Okay, so it’s been a few days since coming back from the rural villages (including my Bengal Bouts journey to Jalchatra) and I thought I’d kick things off with an update video. This was something I filmed in a rice field in a rural village in the district of Jamalpur. Filming in the middle of a rice field is a lot tricker than it looks.
Near the end of the video, I talk about what I’d like to call my “Xbox 360 Challenge”. Before going to the rural villages, I withdrew 21,000 taka from my bank at Notre Dame. That’s over $300. That $300 was actually the last of my savings from my last job. I had set this money aside to buy a Xbox 360 (and Halo 3) upon my return. I’m a huge Halo fan – I bought the original Xbox just to play Halo and I bought Halo 2 within the first week of its release. I was waiting to buy an Xbox 360 after Halo 3 came out – but by then I was already doing this project.
Halo 3 will have to wait because all that money has now gone to much more important causes. I went to the rural villages with $300 and came back with about $3. With such rampant poverty and destitution, it’s very easy to find ways to spend $300. I really wanted to make a difference with this cash, so I set for myself the following rules:
- I can’t give just cash. I must buy or pay for things people need.
- It must be a hand up not a hand out. (As cheesy as that sounds)
- I have to learn from the locals. I can’t just buy stuff I think they need, I have to get to know the people and figure out how to best spend the money in a way that helps them.
A small part of this money went to buying supplies for the trip, paying for gas, and paying for my internet connection. But, the rest of the money (more than enough to buy an Xbox 360 Core System) went to the poor. What do I do now that all my savings have been spent? Well, I am now officially running only on family donations (which is about a few hundred dollars each month). Don’t worry – it doesn’t cost that much to live here and I have relatives helping with room and board. I’m going to make sure as much of that money goes towards helping the poor as possible.
Expect more footage from my trip to rural Bangladesh in the future 
