“Are you sick?” asks Rahul Singh – an EMS first responder and fellow Canadian from my hometown of Toronto. He came to Bangladesh to try and help the victims of Cyclone Sidr as part of an NGO he runs called Global Medic. Rahul is a big guy – but he isn’t as big as the presence he is able to command. You don’t mess around with this guy – even over the phone. If it was anyone else, I might have lied – but not with Rahul. “Yes I am,” I explained. I then quickly added “I’m sure it’s nothing and I’ll be fine by the time we get there,”. That wasn’t good enough for Rahul. I’m stuck in a hotel just a short drive to the disaster area – alone.
In hindsight, he was probably right. I had come to the hotel from Dhaka by midnight – after a long 7 hour trip. I hadn’t slept and I was hungry. The only thing to eat at this late hour was some food the Global Medic and Muslim Aid team had saved for me and my travel companions (who were employees from Muslim Aid). It was cold but it looked safe. I mean, the hotel we were staying at is impressively modern. Cable TV, room service, modern bathroom with all the trimmings – you could hardly tell you were in rural Bangladesh. The food poisoning, however, was a cold reminder that looks can be deceiving. I spent the entire night – the entire night – throwing up.
….. Looking back at that last sentence, that was probably as delicately as I could have worded it.
Even though I was sick – I wanted to go. If only because I wanted to correct a mistake. I met Rahul once before – months ago, very early into this trip. Before I was blogging in fact. There was a devastating flood that hit Bangladesh and I was here for that. My dad, back in Canada, had seen a news story about this Canadian NGO going to Bangladesh and told me about it. I looked them up and was ecstatic to hear that they wouldn’t mind me tagging along. My grandmother, mother, aunt, and uncle – however, were anything but ecstatic. My parents had been very supportive of this whole project. Not many parents would be cool with helping to fund a trip around the world for (well, for all intents and purposes) an unemployed former grad student. So, when they wanted to veto something – I conceded.
I quickly came to regret that decision. My own efforts at independent aid were nothing like I had hoped for. The best I could do was provide two crates of water bottles to a flood affected region within the city – hardly the big difference I wanted to make. While I would have preferred that something like Cyclone Sidr never would happen – when it did, I didn’t want to repeat my mistake. “70 blankets can save 70 lives” said my dad to me over the phone. It had been a couple of months since the flood – and this time my parents attitude was somewhat different. This time, both he and I agreed going to Global Medic and Muslim Aid was an OK if not-without-risk idea. And 70 blankets is far more useful than 2 crates of mineral water to about 2 dozen people.
But, I guess what they say is true – nothing worthwhile is without risk. So, here I am – all puked out with my tummy still hurting. I’m so close… yet so far away from making a difference in the lives of the Cyclone victims.
(Disclaimer: Tagging along with Global Medic and Muslim Aid in no way implies support or endorsement of The Uncultured Project, me, or my views. The views expressed are my own and do not reflect Global Medic, The David McAntony Gibson Foundation, Muslim Aid, or any other NGO or charity. I am not under the employment or contract of any of these organizations.)
