the leftist French editor Jean Daniel calls it, makes America — the idea as much as the actual place — stand again, perhaps only fleetingly, for limitless possibility.
“It allows us all to dream a little,” said Oswaldo Calvo, 58, a Venezuelan political activist in Caracas, in a comment echoed to correspondents of The New York Times on four continents in the days leading up to the election.
Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.”
_________________________________________________________________
Results of our mock election at school (everyone was able to vote, including all staff, regardless of nationality)
A total of 451 votes were cast as follows
Obama 87.3%
McCain 7.1%
Other 2.9%
143 voters identified themselves as US citizens and voted as follows
Obama 86.0%
McCain 9.1%
Other 3.5%
271 voters identified themselves as non-US citizens and voted as follows
Obama 91.0%
McCain 5.5%
Other 2.2%
domingo, 2 de noviembre de 2008
politics and world view
Prayer for Obama in Kolkatta: Coimbatore Chant for Barack
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081031/jsp/foreign/story_10042287.jsp
Priests at a Dhanwantari shrine in the Tamil Nadu town are holding special pujas and yagnas every day so that Obama has a stress-free, successful campaign and a long life and defeats his enemies.
Obama has the Support of Peruvian Faith-Healers
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-odd-shamans-for-obama,0,1848117.story
http://www.telegraphindia.com/
Priests at a Dhanwantari shrine in the Tamil Nadu town are holding special pujas and yagnas every day so that Obama has a stress-free, successful campaign and a long life and defeats his enemies.
Obama has the Support of Peruvian Faith-Healers
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-odd-shamans-for-obama,0,1848117.story
sábado, 1 de noviembre de 2008
on to Chittagong
hi! here the story of our trip continues; things really got wild on the second half, when the 3 interns hired a driver and went to Chittagong and the Hill Tracts area. we went without many plans, and saw some cool and some really weird things
Day 1
on the way to Chittagong City:
-leaving Dhaka at 5am, we brave the highway
-pull over at old Hindu village. hike up 1000 steps to Hindu temple overlook. steep and so so sweaty. the first elevation since arriving in bangladesh!
-animal sacrifice ?? made it down from the hike just in time. ladies making loud high-pitched noises at the moment of the big swipe. 2 baby goats got their heads chopped off with a big curved knife that had been blessed at a Hindu altar. we were there, along with 30 or so local people, to watch it happen from up close. the body parts moved after they were separated. all this was shocking
-we were invited to lunch by local gurus (some kind of enlightened sect). a climb up to their compund and an all-vegetarian lunch with our hands - lentils tasted good after animal sacrifice watching - invited by the gurus in friendship, and also in the hopes that we could help them travel to the USA somehow...they want to go to New York City. can you imagine them cruising Times Square? we weren't too much help but we were very friendly and appreciative
hike to temple
goat sacrifice
the gurus
Day 1
on the way to Chittagong City:
-leaving Dhaka at 5am, we brave the highway
-pull over at old Hindu village. hike up 1000 steps to Hindu temple overlook. steep and so so sweaty. the first elevation since arriving in bangladesh!
-animal sacrifice ?? made it down from the hike just in time. ladies making loud high-pitched noises at the moment of the big swipe. 2 baby goats got their heads chopped off with a big curved knife that had been blessed at a Hindu altar. we were there, along with 30 or so local people, to watch it happen from up close. the body parts moved after they were separated. all this was shocking
-we were invited to lunch by local gurus (some kind of enlightened sect). a climb up to their compund and an all-vegetarian lunch with our hands - lentils tasted good after animal sacrifice watching - invited by the gurus in friendship, and also in the hopes that we could help them travel to the USA somehow...they want to go to New York City. can you imagine them cruising Times Square? we weren't too much help but we were very friendly and appreciative
hike to temple
goat sacrifice
the gurus
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