UP | uncultured project

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my frustration trying to translate a single word a young cyclone victim had told Paul. Although it may not seem like much, here’s the fruits of that 14+ hour labor:

What you might not see in this video – because I did have to edit it a bit to make it understandable – is the struggle he was going through to find the right words to express himself in English. He desperately wanted to share his story – and I desperately wanted to make sure I got what he was saying correct. In hindsight, a half day’s worth of work seems like a bargain for that.

This also serves to highlight one of the common things I’ve learned about how Bangladeshi rich fail to understand, empathize, or even acknowledge poverty within Bangladesh. Many of the well-to-do Bangladeshis didn’t have a clue what was being said but instead offered their guesses (such as “he’s talking about river or coastal embankments” or even better “he’s talking about returning a book”).

As this experience highlights, when it comes to well-to-do Bangladeshi elites and their understanding of the plight of the poor in this country. Both literally and figuratively, the rich are often not even speaking the same language as the poor.

These past 14 hours have served as an example of one of the many frustrating challenges a project like this faces.

What many non-Bangla speakers sometimes don’t realize, is that there are many variations of Bangla. There is city Bangla, Bangla used by those who emigrated away from Bangladesh, and rural village Bangla. Each one comes with different accents, meanings, and translations.

This can be a lot of trouble when trying to translate words I’ve heard for the first time in rural villages. This was exactly what happened when a local villager tried to explain to Paul that Cyclone Aila had destroyed many “bhitas”:

In many ways, I relate to this villager a lot. I often throw English words into my Bangla when I don’t know what the Bangla equivalent is. And this villager, while explaining the damage caused by Cyclone Aila, had to throw in “bhita” because he didn’t know the English equivalent.

The problem is that there is no direct English translation for “bhita”. And thus began my 14 hour struggle to find a translation.

The first people I turned to were those from the American-Bangladeshi community. This consists of Americans who originally were born and raised in Bangladesh. To my surprise, many of them told me their Bangla was too poor to properly help with any translation. This includes people who still do business in Bangladesh! I was shocked and surprised.

Those in the American-Bangladeshi community that did try and take a stab at translating each came up with different words. One suggested it means “embankment”, another suggested it meant “landscape” or “property”, someone else suggested it meant “home”, finally one of them suggested it meant “mud hut”. How could one word mean so many different things?

Well it turns out they were all wrong… and right at the same time. Click the jump to find out what the word “bhita” means.

Continue reading ‘Lost in Translation’

A Young Villager Talks to Paul About His Experiences with Cyclones Sidr & Aila

When my friend Paul stepped off that plane at Zia International Airport in Dhaka, he thought he was going to get away from it all. For the past several months, Paul has been living in Nepal. He’s seen regular riots, curfews, day-long power outages, and frequent water shortages. Bangladesh, by comparison, was a place he assumed he could get away from that for a bit.

Being the great friend that I am, his experience was more like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Instead of taking Paul to Cox’s Bazar for a break at a seaside resort, to the Sundabans in the hopes of glimpsing a Bengal Tiger, or even the beautiful tea gardens – I took him to a cyclone disaster area to see what we could do to make a difference. In what was no doubt an act of sainthood, Paul endured stomach aches, blistering sun, peeling skin, and a two day journey to reach a remote village affected by Cyclone Aila.

In addition to my mobile vlogs, I have regular footage and photos of the event. But in the meantime, Paul has a great first blog post about his experiences complete with some amazing photos. Paul also was generous enough to let me repost a select few of these photos on uncultured flickr account and license them under the Creative Commons (which I will be doing in the near future).

Although Paul never got to see Bangladesh’s fancy resorts or tourist spots, by the time his trip was over, he could unequivocally say he’s stood in places that no “bideshi” (foreigner) has ever stood before. Which, knowing Paul, probably made this whole crazy trip worth it.