UP | uncultured project

Wow – what a difference a couple of months make. It feels like yesterday I was sweating bullets. There I was in Dhaka staring at a dead LaCie harddrive – three months old, full of important footage, and not turning on. I decided that, after over a year in the field, now was probably as good a time as any to take a much needed break. I returned home to find a renewal bill from my webhost that I couldn’t afford. As nice as they are, they were none to eager to sponsor something that wasn’t a tax-writeoff for them.

I’ve been very fortunate that there have been people that have swept in from nowhere and turned rotten situations into opportunities. The first was with the support of a company called Media Temple. If you’ve heard of these guys you know they are one of the biggest hosting companies out there. They host Adobe, ABC, Time, Starbucks, Toyota, Warner Brothers, and Sony. They generously offered to partially subsidize the hosting costs. Uncultured.com is now hosted with them and they foot part of the bill.

The switchover allowed me time to try some new things – like a new look for the site. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending time making a new logo, header images, and layout for this site. These past couple of weeks reminded me of why I absolutely love working on this project. Whether it’s going out in the field, helping hands on, editing footage, making YouTube videos, tweaking CSS, or making new logos – I love every aspect of this project.

I couldn’t have done this alone – I have to thank Patrick (the same Patrick whose donations were used to sponsor Jack in the Chittagong Hill-Tracts). Patrick was able to help me with some of the more complicated technical stuff a n00b like me couldn’t handle. I also gotta thank Morgan (FlawedArtist) who helped with some feedback on the header images I made (as well as with help trying to renew my Flickr Pro account). And, of course, my parents who (once again) dipped into their savings and helped me pickup a new harddrive at Costco so that I could get things rolling again.

The best is yet to come. And this new look is just in time for Blog Action Day too

I titled this video “Using YouTube with a Purpose” because, really, this couldn’t have been done without the help of a little website called YouTube and the community that is part of it (in particular the Nerdfighter community). From the donors Hank and Pat – both of whom are YouTubers – to the musicians who lent their music for free in this video such as Jamison Young, Brad Sucks, and Josh Woodward. And, here in Bangladesh, if Rick Davis never found my videos on YouTube – I would have never thought to make this trip nor would I have been able to meet the amazing children in this rural village.

If you notice in this video, I use a clip from one of my sadder videos – The Hard Lessons of Aid Work. That’s because, even though I don’t talk much about it in this video, I did learn a lot from this experience. I now have a better understanding about why big name charities need to have large overhead and infrastructure. I also have a better understanding of how help can sometimes come with a risk and how even trying to help can sometimes have it its pros and cons.

All that plus some photos from the field after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Using YouTube with a Purpose’

This is what I mean when I say I want to “YouTube with a Purpose”. If it wasn’t for YouTube, most of you wouldn’t be reading this. If it wasn’t for YouTube, I’d never get to meet Hank and John Green. If it wasn’t for YouTube, Hank would never have thought to donate to some guy with a crazy idea for a project in Bangladesh.

Photos, deleted scenes, and much more after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Hank, John, and a Journey Through the Chittagong Hill-Tracts’

… or how much of my family in Bangladesh doesn’t give a damn about me.

I try and avoid writing about negative family issues because it kind of feels like I’m airing dirty laundry. Although I’ve tried my best to minimize how much I talk about this issue, the fact is the single biggest emotional toll I have had on this trip is discovering that most of my family here simply doesn’t give a damn about how I’m doing here or if I need their help. That’s not universally true of course. My grandmother has completely blown me away with her endless compassion and generosity despite her unemployment and her limited fixed income. But, as she often points out, “big wallets don’t always mean big hearts”. This also connects to what I’ve been saying earlier about many wealthy Bengalis living in an “aristocratic dome” (something thicker than just a bubble).

This ended up being a much longer article (rant?) than I imagined. So the complete article is after the jump.

Continue reading ‘The Kindness of Strangers…’

Wow! I knew rural Bangladesh was beautiful. But the natural scenery and beauty of the Chittagong Hill-Tracts was a whole other level of beautiful. The people (like these kids above who asked if they could take a photo with me) were friendly and welcoming too! And, best of all, because I was in a mostly Buddhist village – I could finally wear shorts! I can’t really do that in most parts of Bangladesh without getting scolded (or getting stern looks) from the local Muslim population.

More photos and details after the jump.

Continue reading ‘My Trip to the Chittagong Hill-Tracts’