Ways to See the World

It's that time of year again, the time to celebrate with family and friends and for celebrating the birth of Jesus, if that's your thing. As I have never celebrated the birth of Jesus, Christmas has always been the time of year when all the family meets up and generally just has a nice get-together over a few Harvey Wallbangers (on my Mum's side at least). Talking about family get-togethers is always a strange one since for most of my life I have always had to divide my Christmas and New Year between my Mum and my Dad. In some ways this makes them extra special as I then get to see both halves of my family over this period and in some ways it really doesn't as it takes the magic out of the whole experience. In recent years the family aspect has begun to fall away and I find myself wondering what the point of Christmas is if you don't celebrate the birth of Jesus and your family gathering seems to shrink every year despite your best efforts. This year is particu

Of all the things I expected to love about being here, attending community worship was not one of them. Living and working in an open, Christian community sounded to me as if it would be the most challenging aspect of my time here since I am not a religious person. Thankfully, I have already been successfully challenged in my views and genuinely look forward to this aspect of the rhythm of life here. Worship takes place in the Croi ( pronounced Cree ) every morning and most evenings and whilst it is not compulsory to attend, I find myself there more often than not. The 'worship' is facilitated by community members and the nature of it changes depending on who is running the session.  Obviously, being a Christian community, some of the sessions are related to God and the central tenants of Christianity but generally speaking it is a space for contemplation and reflection on a topic, providing an excellent way to start and end the day. Last week was the anniversary of

It's been almost a week since I started work and already I feel like a part of a community.   I find it hard to describe the atmosphere here but it's an incredibly calm and peaceful place, overlooking Ballycastle with views across the sea to Rathlin Island, and Scotland on particularly clear days. Upon arrival there was a Welcome Party to greet me and due to various birthdays and parties this week there has been a lot of cake available. There was also Halloween which, being of Celtic origin, is far more celebrated here than it is in Yorkshire. It's also a good excuse for a non-sectarian party.  Having had no warning that all the volunteers would be participating in the Halloween parade I had no costume ready, especially as my Halloween costumes consist of variations of either pirate or witch, and everyone was going as a character from Mario. As it turned out, one of the volunteers had made me a toadstool hat and we raided the costume box for the rest of the outfit.

First impressions of Burgas aren't too bad despite getting ripped off by the taxi driver and staying in one of the warmest and definitely not the cleanest hostel I've ever stayed in. My initial plan was to take the bus from the airport but since my plane landed stupidly early that meant a long wait in the dark by myself on the side of a road slowly being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Maybe not then. Wandered back to the taxi rank armed with the knowledge that it should not cost me more than about 20 lev (not sure where from, probably Lonely Planet forum) . This information did not come in useful when I discovered that all the taxis were on meters and charged 5 lev per kilometre. My hostel was 10km away. You do the maths... The hostel had a lovely green neon sign above the door, the sort that you might find above a dodgy nightclub or those pharmacy symbols on every street corner in France. Admittedly its reviews were pretty bad but it's the only hostel actually in the t

Here are the videos from each ICS team from the January-April group: Chardakatia: South-West Sat Vaia Para, Khagrachari: Chittagong Afjalpur: North-West

Here's an example of the work that the ICS Bangladesh team have been doing over the last three months.  This video was made by the North-West team and focuses on some of the work they have done to establish a dairy co-operative and empower women in the village of Afjalpur.  Hannah has also been blogging on the DfID website:  blogs.dfid.gov.uk/2012/03/connecting-girls-inspiring-futures/  if you want to find out more.

--> It’s been a while since I last posted and I realise that I haven’t really talked about how the work is going here. Work started quite slowly as we were constrained by the lack of a cohesive youth group to work with. The group only formed in January so it’s been a challenge trying to strengthen the group and build confidence in the members to believe that they can achieve something if they decide to take action. One of the highlights of our group formation process and our time so far, was definitely our first Community Action Day (CAD). We took a group decision to raise awareness of good hand-washing practice, as this is not common knowledge in the village. Many people use soil and ash or just water to wash their hands and we felt that by visiting the three village primary schools to give a short talk and demonstration about good practice, we would reach the greatest number of people since all households are multi-generational. In an

