I wrote the last entry because I wanted to provide a sense of what it’s like to live here. But really, it’s only a small, small picture. Indeed, as K mentioned, I’m actually not living in a village. Char Fasson is the local governmental ’seat’ (upazila), and the guestrooms in the orphanage are rather nice in comparison to some of the homes nearby. There’s running water, and sink and toilet and a desk.
The boys who live here live in rather bad conditions. They don’t get enough nutrition, and they cannot now stay in the orphanage building because it is falling down. The building now houses, oddly enough, cows. Cows are the first step in a large plan for self-sustenance. You can’t imagine how many things need money around here…
But it does get worse. Today (Thursday) I went to see the land leased by the orphanage. Alongside the fields are the houses of the very poor in Char Fasson upazila. Their children don’t go to school–even when school is free, a child needs clothes, pencils, paper, etc.. and they just don’t have the resources. They work in the fields, but those fields are owned by other people. They barely make enough to eat and feed their children.
Couple that lives beside the orphanage paddy fields
