Bangladesh 2009 In September 2009 Coventry childrens charity, Global Care will be sending a team to Bangladesh to visit the orphanage and pre-school in Horintana.
During the trip the team will be helping with building work, staff training and work on the new fish farm.
Singer Songwriter Rob Halligan will be filming the trip from the preperation stages. Horintana is well off the beaten track in a largely forgotten area of the world that is hugely impacted by flooding and climate change. This blog is a record of the trip right from the planning stages to the outcomes and beyond.
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Yet another early start but I had a good nights sleep. I found out that the flipflops they supply in the rooms are great for whacking cockroaches.
Breakfast was good and the minibus that would take us to Dhaka was waiting for us by 7:30. It’s Eid today the end of Ramadan and the streets are relatively quiet as the muslin community celebrates. This was great for driving but not so good when we arrived at the ferry to take us across the Padma and found no one there to sail it. As the queue of buses and mini vans grew we heard conflicting reports as to how log it would be.
What was amazing was seeing an ambulance waiting with the rest of us. In the back was a badly injured man who could be seen through he only slightly frosted windows. Inside the ambulance looked dirty and the equipment basic. When the boat finally lurched into life other drivers were oblivious to the ambulances lights and pushed their way on board. On board I talk to our driver Mustaf. He lives in Khulna and works for the company who own the minibus. He’s done this for nine years and the six hour journey from Khulna to Dhaka is one he does regularly. I asked if he’d stay in Dhaka for the night but he likes his own bed too much for that.
We arrived in Dhaka at 2:00pm and went straight to a hostel run by Friends of Bangladesh and Jane Willard, Faith Willard’s niece. The hostel provides accommodation for girls who come to Dhaka to go to university or find work. Although it’s a Christian hostel girls from Muslim and Hindu backgrounds stay at the hostel and are part of the family life.
Home of Joy and the Hostel are closely linked and on the ground floor are a couple of guys that grew up in Khulna with Faith. They came here to find work but also to work within different communities in the city for the gospel.
Friends of Bangladesh also run various clinics and have had positive contact with e Bangladesh government regarding their work in the country – something unusual for a Christian organization in a predominantly Muslim society.
My brain by now is suffering from information overload so I’m happy to head of to find our hotel, the Asia Pacific.
Poverty in Bangladesh is impossible to hide. Beggars sit in the middle of the street or tap on your car window when you’re stopped in traffic. It’s quite a shocking site and again I’m struck with the immensity of the problem of poverty. But the people of this country are a beautiful people and against the backdrop of grey buildings and muddy roads, the amazing colours of the painted rickshaws, trucks and the clothes bring a spark of joy everywhere we’ve seen.
Our hotel is in the diplomatic area of the city. We pass armed guards and drive down what look like back streets and there it is. It doesn’t look promising from the outside but as soon as we’re in the lobby our hopes rise. In my room is internet access, a bath and a mini-bar. It’s another incredible contrast in a land that specializes in contrasts. We have half an hour to drop our bags in our rooms and wash up and then we’re off again to John Bose’s apartment.
Rita and Johns mother have cooked us an incredible dinner and Stu decide to eat in the true Bengali way with his fingers. He picks up a potato and it slips though his fingers, into my lap and ends up on the floor.
The Bose’ are a lovely family and John is a very devoted man. We’ve been looked after so well by them and although we’re looking forward to heading home tomorrow, it’s going to be sad to say goodbye. John and I go through the photo’s of the boys on my lap-top putting names to the faces and I realize that this is what it’s about. These kids come from the lowest of the Hindu casts, the ‘shoe-makers’ or untouchables. This is all about leveling the field. They’re children and have names just like any other child anywhere. Diamonds in the rough.
Rough night. Then the alarm went off at 6am and I remembered we had to be at the Home of Joy for 7:15 in time for the service. Yay! We weren’t having breakfast until after the service so it was a good thing I had my Kendal mint cake to hand.
