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):

Seriously, it's that time again?

For some reason, my birthday stresses me out.  It's a lot of pressure to be happy all day, excited all day, and I just worry that having high expectations for a day that's really just like all others sets you up for disappointment.    So, since I'm not on facebook or other things that alert the world to my birthday, I had a genius plan: I would just be completely mum about my birthday and it would pass unnoticed.  I'd get emails, that would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and it'd be anxiety free.

It didn't quite work out like I planned.  My boss texted me in the morning to see if I was taking the day off.  I considered, but the prospect of the day off when it's really hot and everyone I know is well, working, seemed less than fun.  So I went into the office.  Where my co-worker Venita greeted me with "happy birthday!"  Soon a cake with candles, a card, and beautiful blue orna (scarf) appeared, from my darun (wonderful) team.  They have become super sleuths--i take some credit for that--in addition to their preexisting quality of kindness.  We learned then that another woman on our floor has the SAME birthday, so Ishtiaque dashes back out for a second cake (two pieces of cake before lunch is a GOOD day).  While we're all congregating about, my BFF and a few colleagues appear on the scene with flowers to SING TO ME REALLY LOUDLY.  I'm embarrassed but glad to learn that getting Naveed to sing is a piece of cake.  That bit of information might come in handy one day.

Cutting the cake with Monica, the other birthday girl!

Pretty fly

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  –Vicktor Frankl 

Who knew that art could be fun?  The things I'm
learning about myself in Dhaka...... 

For all the people that live here, Bangladesh sometimes feels very lonely to me.  A large part of saying sane is finding ways to stay within the norms that doesn’t force too much of an individual compromise.  Choice and freedom make all the difference; yesterday I had a meeting where we were comparing starving and fasting—the activity is the same (not eating), but one a demonstration of individual agency, whereas the other is an unfortunate circumstance.  I’m entering that phase of life here in Bangladesh where I know fairly well what’s required of me.  The question now is, given these expectations and circumstances, who will I be?  To what extent will I let the circumstances dictate who I am, and, if I find that who I want to be is simply not possible here, do I have a responsibility to go elsewhere?  At the very least, I think keeping an eye on the impact that my environment is having on me is crucial.  Remember that, “wear sunscreen” graduation speech that everyone knew once upon a time?  One point in there was, “Live in New York, but not for long enough to get hard.  Live in San Francisco, but not for long enough to get soft.”  I’ve thought a lot about these concepts—how different environments bring out various sides of a person.  Dhaka brings out my competitive side; the city feels like it functions on a huge chopping block and you are always just one step away from getting thrown in the pile.  Most days, I love that.  It makes me feel totally alive.   Too many days in Boston I felt like I was sleepwalking and worried that my brain was rotting from a soft diet of calm and order.  Not an issue here.  My friends in Boston, who I saw last month, said that I’ve become more “ambitious” since I moved.  Perhaps. Somehow, the sky feels closer on this side of the world.

The good, the bad, and the kinda cute

I bet you thought I had dropped off the face of the earth.  I kind of did, relatively.  And ironically, I was writing a lot of blog posts, but I'd lose steam when each was about 90% done, and then it became obsolete.

Life here has been busy!  I've been on the road a lot--exploring the Bangladesh interior (seven layer tea after a day of biking through tea country in Sreemongal), wandering through Delhi--and hosting a ton of guests.  Who knew that Dhaka could be such a tourist destination?

It was really fun to have my parents out here last month.  I struggle to find the words to make sense of Bangladesh to those who haven't seen it firsthand, so it was fun to take a break from the explaining and just let Dhaka do the talking.  We took a true May family vacation--epic bus ride, arriving late at night only semi-sure about where we were staying, and lots of breaks for food and tea/coffee.  Dinajpur is not known as a huge tourist destination (despite its lovely landscapes and large Hindu temple), so I joked to my dad that we were testing the theory of, "it's not where you are, it's who you're with."  Luckily it's still funny.


Downtown Dinajpur!


We stayed at the local BRAC Learning Center.  We were local celebrities within 10 minutes.



When I told my mom that I was exploring new fields, she didn't know that I meant fields, literally.

