Hello here I am, did you wonder where I went? I'll tell you...
I have been in Bangladesh now close to 3 weeks. There is so much to share. Yet, I have found myself completely hung-up on how to share it all. That along with the hit and miss internet connection, further impeding timely blog updates. But let's catch up.
Every morning I enter a new day in Bangladesh with a new perception, yet by that very afternoon, I will have experienced something that will have me thinking quite the opposite. For instance, just this morning I stood in front of a classroom of bright-eyed 9 and 10 year-olds and left thinking, "Wow, what a bright future Bangladesh has!", but then on my way home I saw a heap of dead dogs and learned that they'd been "forked" to death simply because someone found them annoying. So instead, I think, "This country is barbaric!". And such has been my experience in this country. I see two sides of the coin almost every day. Desperation and hope. Darkness and light. Lost and found.
Bangladesh was born out of suffering and is a nation just shy of it's 40th birthday. Henry Kissinger famously referred to it as a "basket-case of a nation" in its early years. It is the size of Wisconsin but holds a population of 160 million, and it is estimated that soon it will be the 5th most populated nation in the world. 40% live below the poverty line. Enveloped by India on all sides albeit the southern bay, it has been fought over, named and renamed, received and rejected and as a result is a land of resilient survivors. These people know who they are and are determined to climb out of the terrible cloak of poverty that was theirs out of the womb.
It has all the classic marks of an underdeveloped third world nation with all the abuses that poverty grants, however, there is something here that feels different. In comparison with the unwieldy and chaotic "cart before the horse" growth in India, Bangladesh is more of a workhorse. Slow and steadfast. While I have only been here a short while, most of my time has been spent under the wings of an unsung hero, Diane Jennings who showed and shared her Bangladesh with me, a nation she has called home for over 30 years. She along with her husband James arrived shortly after this country ceased life as East Pakistan and began life as the liberated nation of Bangladesh. They've raised their children here, learned the language, loved their neighbors, are loved by their neighbors, served the community and aside from the proper Anglo accent, are as close to being Bengali without being born of it.
While I sit and write this, a normal Saturday afternoon unfolds behind their house. Rickshaws tumble by, groups of half-naked children run by screaming and laughing, the mid-afternoon call to prayer cuts through the air, and a man has just folded-up his "lungi" in to a perfect sort of gym short (a lungi is a continuous piece of folded fabric worn by men instead of pants), tied his machete to his back, put out his cigarette and promptly free-climbed up an 8 story coconut tree. Currently, I can't see him because he is so high up there. The only evidence of his lofty existence is the sporadic rain of coconuts thudding on the ground every few minutes. At the same time, luxury apartment buildings are springing up across the field, people walk by chattering on cell-phones, and I am sometimes connected to the world wide web.
This is Bangladesh. It is at once old and new. Forgotten and invested in. A heaving human ocean of blood, sweat and possibility. This is a place that does not wince at hard-work. Nor at the impossible. Their very existence depends on proving that basket-case or not, they are moving forward and steadfastly so.
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