 Marg and her sponsored child, Namula The service was taken by a German missionary and I was impressed that he spoke fluent Bengali, even if he made it obvious that he didn’t know all the words to the songs. The singing was beautiful, the children singing loudly and in tune. I’ve been to Assemblies where that hasn’t been the case and it’s really not very nice. Then we joined Faith for an Italian style breakfast. For a week we’ve had omelet and parota so this was a nice change.
John is a man of inspirations, unfortunately not all divine. He had the idea of a football match, England vs Bangladesh. So for the next hour we tottered around a potholed and muddy field playing fooball against a team half our age. At half time we were 3-1 down to the boys. Back o the pitch and it was obvious that it depended what end you we’re playing as to how easy to was to score. At full time it was 3-3 so we played until the next team scored. Don’t ask me how we won but we did. As a treat Stu and Jared and a bunch of the lads went to the pond for a swim. I thought it would be a stunning idea for a video shot so I picked up the camera and headed for the steps down into the water, not counting on the fact that they’d be as slippery as an ice rink. I involuntarily had da dip as well but managed to keep the camera out of the water.
I was touched by the look of concern on John’s face, until I realized it was the camera he was worried about and not me.
Sohal was the main guy there and I was keen to find out more about him so I cornered him for an interview on camera. He’d been at the Home of Joy since he was five years old an was now a member of the staff team. He’d been abandoned by his parents and Faith had taken him in. He told me that he used to wonder why he wasn’t loved but over time he’d been cared for and loved by the people at the home and those feelings of rejection had gone. “I know as well that I’m loved by Jesus as well. It’s hard to be a Christian in this country. People abuse you for it but I know it is right and I’m proud to love God.”
When new orphans arrive Sohal uses his own experiences to help get them though their rough times.
Johns second great idea was to play cricket against the boys. Fortunately we mixed the teams up which saved us from a good thrashing. These guys can bowl a rocket-fast ball. It’s pretty impressive. I did well, scoring a duck. In fact our team somehow won.
The children had rehearsed a show for us which started at 5pm so we finished the cricket and made our way to the hall. I’d been trying to put my finger on what was bugging me yesterday and I realized that this was an incredibly westernized community. In Horintana last week we had been to a Sunday school but the whole thing was such a traditional gathering. It’s just that they sang about Jesus and prayed to the Christian god instead oh the Hindu or Muslin gods. Here in Khulna the songs, clothing, and even the English had a huge western stamp on them and this worried me.
I was please to see in the show, the children performing some of the traditional dance and music as well as the songs they’d picked up from American Christian CD’s.
Then it was dinner and then the goodbyes. Marg said goodbye to Namula and they’ve promised to stay in touch. We said our goodbyes to the lads and the smaller children who had welcomed us so amazingly. Whatever my feelings there’s no doubt these children are well cared for and loved and extremely happy in this place. Faith is an amazing woman who’s name describes who she is. A person of immense faith and commitment who’s done something amazing in one of the poorest countries in the world.
After what by Bangladeshi standards was an uneventful journey we arrive at the Hotel Royal in Khulna in time for lunch. The contrast between this and the Hotel Pashur couldn’t have been starker. This large hotel in the centre of the city had all mod cons even if some of them had seen better days. I have a room on the 8th floor so I have a good view over Khulna, not that there’s much to see, just a grey, low-lying sprawl. Below my window is a roundabout with three giant prawns looking down the three roads that meet there.
 Rob and Pinkum having a conversation with the phrase book The staff are very friendly. The lift took me to the 7th floor instead of the 8th so I walked the last flight and met a porter. He showed me to my room and noticed the television. “I will be five minutes sir,” he said and disappeared. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door and there he was with a television. He plugged it in and found a horror film in English for me to watch. I decided to meet the rest of the team in the restaurant instead and ordered fish and chips from the European menu. The restaurant was nice enough and had a huge flat screen TV that was tuned to the BBC news channel. Good to see there getting Broadband into Africa. They could do with that here.
Our food orders arrived after a wait of 20 minutes but my fish was well worth the wait. It was delicious and there was plenty of it. The chips were ok, all six of them.
