My Last Photo Before Leaving Bangladesh:
My First Photo of People After Leaving Bangladesh:
Yeah… I’m in culture shock.
Tour de Nerdfighting
Hello from Plano, Texas! I've got some great news. First, I got to meet Hank & John Green. They are even more amazing in real life than they are online. ...
Why Should You Care? (My Blog Action Day Post)
Today, thousands of blogs around the world are talking about global poverty. Why? Today is Blog Action Day - a day when bloggers around the world unite to talk about ...
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
I had resigned myself that I had to go home. Even if it was for a short trip - I had to go back now. But, as fate would have it, that was not to be the case…. at least for today. At midnight I had showed up for my flight at Dhaka Airport. Only to find that I couldn’t go because Hong Kong had completely shut down due to Typhoon Nuri. Maybe it’s a sign? 
It was only when I started to think and prepare for heading home that I realized how much I’ve had to sacrifice to do this project. In helping the poor, I’ve sort of become a pauper myself. As I packed my suitcase I noticed that none of my clothes fit me anymore - I had lost so much weight. But, instead of buying new clothes, I had decided to save what little money I had for this project. In fact, as I looked at my toiletries, I realized that I wasn’t even able to buy a tube of toothpaste without borrowing from family.
So, while it may have been a broken harddrive that was the straw that broke the camel’s back - this was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s only now that I’m kind of laughing at some of the meaner YouTube comments I get - the ones that accuse me of doing this for fame or for money. Whether it’s the belt I borrowed from an uncle to hold up my now oversized pants or giving up the chance to buy an Xbox 360 and using the money to help the poor instead - I certainly am not doing this project for the sake of my (nonexistent) bank balance.
And, if everyone who is helping the poor got the attention in the media they deserved, than Dr. Kathy Ward would have her own feature length movie and TV miniseries documenting her amazingly innovative work here in Bangladesh. The fact is that, while there is always some feel-good “making a difference” story you might hear about from the media, there are tens of thousands of people out there making a difference that you don’t hear about. As I said before, I’m not doing this to become famous. Heck, if I wanted to be famous, I would have done something like this instead:
While I don’t have the goal of becoming rich or famous - I do want this project to be sustainable. Sustainable enough to be able to buy clothes, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and have a backup equipment so that everything doesn’t stop at the slightest hiccup. I’d also like to do it in a way that doesn’t involve touching people’s donation money. I don’t believe in cyberbegging and - despite many people writing to say that their donations can be used for my living expenses - I have yet to touch a penny for such purposes.
So, in going home - visiting my family and giving the LaCie corporation a piece of my mind. While there, I’m going to be double my efforts to find a way to make this project more sustainable. The kind of support I’ve got from companies like Vestergaard-Frandsen has been invaluable. But, to date, I’ve asked Vestergaard-Frandsen to not give me a dime because I didn’t want people to think I was endorsing them for pay. And, while I’ve tried to approach socially responsible companies for support or sponsorship - Amazon.com, Apple, etc - most don’t even bother to reply saying no.
I guess if you want corporate sponsorship and/or enough money through YouTube revenue sharing, you gotta make videos that are more like Fred and less like Save the Children.
How do you measure success? Even though I’m not an NGO, should I measure success by the aid I’ve been able to give? Even though I’m not a charity, should I measure success by the money I’ve been able to raise? Or, since I have a blog and a YouTube channel, should I instead measure success by view counts, website hits, and number of subscribers?
I won’t lie - those are all very important measures of success. But I’m not a NGO - this isn’t about doing things at the same scale as those big guys. I’m also not a charity - this isn’t about pulling in the big dollars. And, especially given the subject matter that I’m focusing on, I’ll never be able to develop a cult-like aurora of celebrity (although I think that’s probably for the best).
Rather, the more time I spend doing this project, the more I realize what matters the most is not the things I give, nor the funds I raise, nor even the popularity this project receives. What matters the most is the lives that this work has been able to touch - both here on the ground and online. And, by that measure - and by that measure alone - this project stands to eventually have (or already has) a success that is second to none.
Having been here in Bangladesh for over a year, and with the one year anniversary of my first blog post coming up, I thought I would share some of the most memorable moments of this project to date…
Most Memorable Game Changing Experience: Matt Joins the Project
I can’t take credit for Matt’s decision to fly to Uganda to try and make a difference. Anyone who has had the privilege of getting to know Matt would realize he was bound to do something like this sooner or later. What I can - or rather, what all of those following this project - can take credit for is making Matt’s trip to Uganda a lot more meaningful than could have otherwise been possible.
Matt had gone to Uganda with the expectation he’d be helping some family move beyond subsistence level agriculture. What, instead, he found is that things are always harder than it seems. Much of his two months there were spent trying to reconcile disparities in what various funding agencies wanted and what the locals there were the most comfortable with.
Matt had eventually resigned himself to the fact that the big impact he wanted to make wasn’t going to happen. But, thanks to you guys, we were able to fund his microfinance project ourselves. In fact, and this still surprises me, within 48 hours of announcing that I would be helping Matt - two fans of this project stepped up and decided to fully fund Matt’s project.
Because of that, over 180 grandmothers will be getting the livestock that is needed to move beyond subsistence level agriculture. This was done via an interest-free microfinance loan funded by you guys - and supervised by a government approved and registered NGO in Uganda.
