Today I want to introduce you to a greeting card that sits on top of a set of drawers in my new home. It may seem strange to choose a greeting card as my muse, particularly considering the abundance of sources of inspiration provided by the rich sensory environment enveloping me here in the Desh. Yet, without wanting to turn this into a Hallmark moment, the card aptly captures my recent feelings, so please indulge me. Featuring a cartoon dog – ‘Zen Dog’ – floating on the sea, relaxing and soaking up the sunshine, it is the caption on the card that I want to draw your attention to:
‘He knows not where he’s going’, it says,
‘for the ocean will decide – it’s not the destination…
…it’s the glory of the ride’.
Before you start to wonder what exactly it is VSO volunteers do, I can assure you that my last few weeks have not been spent on the beach or sunbathing. Far from it. The last month has been a whirlwind of activity, taking me from Bangla language classes, induction activities, and English, Filipino and African parties in Dhaka; to spending hours on buses, ferries, and a variety of other very slow, but very entertaining, modes of transport during an intense and eye-opening foray into rural Bangladesh, during a visit to a town called Patuakhali, in the south of the country; to moving into my new ‘home’ for the year - the town of Khagrachari, in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region - and meeting my new neighbours, colleagues and friends.
Each of these experiences have contributed a piece to the Bangladesh puzzle that I am devoting so much time to trying to understand. My head is full of images, which flicker sporadically as I try to make sense of where I have been and what I have done. There was sitting and facing one hundred sari and salwar kameez-clad women on the dirt floor of a small village, listening to the endless list of social problems affecting them, feeling two hundred eyes fixed on us. And then there was walking away from the women, and feeling the anger at their circumstance slip away as I returned to my own life. There’s the elaborately painted cycle rickshaws, and the skinny legs of the underpaid, overworked and malnourished men who drive them. And then there was riding through Dhaka’s richest area following a party in which the food was good and the wine was flowing, when my friend decided to take a try a being a ‘rickshaw-wallah’ himself. There’s the posh ex-pat hang-out, the BAGHA club, which offers gin and tonics, proper British grub, and a break from the Dhaka noise. And there’s ‘System’, a little bamboo restaurant in Khagrachari, offering service with a smile, rice wine in plastic bottles and Mickey-Mouse patterned bowls of rice, vegetables and fish, which are scooped up eagerly by the hands of its clientele.
Each of these images deserves much fuller descriptions than I can provide here. But they are some of the components that make up the the Bangladesh puzzle that I have seen far. I have learned that the jigsaw is multi-layered. There’s the puzzle of Bangladesh, including its multiple languages, cultures, histories and politics; and the puzzle of its environment: the rice paddies that flood, the land that is being lost, and the hills that separate the Chittagong Hill Tracts from the plainlands. There’s the puzzle of development in Bangladesh: the vast number of NGOs operating here, the even larger number of problems they are trying to alleviate, and the processes of social change that have failed to tackle the staggering inequalities in existence. And then there’s the puzzle of my time here, which can take me from dancing in a five-star hotel one day to witnessing desperate poverty another and which has introduced me not just to ‘Bangladeshi’ culture, but also to those of the Chakma, Marma, Tripura and other indigenous groups, and to people from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
After only seven weeks in Bangladesh, this puzzle is far from complete. I’ve learned that it can’t be after one year, and it couldn’t be after ten years, twenty years, or a century. Its contrasting and contradictory pieces are often irreconcilable; the pieces of the Bangladesh puzzle don’t fit neatly but rather move and change and grind against each other. As for myself, I still have little idea of where I’m going on my Bangladesh adventure or what I’ll find on the way. But it’s the ride that counts: it’s at once interesting, fun, difficult, intense, frustrating, eye-opening, scary, strange, wonderful and ridiculous. It makes me smile, laugh out loud, and – very occasionally – want to hide away under my blanket. And learning from the wisdom of ‘Zen Dog’, I know that it’s this combination that makes the ride glorious.
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Jumping on the Stars and Stripes Bandwagon
This blog is supposed to be about Bangladesh. I promise that stories of saris, samosas, floods, rice paddies, and all the other stereotypical Bangladeshi images, will come. But today I am joining millions of others and choosing to comment on a topic that may not seem immediately connected to this small South Asian country: the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America. Apologies to those of you who are fed up with news of American political happenings, but bear with me, because it was here, sitting in the back of a rickety, three-wheeled, green and yellow CNG during a traffic jam, breathing in Dhaka’s pollution fumes, while speaking broken Bangla to its driver, that I became really excited about the potential for change Obama’s victory represents.
During the hopes and hysteria of these last months I haven't been biggest the Obama fan. In the primaries, I half-heartedly leaned towards Hilary and her healthcare plan, and was sceptical of the political substance behind Obama's rhetoric. Since the Conventions my daily news briefing has largely consisted of scrutinising polls and predictions, and hoping that somehow the horrors presented by the prospect of Republicans in the White House for four more years – and of the not-too-distant possibility of Sarah Palin as President – could be avoided. I assumed that in reality I – with my idealistic notions of peace, equality and environmental sustainability - would probably never be truly inspired by a mainstream presidential candidate in the USA, and instead adopted a stance guided by my fervent desire to ward off the Maverick Duo as I ticked the box by 'Barack Obama and Joseph Biden' on my absentee ballot.
Today however, I am allowing cracks in my cynicism and am, as I have increasingly been since I’ve been in Bangladesh, truly optimistic about the ‘change’ the election of Obama represents. Over the last few weeks there have been telling reactions from Bangladeshis to the two fully-fledged Americans in my induction group (my own ‘Americanness’ generally varies according to context, mood, and how up I am for the often volatile reaction its announcement entails from others).
