Found my volunteer role in Bangladesh

I have had a couple of months in Dhaka to find my feet, relax and to have a good look around.  I am starting to get bored...  although a side trip to Shanghai was interesting I am now ready to do more than that.

Well luck is on my side, when we got back from Shanghai I was invited to join some of the teachers at Brian's school to visit a local school called Solmaid that the CEO and a few others from the school have supported to get up and running.  It is a short walk from their school over small, muddy lanes full of very local shops.  I doubt many foreigners would ever venture there except to visit the little school hidden away in these lanes.  Will try to post some photos another time as I didn't think to take any on this walk.

We got to a walled courtyard and entered the school grounds, actually this is a converted house that they rent, using three rooms as school rooms.  The courtyard has a beautiful and colourful mural decorating it that was done by the kids with the help of a rickshaw painter/artist.  Inside the school there were about 30 students at 4.30 pm (one class was absent at the time).  The school has three shifts of children each day so that they can educate about 150.  These children are what some call ''street kids''.  They come from very poor parents who earn less than 6000 taka per month, or about $88 Australian.  They would normally never have the opportunity to go to school.  These kids are beautiful, lively and so polite...

The principal and local teachers were teaching in a local christian school but as Muslims they were unhappy about the bible being the focal point of children's learning and wanted to set up a community school of their own with a local curriculum.   The CEO of Brian's school and a few other teachers helped them to do this.  The school has now been running for two years and provides uniforms, food (via money donated by an Australian Rotary club) and of course good education.   This costs approximately $300 US per child per year which they raise from donations.

I loved this school and its philosophy and so when the CEO said that he needed some help to take over the administration role that he had be providing I put up my hand.  I am off to Bangkok tomorrow, but when I return I will see what that involves and this will be my volunteer work in Dhaka.  I am very excited as this is such an amazing venture providing the poorest of the poor with educational opportunity who would never get it otherwise.

You can check out the rather basic webpage if you want to know more about this school.   https://www.scsdhaka.com

It has been raining a lot here so my walking around has been a little limited of late but am still getting out and about and am just about to head off to the local coffee shop for my occasional coffee fix.

Brian flies out today to take a group of school children to a lovely island - Tioman - in Malaysia, clearly these are not the kids of the poorest of the poor, but the richest of the rich (very rich).  I met some of them yesterday when I visited Brian's classroom when I went to a meeting about Solmaid school and actually they are lovely, confident, smart kids, so hopefully the school is able to instill some strong positive values in these kids as they will be Bangladeshi leaders in the future.   When Brian suggested to one of them that he could be Prime Minister, he said no he couldn't as he wasn't corrupt enough!

Off to Bangkok tomorrow myself and will be going by overnight sleeper/bus then boat to an island called Koh Tau for three nights of lazing around, snorkelling and exploring before going back to Bangkok to join Brian on his way back from Tioman Island.   What a life we are leading!!!

The blog is a bit light on photos this week, so here is one from my wanderings. Health and Safety regulations don't apply here, check out the guy riding on the top of the truck, they weld in sunglasses and jandals (thongs for my Aussie friends), window washers hang from tall buildings sitting on bamboo rods held together by ropes like a makeshift ladder, buses do not stop, if you want to get on the bus slows down a little for you and you run and jump and generally hang half in and half out as the bus is packed:

I hope to be able to blog from Thailand but if not will be back in a few weeks...

Visiting Shanghai

Have just returned from five days in Shanghai.  Brian had a professional development course there and I tagged along as I have never been to China before.   Not what I expected at all, was looking for the ''old China" but it was really hard to find in Shanghai, a lot of the city has been modernised, with the old buildings demolished, although sometimes replaced with replicas.   Once we got over our expectations though we had a good time.

One of the more unexpected elements was how amazing some people were in helping us and making us welcome!   On the plane over I ended up talking to my neighbour who was a business man from Shanghai with very good English, when he learned that this was our first trip to Shanghai he insisted on waiting for us to get our bags, wrote down our hotel address in Mandarin (unfortunately the hotel was located miles away from the heart of the city in the very back blocks of Shanghai near to where Brian's course was) and he escorted us to where the local taxis were and ensured the driver knew where to take us before he said goodbye.  He was the first of several incredible people we met...

We needed help to get taxi drivers to understand where we wanted to go as they didn't speak or read English.   We got our destination written down for us in Mandarin by the hotel staff and even then it was sometimes a challenge.