After lunch we met down in the foyer and Faith Willard arrived. Faith is the founder of Home of Joy, an orphanage supported by Global care through their child sponsorship scheme. She’s an American and lives in Cape Cod but comes to Bangladesh three times a year and started her work in here in 1979 when she heard that it was the poorest country world. She’d been interested in children’s work since working a kids camp run by her parents. “We thought it would be a wonderful idea to start a work with mothers so they wouldn’t have to give up their children.” They offered widows employment, embroidering garments that were then sold back in America. Part of the days work was a break where they would study the bible. This developed into a coffee morning and the work with the children of these women grew. This in turn developed into a ministry for orphans which is now home to 80 children.
To look at she reminded me of your typical American grandma, white hair up in a bun and a kind and wrinkled smile. To many of the children here she is the only mother they have known.
It’s an impressive set-up with two residential buildings a school, workshops and a multipurpose hall. We’re starting to get used to the welcome children give us but it’s still very special to see 80 children lined up along a path, singing to you as you arrive.
After coffee and cake we had a tour of the grounds. English s taught at the school and many of the children speak it enough for us to be able to talk to them. I meet Mack who is 15 years old. He’s been at the orphanage for as long as he can remember and is now studying engineering.
Marg had sponsored a girl here called Namula, whose remaining family took her out of the orphanage for an arranged marriage. We’d hoped we could meet her but had heard that she’d moved away. Arriving at the Orphanage Marg found out that the marriage didn’t work out and she found herself on the streets and made her way back to the Home of Joy. It was very beautiful to see them meet for the first time.
We spent the afternoon playing with the children and getting to know some of the staff. They produced an Indian made guitar called a ‘Givson’ and we had a session swapping songs and feeding a tame minor bird. At 6 o’clock we joined in with the bible study where Stu talked about hearing God’s will for our lives and Sohal translated. It’s quiet a site to see 20 young men sitting on the floor in a circle in a serious bible study.
We joined Faith for a dinner of American bolognaise and coffee. The whole thing was a strange contrast to John Bose’s work in Horintana. There was nothing wrong with it but I do feel left with some niggling feeling that I can’t put my finger on.
Driving back to the hotel Khulna was still open for business. The markets and street vendors were still busy and rickshaws played chicken with trucks busses and tuk-tuks. Back in my hotel room the sound of the traffic outside was as if I was on the street. Ah well, city life in Bangladesh. This is what I’m here to experience.
 Banking up the rivers by hand Our last day in Horintana before we head off to Khulna to visit the home of Joy. The first thing that catches my eye as we get off the boat is a number of men working on the banks of the river, carrying mud up from the low tide mark to sure up the banks. I asked if we could walk down to have a closer look, after all I’d seen it on the BBC a couple of weeks ago so it had to be worth checking out. I climbed down the bank and got the OK from one of the workers to walk down to the pits that were being dug out.
These guys are working in hot humid conditions with basic tools. They cut away the mud and put it into baskets and carry it on their heads up to the banks. Each basket must weigh in at about 40-50 kilos – it looks like back breaking work.
I feel like I may be in the way so I step back a little to far and my foot sinks into the mud. Now I look like I’ve been to Glastonbury at least on my right foot!
I had some video work to finish so I pottered about pointing a camera in people’s faces.
One of the workers that I’ve made friends with is a guy called James. He lives in the village and is employed as a kind of handyman. He calls me over to where he’s carving away on an old piece of wood. I ask him what he’s making and he turns the stick in a stirring motion. So this is where their kitchen utensils come from. Who needs Ikea?
After giving the finished stick a quick soak in the brown pond-water he walks into the kitchen and gives it to one of the cooks who immediately starts using it to stir the curry. The second cook is outside washing the lentils in the same pond. Well, maybe it adds to the flavour but later John White explains that Global Care are looking at ways of collecting clean rainwater for cooking use.
