Field work

Beef.  It's what's for dinner.

The “field” actually includes Dhaka.  It includes the slum I go through every day to get to work.  One thing that many of us don’t think about is that “slum” is a catch-all term for low-income housing.  It includes neighborhoods with 2-500+ households.  It includes dormitories of 20+ men and one-room family units.  None are technically “legal” in Dhaka, but most are on privately owned land, rented out and tightly managed (albeit with nefarious tactics when deemed necessary).  Evictions are an issue, but largely for the minority living on government land, or those close to major roads, or on real estate where the value is quickly rising.  Obviously my perception is colored by Korail, since I see it every day.  It’s part of the 20% of slums in Dhaka on government land.  But what about the other 80%?

What’s black and white and red all over?

Building containers for rice in Manikganj

Some days, my job is kind of boring, to be honest.  I have a great view from my office on the 19^th floor, but at the end of the day, it’s still a lot of desk work.  Emailing, scheduling, etc.  The best part is getting out of the building and into what we fondly call, “the field.” For BRAC, the field is the gold standard.  You earn your battle stars by spending time building programs from the ground up, not in the comfortable, air-conditioned cubicles of the head office.
So I go out to understand what it is BRAC “does.”  Ask questions of staff, volunteers, and clients.  Sit and observe how life looks in a village.  But mainly to entertain the locals, who rarely come across foreigners, especially white girls that are getting pretty decent in Bangla.  Now that opens up a world of opportunities for questions.  Earlier this week I went to Manikganj to learn more about BRAC's work with dairy farming.  While there, I had the following conversation (translated, so also realize that there’s still a little magnetic word game going on here as my vocabulary is evolving):