On our first full day there we tried unsuccessfully to find the old shanghai.  We ended up doing the hop on hop off bus as we didn't have much time (this was Brian's only free day).  The part they call Old Shanghai, has actually been rebuilt in the old style about 20 years ago and is very touristy...   We were directed by

Dumpling Heaven in Old Shanghai

 a local shop owner (selling pearls - we refrained from visiting his shop) to the famous dumpling restaurant in the area, you know which one because of the huge queues to get takeaway dumplings.   We did the easier option and went upstairs into their restaurant.  Amazing choices of a range of unusual dumplings.  We ended up with fairly safe shrimp and pork and some unusual savoury / sweet ones - very good!  

The photo on the right shows the one remaining original old building in that area.  It is very beautiful and so were the replica's but somehow it wasn't the same once we realised that they were not the original buildings....  and the shops were full of tourist junk.  However, I later found some of the more original parts of Shanghai.

But if you love to shop (Steve Adams) this is the city for you, it is full of amazing malls and high end shops.

One night we met up with one of Brian's former colleagues and her partner - living and teaching in a city an hour away from Shanghai by train.  We challenged them to find us a good cocktail bar as we were missing these in Muslim Dhaka.  We ended up on the roof bar of the House of Roosevelt, a beautiful 1920/30's building on the Bund. which is a river front street full of fabulous l buildings of different architectural styles.  Across the river is the newest part of Shanghai full of stunning high rises which are lit up at night and with the colourful cruise boats on the river create a magical view.  The photo below was taken from the bar, looking across the river.   Our friends also met the challenge for great food at the Lost Heaven Restaurant - loved the name and loved the restaurant.

The next day I took the underground to the other side of the city (about 1.5 hours to visit a special garden and an old street famous for its dumplings.  The garden was lovely, although I got a bit lost trying to find it as most streets didn't have english names!   Got there eventually and it was worth it don't you think?

Unfortunately I don't think I had enough water to drink in the heat of that day and had overdone my first go at swimming that morning in the hotel pool - on level 23, cantilevered out over the city with some glass areas in the bottom of the pool so you could look down to the street!   As I went to find the old street famous for it's dumplings I was overcome with something like bad indigestion causing pain and pins and needles down one side and I had to sit down outside a local dumpling shop as I was in too much discomfort to walk.   I thought I was having a heart attack, but don't panic it wasn't and I am fine.   Even though I was in stress I couldn't help laughing at this sight next to where I was sitting...

Cat on a leash!!!

I wasn't getting any better so I asked a shop keeper to get me a Dr as I couldn't stand up.   Our phones were not working in Shanghai and I couldn't contact Brian who was going to meet me at 5.40 pm the cocktail bar from the night before...  Along comes my number two amazing person..  Andy from Singapore who has been living and working in Shanghai for a year.  Spoke English and Mandarin and asked me if he could help.  He got me a bottle of water, that didn't help so in the end he called an ambulance, off I went to hospital!  However, he came with me and stayed with me there, helping to interpret as no one spoke English.  In the end after tests and a drip they couldn't find anything wrong and so after about an hour and a half I could walk again and I told them I would go.   Andy wouldn't leave me on my own and so came with me in a taxi to meet Brian who ended up being late, so this amazing man stayed with me until about 6.30 when Brian eventually found us.  He told me this was his first day off in ten days of working 14 hour days and still he helped me out for several hours and all he got for his troubles was a beer - Stunning.

I was fine the next day and that night we met our third incredible person - Brian and I found this funky Art mall with interesting restaurants so went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant there.  Next to us was a local man eating alone as his wife was getting a hair cut, so he wanted to talk, he said we should try the prawns, next thing we know he has ordered the prawns and a steak dish for us!   He toasted our first trip to Shanghai and then left to meet his wife.  When we went to pay the bill he had paid for everything!!!  Unbelievable as we had barely talked to him except to discuss the food and to say where we were from and that this was our first time in Shanghai.

I found some beautiful old streets on my journey to visit the very interesting Shanghai Propaganda poster museum (hidden away in the basement of an apartment building so very hard to find).  Check out this link, the posters are amazing and tell the story of the cultural revolution through the posters that were created as propaganda at the time.  http://www.shanghaipropagandaart.com/for_3.asp?class=Copy_Posters#

After this I had my first bowl of street food, beef noodles on my way back to the underground through some lovely old streets (in the picture below).  By now I had really warmed to Shanghai.

My last crazy meeting with a man in Shanghai was a young korean man who met me on the way to the subway.   He said I looked just like his ChaCha teacher Annie, an Australian and he walked with me to the train, but kept shaking my hand and kissing my face.  Talk about in my personal space!   He was 19 and had been in Shanghai a week learning to dance.  Luckily he eventually said goodbye to me when we got to his stop as I was well and truly over the hand shaking and kissing from a stranger.