There has been harsh criticism of Bush, the war in Iraq and his mishandling of ‘the war against terror’, with the recognition that Bush does not represent Americans as a whole. At the same time, there has been excitable enthusiasm, with people crying ‘Obama bhalo!’ (Obama good!), smiling broadly, and waving their hands in the air. They believe, as I do, that the nature of American leadership has effects far beyond the Land of Plenty, and that having Obama in the White House means a change for the better.
It’s easy to forget that it’s been less than 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, at a time in which African-Americans were still fighting to ensure their right to vote in the country, let alone sit in the White House. While of course Obama's election does not signal the end of racial prejudice, inequality, or injustice in the States, it does show again that these can be challenged, and that – sometimes at least – these challenges can be successful. The mass mobilisation of organisers and voters in the USA – in ‘red states’ as well as ‘blue states’ (labels I’ve always hated) – demonstrates the influence, commitment and power of people when they are inspired. It challenges stereotypes of Americans as apathetic, and reaffirms my belief once again none of us have to accept the status quo. It’s a reminder that positive changes can happen, and that these come from individuals, coming together, and taking action: an important reminder relevant not only to the USA, but to all countries and communities.
What change Obama will bring remains to be seen. I don’t think he’ll solve the USA’s problems, let alone those of Bangladesh or the globe. There are many of his policies I don’t agree with or don’t expect to be implemented. I know it was just over half of Americans that voted for him, and that’s only counting those who voted. But I do believe that the enthusiasm provoked by his call for change, and the connections formed by peoples across barriers of class, ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, culture and gender in the USA and around the world are things to be excited about. So when the driver of my CNG today turned around and said ‘Barack Obama?’, I said ‘Barack Obama khub bhalo!’ (Barack Obama very good!) and grinned. And when he said, ‘apnar deS kothay?’ (‘where is your country?’) I continued grinning as I said, for the first time in years, ‘America’. And so it was then, as I smiled with the nameless CNG driver, and he spoke at me excitedly in a Bangla I didn’t understand, that I jumped on the Stars and Stripes – and Obama - bandwagon. And it’s where I’ll remain, for now at least. Thank you to all of you who made this happen.
During the hopes and hysteria of these last months I haven't been biggest the Obama fan. In the primaries, I half-heartedly leaned towards Hilary and her healthcare plan, and was sceptical of the political substance behind Obama's rhetoric. Since the Conventions my daily news briefing has largely consisted of scrutinising polls and predictions, and hoping that somehow the horrors presented by the prospect of Republicans in the White House for four more years – and of the not-too-distant possibility of Sarah Palin as President – could be avoided. I assumed that in reality I – with my idealistic notions of peace, equality and environmental sustainability - would probably never be truly inspired by a mainstream presidential candidate in the USA, and instead adopted a stance guided by my fervent desire to ward off the Maverick Duo as I ticked the box by 'Barack Obama and Joseph Biden' on my absentee ballot.
Today however, I am allowing cracks in my cynicism and am, as I have increasingly been since I’ve been in Bangladesh, truly optimistic about the ‘change’ the election of Obama represents. Over the last few weeks there have been telling reactions from Bangladeshis to the two fully-fledged Americans in my induction group (my own ‘Americanness’ generally varies according to context, mood, and how up I am for the often volatile reaction its announcement entails from others).
There has been harsh criticism of Bush, the war in Iraq and his mishandling of ‘the war against terror’, with the recognition that Bush does not represent Americans as a whole. At the same time, there has been excitable enthusiasm, with people crying ‘Obama bhalo!’ (Obama good!), smiling broadly, and waving their hands in the air. They believe, as I do, that the nature of American leadership has effects far beyond the Land of Plenty, and that having Obama in the White House means a change for the better.
It’s easy to forget that it’s been less than 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, at a time in which African-Americans were still fighting to ensure their right to vote in the country, let alone sit in the White House. While of course Obama's election does not signal the end of racial prejudice, inequality, or injustice in the States, it does show again that these can be challenged, and that – sometimes at least – these challenges can be successful. The mass mobilisation of organisers and voters in the USA – in ‘red states’ as well as ‘blue states’ (labels I’ve always hated) – demonstrates the influence, commitment and power of people when they are inspired. It challenges stereotypes of Americans as apathetic, and reaffirms my belief once again none of us have to accept the status quo. It’s a reminder that positive changes can happen, and that these come from individuals, coming together, and taking action: an important reminder relevant not only to the USA, but to all countries and communities.
What change Obama will bring remains to be seen. I don’t think he’ll solve the USA’s problems, let alone those of Bangladesh or the globe. There are many of his policies I don’t agree with or don’t expect to be implemented. I know it was just over half of Americans that voted for him, and that’s only counting those who voted. But I do believe that the enthusiasm provoked by his call for change, and the connections formed by peoples across barriers of class, ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, culture and gender in the USA and around the world are things to be excited about. So when the driver of my CNG today turned around and said ‘Barack Obama?’, I said ‘Barack Obama khub bhalo!’ (Barack Obama very good!) and grinned. And when he said, ‘apnar deS kothay?’ (‘where is your country?’) I continued grinning as I said, for the first time in years, ‘America’. And so it was then, as I smiled with the nameless CNG driver, and he spoke at me excitedly in a Bangla I didn’t understand, that I jumped on the Stars and Stripes – and Obama - bandwagon. And it’s where I’ll remain, for now at least. Thank you to all of you who made this happen.
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