on the water shots

also check this...

a Thomas Friedman article to consider as the Olympic Games have finished.

and a Dhaka antidote along the lines of this article...
yesterday a bangladeshi travel agent paid me the difference in fare to switch to a more expensive and more direct flight home for Christmas. he insisted i should not go through the crazy mess that is JFK airport. and so now instead of taking American Airways i'll be flying with Qatar straight to Dulles.

hey guys :)

it's one month in to life in bangladesh and my feelings about this place have really swung from one extreme to the other and settled somewhere in the middle for right now. ross says not to make any conscious judgments til at least 3 months in, and i'm sure that's a good idea.

since school began i'd say the faculty has all been working hard. i am not leading any classes right now, just co-teaching in 6 classes. inevitably, and greatly, all the teachers get pulled in a lot of directions. for me, some of these directions are just plain funny. for example, when no one signed up for my offered 'knitting and crochet club' i was made a leader of the girls soccer club. the thought of that is probably making you guys laugh. middle school girls soccer at 1:00 on thursday afternoons has become a fun time for me, and i am a joke of a soccer coach but i try to play on one of the scrimmage teams and strip the ball from my students when possible - they seem to like me for this kind of effort if not for my skills. luckily there's someone else helping too.

next week i start some tutoring gigs, 4 hours a week outside of school time, at $13 an hour. i am seriously chasing Taka$ these days, and an extra $50 a week will cover my every expense here, i think. this week is the first meeting of the middle school photography club, and we have been commissioned (i'm serious about this) by DIESEL magazine to shoot photographs of compressed natural gas engines, and if we get some good results then we could be published in the magazine. the school activities director was contacted by this magazine's editor and put him in touch with me. another funny dhaka happening - it would be really cool if this goes well and the kids get published.

the school routine is so busy that i often leave our apartment by 7:30 and return home in the evening at 6:00 or later. come home, have dinner, chill with the roommates. it's easy not to get too far past this daily routine but between the 3 of us we do a pretty good job of getting each other out. and when we get out into the city, even if its still in the 'diplomatic' neighborhoods, dhaka shocks us.

it is so poor. the infrastructure is in terrible shape. sewer system, power systems, water systems, road systems, internet systems, sanitation in general is terrible. the feel and smell of being out on any dhaka street is intense and sticks to you. ...our roommate jimmy speaks good Bangla. whether this is good or bad? it is both. he hears much more of people's stories and pleas than i do... it is true that much of the times friendly people have a conversation with you that it leads to a request for money. quite unlike china, where i could have fun conversations with cab drivers and shop owners, waiters, people in parks, etc, in this country there is a whole different kind of need - basic human needs are not being met everywhere. it's true that there is also a culture of begging; there is so much begging and it seems to be fruitful enough such that, we have heard, many people are able to beg to make their living day in and day out - it's like their job.

from the pictures you can see some of the intensity of this place. people stare at foreigners, but often our smiles in response are not met with any sort of change in expression. it's a cultural thing, and i guess it is an economic thing. from my perspective it feels a little weird and sad.

tomorrow i'm going to 'hash' again, for the second time. the Hash is great fun. it is an international body - there are americans, and aussies, and 'kiwis' and swedes and indian people and bangladeshi people and more and more, including the ambassadors of the US and Asutralia out in their sweaty running clothes - give ror take 70 people were out last week. and together the people go, wearing matching Tshirts, and descend upon some village or neighborhood (there has always been preliminary checking-out of the area). then the 'hares' lead the group: one running group, one hiking group, on an hour-long venture. i hiked last week through the rice paddies of Ashulia town about 2 hours outside dhaka (BAD traffic). at the end of the run/walk there is a big circle formed, and lots of chanting and drinking songs go down as people get teased and made to drink in a very fraternal style. your weekly $1 hash fee pays for water and heineken beer and often a free T-shirt. this week i'm going to take my camera - the villages are beautiful and feel fresh; i keep thinking that if it were me in the long run i might rather be living there in my simple simple simple house in the forest than in dhaka city. we run at the right time of day, 6:00, for photographing light and i am planning to take advantage of it this week. i hope you're liking the blog photos. it takes forever to upload them so they show up slowly. i think the photographing is going pretty well and CANT WAIT to start working with the kids on their own photographs this week.

enough for now. it is friday morning; i slept in and feel great. haha, suckas! friday off :) instant coffee and reading is my morning plan. much love to you guys. lots of love.

