Ways to See the World

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...