The only thing I’m debating is who is the most grateful: Matt for the assistance he was able to get, the grandmothers for the help they received, or me for Matt joining this project in the first place.
Most Memorable Online Community Experience: Nerdfighters
To the outsider, the whole concept of Nerdfighting might seem a bit.. childish? Made of Awesome? In your pants jokes? DFTBA? But the fact of the matter is that the Nerdfighting community has been - by far - the most important community I have had the honor of being a part of.
And I say that not because of the help John and Hank have provided in helping to spread the word and raise funds. Rather, Nerdfighting is important because of what it represents. On YouTube, it is very easy for “community” to be nothing more than a fan club centered around a charismatic celebrity-like personality.
Nerdfighting - on the other hand - is centered around an idea, not a person. It’s about having fun, making friends, and doing good (aka decreasing “worldsuck”). Although all this was started by John and Hank Green, since its inception, it’s extended far beyond just being about them.
John and Hank Green have been able to show what a genuine YouTube community can be like. And, by being able to team up with them, this is an opportunity to show what kind really tangible on-the-ground impact such a community can have.
Most Memorable Impact: Helping Single Mothers
When it comes to my single most memorable impact - I actually have a hard time narrowing it down to just one. There are actually two experiences that distinctly stick out in my mind. Both of them, actually, deal with helping single mothers as they struggle to support their children with little or no money.
The first one was helping a widow support her children (seen in the photo above). That is definitely the single most tangible impact I’ve had on any person’s life. There is also the single mother I met during my return to the Cyclone Sidr disaster area. That was really my emotional high point and - by far - the biggest emotional impact I’ve had on any one person’s life.
Both experiences actually highlight something else I’ve learned over the course of this past year. While I may not be able to compete with the sheer scale of big NGOs and charities, the approach I’ve taken with this project has allowed me to give a special attention to detail that charities aren’t able to do. I’ll have more on that in Part Two.
Two days after my LaCie died, I decided to try once again and try and get it to work. Imagine my surprise when the blue light on the front came to life. It was working again! Although, it was all too fleeting: the performance was flaky, the drive wouldn’t always mount, and - eventually - it died once again.
It’s really starting to look like I’m going to have to fly home to have this fixed. So what’s the plan?
Well, first off, I’m checking with the airline that I originally flew in with to see if I can use my old return ticket. It’s long expired but they haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of being able to renew the ticket (for some fee). If that works out, than I might have an inexpensive way to return home and get this fixed.
Afterwards, if I fly back, I’d like to come back in September. I was hoping to have at least one (important) video up on YouTube before I flew back. Given my lack of harddrive space I foolishly - but out of necessity - started using the LaCie again once it started working again. I was able to back-up some old data, but I lost some new stuff I was playing around with.
I used to be a LaCie guy - all my external harddrives used to be from them. But since then I’ve become a Western Digital fan. As you can see in this photo, the Western Digital external harddrive - on the same setup as the LaCie - seems to be doing just fine.
My sparse writing during these last two weeks can easily be explained: I have been incredibly busy. It started with an email, which led to a second meeting. Then, things really started moving fast.
After the second meeting, I had a list of all the grandmothers and what animals they chose to receive. It is probably the most interesting shopping list I’ve ever had:
My co-worker Joseph and I got to the village of Buwaiswa on Wednesday afternoon, and were immediately greeted by Mama Lillian, who helps out at the orphanage. Mama Lillian conveniently had eight piglets ready to be sold, we could have first pick if we so chose. Done.
This gave us time to go around on foot (anything else was impossible) and visit some of the grandmothers who wanted goats. Three of them had even done shopping on their own and found goats for us to buy.
That night we went into the trading center of Busota to see if we could find an animal salesman named Dadi. He supposedly had a bunch of goats waiting to be sold. After we arrived in Busota and were mobbed by kids who hadn’t seen a white person before, we eventually found his assistant. He confirmed that Dadi had some goats ready to sell; the only problem was that he wasn’t in town. We would need to come back tomorrow. We exchanged phone numbers and then hitched a ride back to Buwaiswa.
The next morning, we took an early tea and then ventured up to Busota again. Dadi was still missing. His phone wasn’t getting any reception (no surprise), so we just had to wait. And wait. After repeated attempts, we finally got Dadi on the phone long enough to find out that he was technically sold out of goats at the moment, which was why he was frantically driving around trying to find more.
Back to square one. This was going to be a long day. Our boda-boda driver told us that he had an idea, which was as good as anything, so we pulled a u-turn and headed back past Buwaiswa. Along the way, we found a chicken farmer and made his day. He finished the transaction sixteen chickens lighter and 105,000 shillings richer.
The goat dealer we found didn’t have any either, but he at least knew where to get some. We found a tree for some shade and sat down as he took our boda driver off into the bush. Over the next hour, he came back four times with a goat on his lap, tied it to a stump, and headed off in another direction. On the fifth trip, he hopped off, tied up the last goat, and walked over to us.
“That’s all I could find.”
I was impressed. Five goats in an hour. That’s twelve minutes per goat!
After this stroke of luck, things were looking good. In war, what we did next is called “mopping up.” For the rest of thursday and friday, we just meandered around on foot and found the last four goats.
Our shopping was over. We called the grannies. They needed to help bring in groceries.