more pics from the village

boat-wallah

boat trip/village visit (more soon)

notes

dear friends,

all is well here. dhaka feels so much more like a home this week than last week - much of the surprises have been uncovered and a busy school routine has arisen. i'm enjoying the teacher who is stewarding me around; she is really experienced and kind and good at working with young kids. this week i also had a beautiful experience of uniting with old family friends, the Sinhas, who used to live in roanoke but are now spending much of the year here in Dhaka - just about a 10 minute walk from me. we had bengali dinner together this week, and Mrs. Sinha sent me home with lots of traditional clothes to wear. i have fallen in love with salwar kameez, which is a tunic, pants and scarf outfit that usually comes in ornate color and design.
i'm getting a little more responsibility on the teaching front every day, and i'm participating with 5 different preps (subjects) - at least one class with every grade level in the middle school. it's quite good exposure. i've been going to bed really tired at night, and the early morning runs have disappeared from my routine for now. this weekend i'm going to try to 'hash' in the wild bangladeshi humidity...but it hasn't been too hot lately. we have a new housekeeper/cook working with us at home. the Rehanna situation continued to go downhill until we (the roommates and I) decided we needed to fire her. what a strange experience. our new helper is very nice and i like the food she makes a lot, which helps me feel physically a lot better day to day. breakfast every day is mango, pineapple, and pomegranite fruit salad. it doesn't get much better than that and she does our laundry for us, and much more. at this rate i'll be so spoiled by the time june comes around. tomorrow is thursday, which is like friday there - it kicks off the weekend. on friday we new teachers are going out on a boat ride to see some of the land outside of dhaka. i'm so looking forward to this, and will certainly aim for some nice pictures of the adventure. it'll be a good time to scout for birds - the birds here are so tropical and cool.

yesterday my first piece of mail came; it was jen and brian's wedding invitation. that was so fun to get and such exciting news. with all the people and happenings, virginia is so easy to miss. for the charlottesville friends, look out for my sister cristina! she starts college there this week -

new clothes: salwar kameez

remodeling

a few days ago i came home from school to find a crew doing remodeling on one top-floor apartment. endless bricks and slate were moved to the ground through an assembly line of men balancing big bowls on their heads.

on Road 1

view from our 6th floor apt


our building

different

i've been coming to grips with this impression, and was able to talk it over with one colleague tonight so it is at the front of my brain.

everywhere i've been able to travel - especially places where i spent significant time spain, argentina, china - i've felt like an explorer and i've been welcomed by open people. i've really been able to explore a neighborhood, city, country independently with just a map or lonely planet book or a bus or train ticket.

Dhaka does not offer that kind of freedom. there's a different atmosphere here and i'm still figuring out why it feels like i can't walk freely, shop freely, appreciate freely here. it's for a number of reasons... i don't speak the language here. i'm settling down here in a more permanent way. there is school, this intense culture-within-a-culture that i'm part of. there are the social class/poverty issues. to some extent it probably has to do with religion and gender roles too.

my colleague is a really interesting woman who has lived in a worldly way - she's spent lots of time in india, nepal, latin america and more... (she's in her 50s now; when she was 25 she came to india to work with Mother Theresa) but Dhaka is different for her too, which surprises me. maybe Dhaka is similar to many other 3rd world places but maybe not. i'm interested in going to india and comparing that experience with this one

at the same time, without a doubt, i've met many bangladeshi individuals who are the kindest, most respectable people one could imagine. knowing more people is something i really want to do.

here is just one silly example of how the situation evolves: tonight we had a 'girls night', one of the teachers hosted a bunch of others to come drink Cosmos and kick back and gossip. how bizarre for me to find myself in bangladesh doing THAT. and though it was a nice event, i just feel torn that i'm not experiencing the place in a more genuine way. part of that has to do with the struggles of this place itself, and part of it has to do with being fundamentally associated with a big expat community here (the school serves this group, and it is this group).

i think i'll have to try a bit harder to get the whole bangladesh experience, that's all.

altogether separate, here is a little language note newly learned!
Bangla - the language of this region
Bengali - a word describing ethnicity (ethnicity shared with parts of India like Bengal)
Bangladeshi - something from Bangladesh itself; a word with a connotation of nationality
as in: The food here is Bengali and it was made by my Bangladeshi friend Ifthakar who speaks Bangla.

seamster working on a car in our garage

Bangladesh bottom 5 - so far -

1.) No Olympics - seems not to be part of the national culture. can't find them even on TV
2.) Power outages - random, one hour intervals about 5 times a day
3.) No legs. Legs are always covered, men and women. Except mine, sometimes, when running - it's
4.) Toxic water. Everywhere - the water is bad news. It's strange to have to always be actively avoiding water: how to wash anything? the fact that the toxic water and open sewers have nowhere to drain to, no high-low elevation to encourage flow, doesn't help
5.) Beggars. are everywhere - they can be really aggressive and change the experience of this place. in stopped traffic our car with westerners inevitably gets stormed with kids and old people and mothers and babies begging... it's awful and induces negative emotions in me that surprise me. it also gets you thinking about ways to contribute to this place constructively - i've not been giving to beggars. working on a plan to give back some money other ways...