Well we are now back in Dhaka, it was funny to say we were coming ''home'', but it does start to feel like that now.  Loved the soft bed in our Shanghai hotel and enjoyed the easy night life, but found Shanghai too modern for my liking and like being back here in the craziness.  Couldn't get over those amazing men we met.   Next overseas adventure is Bangkok next month - tough life.

This one is for my former Council colleagues

Sorry to friends and family who have no interest whatsoever in Council services, this one is for my old colleagues at Marrickville Council...

I have been quite astounded to see that Dhaka (or at least around where I live) has a visible focus on waste recycling and health promotion, food and other safety, however, this of course is done in a very unique fashion.

My home is supplied with green, red, yellow and blue bins for different types of rubbish.  The sign on the left is prominent in various places around the area.  However, when I take my bins down stairs to empty into the bigger colored bins, no one seems to have taken note of these instructions and all the rubbish is lumped together.

OOps, I guess this wasn't NOW or YOU.

What really happens with the rubbish is that a rickshaw driver with a small bin on the back of his rickshaw rocks up to our apartment building every few days and collects it all.  It then is taken to a larger bin (left) or main road (below) where a number of unfortunate people sort it all out by hand (ugh) but it actually does get recycled to a fairly high extent.  Jeff tell your staff how lucky they are!  Workplace health and safety doesn't appear to be a common concern here and the workers are in the rubbish with bare feet and hands.

When we were out on our river boat trip we stopped at a village and had to walk through a whole lot of brown sheets lying on the ground, we found out that these are sheets of cardboard made from recycled paper that had just been made and were drying.  They will get used to make shoe boxes etc (below right).  We were also told that any paper you throw out might get made into shopping bags so be careful about any confidential material as patient hospital records etc turn up on these...

Dhaka actually has quite a bit of greenery and many of the streets are lined with trees and / or have trees in the centre strip.  Many of these seem to be funded by the banks as a ''goodwill'' gesture.  There are a number of local parks, which in our area are funded by the Baridhara Society and are only open for a few hours each day.  They are manned by a guard but I am not sure whether they keep anyone out or just maintain safety (and give someone a job).  They have signs in them encouraging people (especially women) to walk and to stay healthy.   I walk everywhere and the locals find that a bit unusual as anyone with money gets driven by a driver or a rickshaw and so they don't understand why a white woman would walk.

 Stormwater drainage is a major issue because the whole of Bangladesh is very flat and at sea level.  At the moment a lot of the outlying areas around Dhaka are flooded and many people have lost their businesses and are surviving each day ankle deep in water.   In the city the drains are always blocked because of the rubbish (below).  In our area they get cleaned out regularly but littering is rife as there are no or few bins for people to use.

 And food safety....   Chicken for dinner anyone (Simon would have his work cut out in Dhaka).  Although I believe these chickens would have been free range.  Formalin in food is a major risk and I have been warned to only buy fruit and vegetables from certain shops because most are treated with this chemical to help keep food ''fresh'' longer because of the lack of refrigerated transport and how long it takes to get food to the shop.  Stomach cancer is a real problem here and it is suggested is linked to the use of formalin.   The government is trying to crack down on this but until the infrastructure is improved I am not sure whether that will work.
 

Roading and traffic? - well that is another major challenge due to the monsoons and flooding destroying roads.  There are traffic lights but except for one intersection near us it appears that these are pretty much ignored.   Crossing the road is a whole new adventure where you take your life into your own hands every day.  There are the occasional overbridge like in this photo but most people don't use them.  I went to dinner at a NZ teachers apartment on the weekend.  He has bought a rickshaw for about $200 and he has given it to a driver who battles with the thousands of cycle rickshaws for customers every day.   At the dinner a Bangladesh man who has been to Australia said he much preferred to drive here as the only real rule was to try to keep safe, he found all the road rules in NZ and Australia to be very confusing.  Apparently there are road rules but no one abides by them, certainly not the motorcyclists that ride down the footpath when it is raining or the rickshaws that go the wrong way down roads!

 Disability access? - SIGH sorry Glenn, but not on the agenda yet.

Community development though is a major business here with over 1000 NGO's and others doing work in Dhaka and around.  Many of the countries with embassies here are involved in aide work and that is evident by the number of apartments around our area (the Embassy area) for foreign workers, the majority are involved in embassy, aide work or teaching.  

So count your blessings ...   Keep up the fantastic work you are doing at Marrickville Council, all the best from Bangladesh.