UP | uncultured project

“Did your mom come with you?” asked my family doctor as he stepped into the office. I nodded. “Go get her” he told me. My family got lots of test results from our family doc: everything from my lactose intolerance to my mother’s pregnancy (all those years ago) – he had was always the one giving us the news. This was the first time he asked me to call in someone else into the room….

Full medical disclosure and my reaction after the jump…

Continue reading ‘Full Medical Disclosure: Iron Poisoning’

Before (read my original article here):

Five Months Later:

What’s Different?

• Clothes – no more walking around shiverring and shirtless! (clothes provided by my aunt)
• Schooling – the eldest son just graduated from Grade One! (school costs paid for by my mom, dad, and I)
• No more insects and insect-bites! The PermaNet  I donated to them got rid of the cockroaches that used to crawl around their bed at night. It’s also protected them from being feasted upon by mosquitoes while they slept. (PermaNet donated to this project courtesy of Vestergaard Frandsen – they rock)
• Can Study in the Dark – that windup flashlight I gave them still works and the eldest son uses it to study. My dad was worried that a five dollar camping flashlight from Wal-Mart wouldn’t be useful as long-term light source in the third world. Five months on, it’s still going on strong. LEDs and hand-cranked rechargable batteries rule!
• Hungry no more! Malnutrition is a big problem here. And, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t eating meals. Rather, it means that people aren’t eating a lot of the proper stuff – because they can’t afford it. Protein and iron deficieines are all too common here. I found out that most of the poorer locals can’t afford beef or other foods high in protein. There are apparently two kinds of salt sold here. The “poor mans” salt is basically old and low in iron. The good stuff – the kind most reading this have on their dinner tables – is high in iron. Not only did we give them money for food but also, whenever my grandmother is in town, she invites them over for a meal full of all the stuff they normally can’t afford like beef and the “good” kind of salt. I was able to share such a meal with them earlier today.

Here’s a photo I took shortly after eating along with them:

One of the things I remember Dr. Jeffrey Sachs talking about was how the poor know what they need but just cannot afford to buy it. Now that I knew the basics (protection from insect bites, funds for school, helping with food, etc) were taken care of – I could finally ask them: what do they need? I could tell no one ever asked the mother this question because it kind of took her aback. After some hesitation, the mother turned to the eldest son and quietly talked to him for a bit. She then turned to me and said it would really help if I could buy them a desk and a couple of chairs. They can’t afford it and, because of it, the son needs to study on the bed (as you can see in episode one).

Since Ikea hasn’t opened up a shop yet in rural Bangladesh, I was kind of worried that this would cost a bit of money. Afterall, all the furniture here is hand-made. And when was the last time anything hand-made was cheap, right? I went to the local bazar with my grandmother and we scouted out a couple of good hand-made chairs and a hand-made table to go along with it – not unlike the table and chair I’m using right now. Turns out the whole thing cost eight bucks. Eight bucks. Wow. Let me put it this way: There is a vending machine on the ground floor of the Hesburgh Library back at Notre Dame that has stolen more than eight bucks from me.

If I was looking for a pat on the back about my work – I’d end this article here. But, no good deed goes unpunished and nothing good comes without trouble. So click the jump to hear more…

Continue reading ‘One Difference at a Time – The Follow-Up’