middle school assembly, 2nd day of school

Bangladesh Top 10

- so far -
1.) the scarf is the most important article of clothing in a woman's wardrobe
2.) we have 2 green parrots who live in our apartment complex
3.) evening prayer call is the most beautiful time of day, unless sunrise prayer call is
4.) mangos grow on trees everywhere and they are in season til december
5.) flights to bangkok are $115
6.) artists paint cool designs on rickshaws, and "rickshaw art" is something you can buy for yourself too
7.) Bollywood film culture is addictive and DVDs for $1
8.) Nestle 3in1! Nestle sells packets of instant coffee, sugar, and cream powder so all you add is the hot water
9.) there are elementary kids running around our school. wow, cute
10.) Dhaka has a Hash running club that runs (and drinks) in the countryside on weekends

photos

1.) in town
2.) construction worker outside school
3.) the school, seen from the turf field

(3 pics)

school

tomorrow is the first day of school!

about 6 days ago our orientation to dhaka merged into all-out prep for students. teachers teachers teachers! running around and on a mission...

AISD is an exceptional school. special even among other international schools, i've come to understand. i've had a sense of this since the cambridge job fair after interviewing with superintendent Plotkin and MS principal Pado. they are rock stars, in their own scholastic way (of course there was also the amazing marketing DVD that some of you guys were so lucky to see). well, it's really the case; this place has just plan good "school culture." it's quaint, energetic, welcoming, cooperative, service-oriented - the learning is student-centered and inquiry-based, the teachers have resources, supplies and professional development at their fingertips - an unlimited supply LITERALLY. and the kids love the place so much that you have to kick them out at night and open up a youth hang-out space there on the weekends. people involved with this place are really proud of it.

and this school culture is powered by the administration. i feel so fortunate to get to see a team like this in action before i really jump into my own career - i've never known administrators like this before, or a school like this.

it feels like AISD is transplanted right out of an Ed school textbook. This school is succeeding at all the research-based techniques that public schools sometimes talk about but are far too swamped and challenged to master -

it's a special place, and an elite service. i've learned that school tuition is a hefty price tag way more than my annual college tuition. the US embassy pays for its employees' kids to go and many foreign governments and businesses send their kids as well. only about 15% of the students are caucasion american. the student body, then, comes from an educated and worldly social class - generally a quite privileged groups. severe learning and physical needs students are also very few (but increasingly included)

MIDDLE SCHOOL! and now here is my story - i'll be working with 6th, 7th, 8th grade history and language arts the first half of this year. wow is MS ever different from high school, i'm fast learning - touchy feely, artsy crafty, all emotional and such. i had to make bulletin boards with sparkle trim this week - LOTS of them! my first ever. i'm also going to run the MS photography club on thursday afternoons, oh yeah. feeling excited tonight; please keep me in your thoughts, i'll need it -

ps - i miss home!!!!!

getting oriented

1.) Jimmy, left, and Beckley, right
2.)Our gecco "Jason" lives on our walls and ceiling and eats hundreds of bugs everyday. we like him!
3.) View from our roof. See the mosque at the end of our street back and left; you can also see part of the school off to the back and right all lit up.

1 week in Dhaka

I have an interesting scenario that has kept my mind busy this week. It's a bit of a long story, but here goes -

Upon arrival at our apartment in Dhaka, a maid greeted us (me, Jimmy, Beckley) at the door. representatives from the school explained in more detail that there was some expectation for us to hire at least one person as household staff. There would be an option of cook/maid (called a "bearer" - a word from colonial times) and/or a driver. Rehana was our assigned "bearer", though there was a long list of applicants for the job and we could interview others if a relationship with Rehana didn't work.

There are important consequences of hiring a bearer for Westerners visiting Bangladesh. For example, most have been trained in how to prepare local produce so that it is safe to eat. Likewise they wash the dishes and sanitize the kitchen. They keep the apartment clean so that mold doesn't grow in the crevices. Moreover having a bearer provides an opportunity for us to support someone in a poor economy for a job well-done. Rehana, in particular, is a good cook of Bengali food.

At the same time, that constant presence can be uncomfortable for American kids used to doing things on their own. Our first morning here, for example, Rehana took the spatula from Beckley and firmly expressed that she should do the cooking - he was making a big omelet and didn't like this at all. Awkward things like this happen from time to time.

...Rehana is probably in her late 20s; she is single and living alone in Dhaka with her parents and brother in an outside village. She seems mostly very nice but has a hard edge or attitude that she shows us sometimes, when she is disappointed in something we do or ask of her (I promise we don't ask much). She speaks a tiny bit of English - about as much as we speak Bangla - such that there is lots of room for confusion in our conversations.

