The Poor and the even Poorer

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

Of Rats and Bugs and All my Favorite Things

The first night I was at the orphanage, Leslie, an American volunteer who is also staying at the orphanage, saw a rat in her room.  Now, before anyone gets too excited, i should note that I have never seen a live rat here.  Leslie, unfortunately, has now seen two in her room.  That was the start to my visit here.  She was, understandably, very upset and emotional, but I didn’t know what to do or say.  Since then, though, I’ve felt very wary of any nighttime noises in my room…

Bugs, on the other hand, are a constant nuisance.  There are no screens on the windows, so bugs freely fly and crawl in to my room.  While there are few remedies for ants or flies, there are a number of tools one can use against mosquitos, none of which, in my opinion, work very well, except for the mosquito net.  The coil has a very pungent odor, but I’m not convinced it works… and the gadget I brought from Dhaka requires electricity, which we often do not have from 6 pm to 10 pm.

You can imagine how nice it was last night, when I got food poisoning and began throwing up around 6:45 pm.  No electricity, fumbling around for a bucket to vomit into, then clumbsily trying to put the mosquito net up long after I had been bit multiple times.  At one point, as I searched in my suitcase for some gum to counteract the taste of vomit, I almost found the whole situation humorous. Almost.

A Trip to the end of the world for Reshmi

The day after I got to Char Fasson, I was invited on a trip to Dhal Char to hand out saris, lungis, and some cash to those people who had lost their homes and belongings during Tropical Storm Reshmi.  Reshmi, in fact, was the reason I couldn’t leave for Char Fasson earlier.  I agreed to go, not realizing how far away Dhal Char is from Char Fasson town; in fact, it is the last char (island) before you get to the Bay of Bengal.  It took an hour bus ride (over a terrible, terrible road), then a 15 minute rickshaw ride to the river, then an hour and a half boat ride around the chars till we landed at Dhal Char.  The boat ride came at the middle of the day, with the tropical sun beating down on us.  It was hard to think of the Bay of Bengal as beautiful at that point!

Once we arrived, the members of the charity group went to the Union Parishad building to explain to people in the area what would happen that afternoon.l  Then we rested, as Bengalis are wont to do, ate lunch, and the event began.  It was mass chaos, as the charity group (all men of course) herded men and women into separate lines; the rest of the people who were not receiving anything all crowded in to watch.  Each person in line was quickly given a sari or a lungi and then roughly commanded to go away (unless, of course, they were one of the lucky few picked for a photo op with the group).  I sat there in disgust, knowing that this is probably what usually happens in Bangladesh.  Poor people are looked down upon, and are only of use when one can use the opportunity to show one’s wealth and power.

Once it was over, we quickly headed back to the boat, reaching Char Fasson by 8 or 9, at which point I was completely unable to eat dinner.  Thanks, Reshmi, for such an eye-opening experience.