One of the dishes prepared is ‘Hot-pot’, a nutritious mix of rice, fish, prawn, potato, spinach, pumpkin, papaya and chili. This is especially for the school children who are being fed today because we are here. Love Bangladesh would provide this meal regularly if it had the funds to and it’s one of the things on the wish list.
The children sit on the floor in two lines around the building with a tin bowl and mug. After a prayer of thanks Stu gets stuck in with serving the ‘hot-pot’ to the children, a task that he’s particularly good at due to his Lancashire roots. Stu has been excellent with the children, who have all learnt that the way to say hello in English is to stick you thumbs up.
Chris and Marg have been busy painting the bedroom, which is looking great. We are fed exceptionally well again. I don’t let the others know about the pond-water. What you don’t know can’t hurt you!
After dinner we head back into Horintana to do a spot of shopping. We descend of a Sari shop and Chris has a good look through some of the materials, presumably for his wife. Marg is choosing some as well and Margaret is there to barter for us and gets a tidy little discount. Jared and I head off with James to the Drum shop to get something loud to take home. We settle for a pair of Tablas and wait while the stall owner prepares the drums. It’s fascinating to watch as he
cuts some of the skin back and stretches it using wooden pegs. James tests the pair out for us and then barters a price of 1500 thaka. We’re happy with that.
Next is another Sari shop an I decide to buy something for my daughter. John is there trying his best to get the price down but he’s doing more damage than good and fortunately Margaret shows up just at the right time.
We head back to the school in time to pack our things up before a special farewell gathering that John Bose has organized kicks off.
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 Us with the staff and helpers at the Love Bangladesh project nce again we are asked to say something, this time what our thoughts for Love Bangladesh Ministries are. We’ve all been very touched by the things we’ve seen here and by the friendships that we have made. It’s a fairly emotional goodbye and I take the opportunity to give the guitar that Guitar-Aid donated to John.
There are few dry eyes as we gather our things up and make our way down to the boat for the last journey back from Horintana.
The boat is run by Rushti who has owned it for five years. It’s amazing to see how he negotiates the currents in this large, fast flowing river. He asks me if he can wear my hat and in return I get to steer the boat. This river is so wide it’s hard to make out where we’re heading but with a little help I get us some of the way at least.
It’s a good end to this part of the trip. We’ve made a lot of friends and seen a lot of amazing things. But there’s a lot that needs to be done and a lot to think about as we get back on the Mongla bus for the last time.
One of Global Care’s little mottos is ‘Just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you should do nothing’. It’s one of those sayings that veto’s any cop-outs and I love it so much I put it into a song. It’s also one of those easy things to say and something that’s tested when you come to a place like Horintana.
 THis lady started a tea shop with the help of the Micro-Finance project One of the first things John Bose wanted us to see was part of the micro-finance project that he has set up with help from Global Care. We met with around 30 ladies from the village who have been involved in the project. One of the key people in this project is Margaret, a teacher at the pre-school. Margaret is an amazing young lady. She teaches full time at the School and runs the micro-finance project and still finds time to study for her degree at university.
“We are trying very hard to improve things for the community and for the ministry here. We are poor but love can make things work.”
She explained to us how the project works. Each week someone will put something into the micro-credit fund. After three months they can apply to the program for some funds for their idea, for instance, they may want to buy five chickens. The people on the program will then agree or disagree to lend the money and then the person will have twelve months to pay it back in weekly installments.
It’s seems very simple but asking around the group we find that no-one has lost any money and a few of the women have been very successful. We went to visit some of the families that have benefited from it.
The first home was a tiny shack built precariously on the bank of one of the rivers. She explained that their house had been badly damaged during the last hurricane season and was very wet. Seven people sleep on a small platform next to the river. This family had nets financed through the micro-credit program which meant her husband could now catch and sell his own fish rather than work for someone else and just be paid labour. Another lady had borrowed enough to start a small tea shop, which was our next stop. She told us that the program enable her and her family to work for themselves and have some control over there own income. The tea and cake she gave us was very good and may have had something to do with her success!