--> One of the notable aspects of living in Bangladesh is the hospitality culture. Everyone we meet is incredibly welcoming and friendly. If we are walking around with a Bangladeshi man and he spies someone he knows, the three of us are always introduced to this ‘intimate friend’ even if this person is a mere acquaintance. If we also happen to be near a tea stall, we are almost always invited to come and take tea and talk about how we find beautiful Bangladesh, Bengali dress, Bengali food, and whether we are married or not. At the tea stall, it’s either rang cha (wrong cha - tea without milk) or dudh cha (dude cha – tea with condensed milk) both with plenty of sugar. It’s quite enjoyable sitting there with a nice glass of tea but sometimes I do wish we got bigger cups! If we visit each other’s host homes, food will almost always be offered, even it’s just fruit and biscuits. On hot days, our host mum will fetch someone to climb a tree to g

--> I've been on placement for two and a half weeks now and I'm sure I'll eventually get used to being stared at as if I'm some sort of freak of nature with my pale, white skin and light, brown hair but at the moment I’m still finding it pretty awkward. There’s a young girl in our host home who wouldn’t come near me at first and used to hide when she saw me. She’s now got used to me and will run up smiling when she sees me although she’s still fascinated by my skin colour. When out and about, you know you’ve been spotted when you hear cries of Bideshi! Bideshi! (Foreigner! Foreigner!) normally accompanied by several running children. They run alongside the rickshaw van shouting ‘hi hello how are you fine thank you’ all in one breath. Admittedly, this can be quite sweet so it’s easier to just smile, say hello and wave back, although I still feel slightly foolish. Most of the adults however, just stare and continue starin

--> One of the things I take most for granted in the UK is definitely electricity. In the village we are working in, 85% of homes do not have electricity and those that do, mostly generate it themselves from solar energy. Using the sun as a source of energy is obviously a sustainable way of generating electricity but the issue is that the whole village cannot access mains power and is not part of any national energy grid. Electricity is not one of the highest priorities for the village, so it is not something we will be working on in the short time that we’re here but it is something that the community could campaign on themselves now that we’ve started developing stronger links with local government bodies. Currently the more urgent issues are access to primary health care and a clean drinking water supply as well as getting the access road to the village paved. My host home does have electricity, which I’m very grateful for as it get

--> In my first post I stated that I’d be working on a water and sanitation project in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Instead, I’ll now be working on primary health care in the Bagerhat district of Bangladesh due to a few team changes. The area I’ll be working in is close to the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and home to the Bengal tiger. The main crop is rice so there’ll be plenty of paddy fields. The area is known for being strongly affected by cyclones and for the arsenic contamination in its water supply. Aside from the lack of access to primary health care, there are many other issues in need of development. Of primary concern to the youth of the village are access to clean, arsenic-free water; road construction; the high illiteracy rate; and access to markets. Having now arrived in the area, the good news is that the government is going to pave the road so they can access the village to build a much-needed cyclone she

--> --> Our training finally finished and we’re now on our placements. The final week of training was run by CDVS (Centre for Disaster and Vulnerability Studies) from Dhaka University. It focused on development and particularly on participatory tools we could use in the community. It also made clear how important the issue of sustainability is. This isn’t just some project where the Westerners go dig a well and that’s that. We work with the community to ensure they are part of the decision-making process and are empowered to advocate for change in their own community once we’re gone. If something is installed, such as a water filtration system, at least one community member will be trained in how to maintain it properly and fix it if it is broken so they can show others and won’t have to rely on external sources for maintenance. It’s been great working with the local volunteers so far. Not just be

--> --> Having had several days of joint training now it’s evident that there’s a massive difference in the sense of national pride felt by each group of volunteers. The Bangladeshi volunteers are much prouder of their history and culture than we are. We drew maps of our respective countries and they knew every indent of land and tiny island in the river deltas. Ours looked a bit like the UK but with an enlarged south of England, squashed north of England, massive Wales and Isle of Wight, tiny Scotland and not enough room for Northern Ireland! (If I attempted to analyse that there’s probably a lot I could say, except for the Wales and Isle of Wight bits anyway) They did look pretty covered in flower petals though. We also sang our national anthems. Theirs was sung with gusto and pride; ours was mumbled and we just about managed the words to a verse and the chor