UP | uncultured project

Over ten days ago, I asked the question, “what do I have to show for all this?“. Things have been tough here. A few days ago, I waived a family member goodbye at the airport. Having come along to help me with this project, this family member ended up being hospitalized for both Dengue Fever and Typhoid. It was just too risky for her to continue to stay here. I haven’t got sick – but with the Muslim month of Ramadan (a period where Muslims don’t eat or drink any liquids during daylight hours) now in full swing, it is hard to move around the city. Dhaka seems to shut down way too early to really go anywhere.

But, I finally do have something to show for all this. And it starts with this photo:

This is a photo of a single mother of two I met while visiting a rural village in Bangladesh. Her husband died of a stomach related illness. She was not only left with two kids to raise on her own but also was left with loans from her husband’s medical expenses. When I went and saw where she was living – a small straw mudhut – I was taken aback. People in North America have more garage space for their cars than this lady had for her family of three. Not only that – but there was no electricity and only a small window near the floor which only served to prove how dark the inside of the house was.

I wanted to make a difference in her life. I knew I had money and stuff that I could give her that would help her. But making a difference is more than just being a parachute Santa Claus. I started talking to her. How is she doing? How is she paying for her son to go to school? Does she have medical expenses from her husband left over? How can your kids read in such a dark house? I tried my best not to tell her what she needed – and tried to figure out from her what I could do to help to make a difference in her life.

Maybe it’s the Fighting Irish in me, but the first thing that I decided to do was come up with a game plan.

More after the jump… Continue reading ‘One Difference at a Time’

Coming to Bangladesh has given me a greater appreciation for all the freedoms we enjoy in America and elsewhere in the Western World. Sometimes I think we forget just how free things are over there. In the United States, if my cellphone wasn’t working and if I couldn’t get online with my computer, I would just assume that I wasn’t getting any reception and that I had a bad internet connection. I could never imagine, as did actually happen here in Bangladesh, that the government would order the shutdown of cellphone networks and internet access gateways.

In America, when I watch 24-hour news programs like CNN, MSNBC or Fox News, I know they can each have their own bias – but they are allowed to say what they want. I could never imagine that the government would forcibly shut down any one of these stations because one of them said something the government didn’t like. But that’s exactly what happened to CSB – Bangladesh’s only 24-hour news network. After airing footage of anti-government protests, the government shut down the station. (I am linking to the CSB entry in Wikipedia because the government not only took the station off the air, but also shutdown their website as well)

Eventually, I’m sad to say, this kind of censorship changes how you react. So, when I and others were consistently unable to access many Bangladeshi blogs hosted on Blogspot – my first reaction was to assume that this was a new form of government censorship. Blocking blogs is not something new – Pakistan and Turkey do it presently for WordPress.com (and, previously, were also blocking Blogspot.com). But, sometimes – as it seems to be in this case – this was just a technical glitch that affected multiple users on multiple ISPs. Unfortunately, governments that choose to limit free speech usually don’t make press releases stating that they are going to be doing so.

Life would be much easier if every government that wanted to censor or limit free speech would make a press release saying “Oh hai! Im in ur internetz – censorinz ur speech” (and if the press release was worded like that, life would also be much cuter).

As a Canadian I’m both surprised and sad to report that Bangladesh beats Canada when it comes to cellphone service. I’m writing now from a rural village in Bangladesh (called Madhupur). There is no electricity, no running water, and the diesel generator that was powering a ceiling fan and light bulb died earlier this night. Bangladesh is still a third world country afterall. But, despite all this, I am still able to check my mail, see what’s going on at Digg, and post to this blog.

Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world that can guarantee each one of its residents can get a cellphone signal – no matter where they are in the country. With a population of over 150 million (over four times Canada’s population) that’s pretty impressive. There are populated parts in the North in Canada that most cellphone service providers don’t bother putting up towers for. Not only can Bangladeshis send and receive calls from anywhere in the country – they can also surf the web on either an EDGE or GPRS network. Part of this has to do with free market competition in Bangladesh and corporate collusion in Canada. Continue reading ‘Bangladesh Cellphone Service Better than Canada’

I actually started my first blog over eight years ago. I had stopped when I came to a realization: I’m boring. Writing about my life isn’t at all interesting. So, when it came to making a blog for this project – I tried my best to avoid blogging about personal issues. In hindsight, that was a bad idea. There are a lot of good stories that I haven’t talked about simply because they didn’t connect with any issues directly relating to the project.

For example, there was this time when I had to fight with Arab security at an airport in the Middle East. They had confiscated my Notre Dame branded Nalgene bottle because they said it was too big of a water bottle to take onto the plane (even though I had been permitted to bring it on board my connecting flight by airport security in North America). I refused to leave the security checkpoint without it. This was admittedly a very bad move – my passport was confiscated and I was surrounded by security forces. A female family member who had traveled along with me tried to plea with them. This only angered them because apparently, in that country, women are forbidden to talk to men who aren’t family. How we were able to leave in one piece – with my Notre Dame bottle returned to me no less – is quite the story.

Unfortunately, not every story has had a happy ending…. Continue reading ‘What Do I Have To Show For All This?’

This kid is why I am here in Bangladesh. I took this photo six years and one month ago and his face has been stuck in my head ever since. 149 children, out of every 1,000, who are under five years of age die each year in Bangladesh (this number has since lowered to 73 out of a thousand) (source). When I think about that, I wonder, is this kid still alive? Dengue Fever and typhoid – easily (and cheaply) treatable diseases – are big killers in Bangladesh (especially in the cities, where this photo was taken). This kid lived in a slum (aka a “bosti”) surrounded by pools of stagnant water, trash and mosquitoes – all of which raises the odds of contracting such diseases.

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, author of the book “The End of Poverty”, argues that extreme poverty like the kind faced by this kid can be eliminated in our lifetime. Dr. Sachs was the one who inspired me to put grad school on hold and come to Bangladesh to try and make a difference. But it’s this kid – who happened to walk up to me because he was curious about my camera – who taught me how I can make this difference. This isn’t about ending global poverty, making a statement, or changing the world. If I can make a significant difference in the life of just one person – that’s good enough for me.

As I move around Dhaka during this time of curfews and civil unrest – with photo ID in my pocket, hoping I don’t attract the attention of a soldier at a checkpoint – it’s this kid and others like him that remind me why I’m here.