In any case, over the course of this week we - Sara, Jimmy, Beckley - realized that we have walked into a situation of significant responsibility: In hiring Rehana we are making decisions that affect her whole livelihood and standard of living, and that of her family to some degree. The questions posed to us are: What hours will she work? What days will she have off? Will we pay for her transportation? Will we buy her a uniform? Will we pay for her healthcare? Her family's healthcare? If she had children, would we pay for their schooling? And most of all, what will her monthly salary be?

The school spoke to us at-length and encouraged us that these decisions were ours to make. The school acknowledged that to be a bearer or a driver is considered a well-paying job for a Bangladeshi. Mr. Zaman, the AISD man facilitating all this, suggested that we consider our bearer's experience and skills to determine a starting salary; they announced that 6,000-9,000Tk was a general salary range for the position - about $90 to $150 / month.

So Jimmy, Beckley, and I had to come to some agreement on how much to pay Rehana. She is new at this job, and new to us, so that generally would put her on the lower end of the pay-scale. On the other hand, she does her job well and we like her. There was a real ethical pull as we reflected on this; we knew that we wanted to pay Rehana well. I began to feel strongly that we should offer 9,000Tk - the top of the range, in order to be generous and establish trust and also to support someone financially because we can afford to. The guys were on-board with this. We offered this to Rehana, thinking she would feel pleased.

Not so! Upon seeing the 9,000 figure Rehana became upset. She said many things, including mention of higher salary figures. We weren't sure exactly what she was communicating to us, much was lost in translation both ways. I think we all felt some disappointment, because we didn't want Rehana to think we were paying her less than she deserved. I thought there might have been a mis-understanding -

Not so! Wonderful Mr. Zaman said he would work this out for us. He went to speak with Rehana one day while we were away in in-service meetings. He returned, saying that Rehana had finally agreed to take the salary we offered. But when we got home that afternoon, she had a different story for us - she said Mr. Zaman agreed to 10,000Tk. No, we said, that's not right... She was quite insistent on that figure.

It wouldn't have been a big difference in money for us to pay 10,000 instead of 9,000 - but at the same time I think that we 3 roommates felt a need to set some boundaries. Many bearers were being hired by our colleagues for much less, and there was that long list of applicants for the job. Moreover Rehana had been spending more of our money on groceries than the school predicted. Suddenly we felt a little wary of being taken advantage of ourselves - strange as that scenario seems. We certainly know that we are the overwhelmingly privileged party in this case, so this is all somewhat relative... but that is really at the heart of this: how much does that matter - a big question.

And so my thoughts have been flying around, mulling on this topic: are we being fair? are we being generous? should we do more? do we trust this person? is this just a bargaining scenario in a bargaining culture? to what extent does she need the money?

For now, we have stuck to the original 9,000 figure and Rehana unhappily settled. A lot of the tension has passed since the decision was made, but we are still carefully tending this relationship with our bearer. If things go well in the next month or two then I think we will find ways to give her a bonus from time to time. But if they don't go well then we might have the school introduce us to some other applicants. The whole scenario has been interesting for me and the roommates, who are still mostly strangers to each other, to grapple with. I guess it is part of the overall cultural and learning experience of this year in Bangladesh. Do you guys have thoughts on all this?

day 4

the days have been busy... the group of 15 or so new teachers have been shuttled (with warmth and welcoming kindness) through the routine of becoming an American employee in a 3rd world country. today was interesting, as we got past the logistics of internet and cell phone, electricity converters, etc. today we went to the foreigner's medical clinic. it is part of, and a major source of funding for, the ICDDRB or the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. This notable research center includes a hospital, and the hospital treats more cases of cholera than any other worldwide. Moreover it provides free care to walk-in patients. A mistake was made this morning as we were herded through new construction at the hospital - our destination the foreigner's clinic. In the end we walked through the hospital wards and through the triage center, getting a close up view of all the patients and the kind of care they are getting. Mom please don't worry about me; I won't do that again and I washed my hands 5 times and am headed for a shower soon. In any case, the situation was extraordinarily moving and somewhat comforting - good care was being given to very sick, poor people. We saw something of how "the other half" lives and suffers and it was good to see. The new construction that will turn this hospital into a much larger facility is being funded by the British government. The United States government offered aid for this project, but with restrictions: the Mexico City agreement signed under this administration will not fund any facility that performs abortions or administers "morning after" contraception. The ICDDRB was not willing to be bound by the restrictions and so did not accept the U.S. donation. A British internal medicine physician gave us the foreigner's clinic orientation today, and assured us of our own care. We are glad that what money the clinic makes from the school's insurance coverage will go to this hospital's operations. Outside the hospital a huge tent had been constructed in the alleys with beds for treating the tens of overflow patients there. I didn't have my camera...
website: http://www.icddrb.org/

pics from day 1