This last week, guests descended from the U.K. (Toby, doing his PhD dissertation from BRAC; friend from the Harvard Boxing Club) and China (Mike, hanging out; friend from NYC/Chicago/China).  Originally I put Toby in the room with AC, partially because he's a softy and partially because he's here long enough to earn roommate (i.e. rent paying :) status.  Within two days though, Mike had buddied up with Toby is sufficiently to ask if he could move into the AC room.  I meanwhile enjoy the balmy nights in my mosquito net princess bed.

I have a thing about forcing my guests to get out of Dhaka to see rural Bangladesh.  Not because it's "the real thing" (it's silly to say that a city of 15 million is not "real," it'd be like saying NYC is not really America.  Wait, don't New Yorkers think that are their own nationality?), but because it's beautiful, calm, and does possess that heartland quality is more apparent in small towns and villages.  Shazzad offered to take us to the village where his dad grew up and many of his relatives still live, so off we went to Matlab.

We arrived after an epic rainstorm, and the car got stuck in the mud.  I was really proud of my American boys for helping pull it out.  Covered in mud, wet and dirty, they decided to jump in the river.  At that point I got wet and mud-covered too.  I could not flag down a boat to take us for a ride.  Luck may be better now that the rains are really getting underway and the rivers will swell.

Mike discovered the lunghi on his trip--what many Bengali men where at home and working class men, like rickshaw drivers, wear outside.  It was love at first touch.  I took him to buy two to take home with him once we got back to Dhaka--it was all I could do to get him to return the one he borrowed in the village from Shazzad's nephew.
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Hanging out after swimming and eating.  Shazzad, me, Mike (with lunghi) and Toby.


Mike and I spent a day in old Dhaka.  It was a nice demonstration of how far my knowledge of Dhaka and Bangla have come.  Finding rickshaw art was hardly a challenge.  I've mastered the art of using rickshaws to get around the parts of town that I don't know, while enjoying the ride through the back alleys and busy streets.  Even in the rain.

Mike and I went to Lalbagh (red fort).  But we aren't so sure why it's called a fort since it's mainly a tomb and a mosque.

There have also been local events going on that take me outside of my comfortable little bubble.  Korail, the slum just south of my home, was bulldozed last week and over 3,000 people were left homeless.  It was terrible to see; it looked like a cyclone had ripped through the neighborhood.  Many were sleeping on the streets or cricket field.  Water, electricity, and sanitary waste facilities were in very short supply.
Already, the areas have been largely rebuilt.  Slum dwellers have to be resilient to survive.  But there is no guarantee that this won't happen again.  In fact the government is saying that it will remove all the "land grabbers" in the area within two months (all slum dwellers are technically illegally living in these areas; there are almost no legal housing options available to the poor).
Many at BRAC have been working to both help those affected directly by the eviction, and to raise awareness.  I have been involved mainly with the latter.  A piece a colleague and I wrote appeared on a blog today: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/04/poverty-health-slums-bangladesh.  We've sent it widely to others and are hoping to get some international attention to catalyze the development of sounder urban policies.

I'm heading to Northern Bangladesh today to learn more about land and property rights, and what it means to approach them from human rights perspective.  Always more to see, do, and learn.  And occasionally, write.

Annie get your gan

I can't believe how fast January flew by!  It was an incredible month!  Brief highlights:
1.  FINALLY seeing the new version of footloose.  Seriously, the remake did not disappoint me in the slightest.  It takes itself every bit as seriously as possible.  However, I have a serious medical condition that it confirmed: when I watch a movie on a plane, I always tear up.  This was no exception.  The dialog is just really moving, and gosh they dance with such emotion!  I also cried during House, 30-rock, and Friends, but stopped short of crying during Parks and Rec, thankfully.  Not that the people next to me were any less annoyed by my outbursts of cackling laughter.
2.  Visiting the fam at home in NC.  It was a chance to go on some quiet runs, drink lazy lattes, lounge in flannel pajamas; all the finer points of life.  I learned that when I leave my cousins, they just grow like crazy!  All my boy cousins are taller than me now!  Their voices are deeper, they drive, they have girlfriends (or at least girls that they text with and blush about when I ask questions).  I also got pampered with my Aunt and grandmama and got a manicure/pedicure.  You better believe that I had a bling french manicure (and gunmetal toenails to boot) for the next week or so.    I also have probably the largest collection of NC pecans in Dhaka.  Plus Michael Porter's beast of a book on Redefining Healthcare.  Because everyone needs one of those on their bookshelf at work.