Bangladesh

Well well well, the very first words of my very first travel blog.. and blogs in general! I wasn’t going to start until I reached Nepal (hence the title of the blog) but there has been a fair bit going on in good old Bangladesh, so I thought I’d share it all with you.

After many sleepless hours doing one of my least favourite activities (flying), I finally arrived in Banga. Dhaka airport is cruel; you can see your loved ones about 30 metres away behind a barrier when you stand in line for customs, so after around 10 minutes of awkward waving to them whilst standing in line, you then remember you STILL have to go to the bag carousel and attempt to find your bag amongst the hoards of bearded men and have it scanned. Not fun when you have a 15kg pack, a 10kg duffel bag full of knitted goods for Nepalese orphans, a 7kg carry-on bag and a laptop bag… and you’re too stubborn to accept help from strangers. Yup, that was me.

Considering I’d arrived in Dhaka at around 5:30am Melbourne time (which is wayyyyy past Grandma Milnes’ bedtime, as many of you know), I spent most of Monday relaxing, reacquainting myself with the Aussie Club and doing some shopping, as most of the things I managed to fit into my pack were trekking-related. However, I ended up with a bit more than just “a few things” to get me through the week in Bangladesh. Hopefully dad and Donna have some room in their suitcases when they come back to Aus for Christmas! Plus, with Donna’s mad bargaining skillz, this whole lot pretty much cost me $25 or so. Ohhhh yeh!

On Tuesday, Donna and I woke at 6am (with Donna and dad feeling a bit under the weather.. lucky I had stayed away from spicy food the night before - good move!) to head to Donna’s work, a factory whose managers are kindly donating a whole pack of underwear for each girl at BMIS (that’s almost 500 undies!).



I was super excited to see Sylvia again on Wednesday, the Principal when I visited the Baptist Mission Integrated School (BMIS) back in April. She has since taken up a new position within the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) in Dhaka and is doing some great work, still with the same passion as always. However, she really misses the girls at BMIS and can’t wait to see them tomorrow when we present the school with a cheque for the money raised from the trivia night. It was a grand total of $4862,65 AUD which converts into approximately 415,000 Bangladeshi Taka. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who attended, supported and donated; I really couldn’t have done it without you (and thanks to dad who spent an hour at the bank trying to get the cheque written!).

 

Me with AUD $4862.65 worth of Bangladeshi Taka in my hands :):):)

When I was in Bangladesh in April, I read a book by Prof Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi Professor of Economics who came up with the idea of “microfinance” or “microcredit”, basically a concept where a community bank makes small loans to poor women without requiring collateral (yes, I stole that from Wiki and no I will not be referencing it properly). It is a fascinating subject and here is the Wiki link for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank. Whilst reading the book, I wondered whether this was more just an idealistic concept, rather than a practical solution.. I wondered whether it worked in the real world. Well, while being shown around the grounds of the YWCA Girls Secondary School in Dhaka, guess what I got to sit in on - a women’s microfinance group meeting! It was inspiring. The group works like this: to join the group, the women must have children attending the school (thereby encouraging them to educate their children) and once per week a doctor visits their meetings for check-ups. The women have to prove that they can save money for a certain period of time before being eligible to receive microfinance, a small loan to help them with whatever project they choose to undertake, in order to earn money to pay back the loan with a small amount of interest. I loved this experience; it was so inspirational to see that despite the poverty engulfing so much of the Bangladeshi population, there were still good people willing to try to alleviate as much of it as they possibly can.

Wednesday night was my birthday dinner at dad’s favourite restaurant in Dhaka and the food was YUM! Thanks dad J

This ring is a present from dad and Donna for my graduation, birthday and Christmas this year. I spotted it when I was here in April and was shattered that it had been sold when I returned to the same shop this time around. Little did I know, dad had been hiding it in a sock drawer since April, planning on giving it to me when I visited again!

 

And that brings me to today. Well I was planning to lay by the pool at the Club all afternoon but forgot that it’s the end of the wet season and the thunder has literally just started, meaning that rain isn’t far away. So I guess it’s One Tree Hill watching time for me and then later I’ll get ready for the monthly BBQ at the Aussie Club tonight, before heading over to BMIS tomorrow to present them with the cheque. Saturday is Grand Final Day which I’m excited to spend at the club (although 9:30am seems a little early to start drinking in time for the first bounce, but we’ll see) and then on Sunday I head over to Nepal for a whole new adventure.

Stay tuned, lovely people! Missing you all but can’t wait to see you,

Alex xx