We headed back to the project and I spent sometime catching up on interviewing some of the staff and children at the school. One little girl that Margaret talked to was in a lot of pain. We found out she had acute appendicitis. She had been given tablets but needed an operation, something that her family or the school had no way of paying for. These are very hard situations to know how to deal with. The operation would cost around $100, which is nothing in the western world. But there are many, many children in this kind of position and it’s impossible to meet this need on that kind of scale.
Ron Newby, Global Cares founder, used to use a story about a man who was walking on a beach littered with starfish that had been washed ashore. He started picking them up and throwing them back one by one. Someone saw him and said, “That’s not going to make a lot of difference, you know.”
“It is to that one,” he said, throwing another back into the sea.
We agreed that we should pay for the operation but it does bring up the reality of the problem places like this face.
My next job was to interview John Bose. John is a lovely guy and to see the ‘Love Bangladesh Ministries’ pre-school and orphanage is a testimony to his hard work and passion for the children in Bangladesh. In 2002 John found a boy whose mother had left him with his grandparents. They were to old and poor to look after him so John took him in. Soon he had five and the ‘Love Bangladesh Ministry was born. Now the orphanage houses 20 boys and the school has 182 boys and girls from the Horintana area. John had met Global Care a few years earlier and Horintana had become one of their partner projects. Global care have funded the new cyclone and flood proof building, the chicken farming, paddy field and fish pools and micro-credit project, and they run a child sponsorship program.
 Stu and James get stuck in with painting Chris and Stu were painting one of the bedrooms under the watchful eye of a local workman. I had a quick look in and realized I wasn’t needed as they had everything under control.
The Fish farm was something I’d been eager to get stuck in with so I was glad of the chance to cast my nets as best as I could. Some of the team had beaten me to it and as one of the helpers showed me how to wind the roe and then the net around my arm Paul and Jared shouted les than helpful instruction. “Everyones an expert!“ I shouted. I pulled the net out and it was empty.
“This is a bad place to try”, said Chris. “It’s where the water drains out.”
So off we went around the other side of the pond, me getting tied up in muddy wet fishing net. I had another try and, in my humble opinion, the throw at least looked good. I pulled it out and there was a cheer from the crowd of boys as a silver wriggling fish thrashed about. How big was it? Huge of course! In fact there were three of them.
Our final event of the day before we headed back to our hotel was a visit to the ‘Sunday School’ held every Thursday evening about five kilometers from the school. It was another tuk-tuk ride. These were fast becoming my favorite form of transport.
We had another overwhelming welcome when we arrived with songs, flowes and traditional incense as we walked down the path. We were introduced and the children performed some of there songs for us and we were asked to sing something for them. Remembering how well “Dance, Dance” went yesterday Marg suggested we try it again. What followed can only be described as complete mayhem with children and adults hoping, clapping, shouting, stomping and jumping. It was fantastic.
Again we were treated in a way that was incredibly humbling. These are such grateful and generous people.
John White is mad. “Lets get away for 8:00am so we can get a good day’s work in” he said. “Breakfast at seven!” he said. I’m still in GMT so that’s 1:00am! A well. I set my alarm and woke involuntarily at six. Fell back to sleep and woke up with the alarm at five to seven. Mad dash to get washed and dressed and down for a breakfast of omelet and samosas. I’m starting to pine for cornflakes.
It was another uneventful but exiting journey by bus, tuk-tuk and boat to Horintana. Horintana was very different from yesterday when it was market day and the narrow streets were packed. Today was a lot quieter and a lot of the stands and shops were closed up. With the market stalls gone you could see the typed of buildings and the layout a lot clearer. There was a very grand looking building surrounded by the wooden huts and shantys. I asked Mukta what it was. “it is a gold shop”, he said, “a jewelers”. How bizarre.
Lessons were in full swing when we arrived at the school. Marg and I were due to teach each of the four classes some songs. I was relieved to find the bubble wrap I’d used inside the guitar case had done it’s job and the guitar had arrived unscathed.
We picked four songs, all with actions that involved flailing your arms about or crouching down an bouncing back up, giving us about twenty minutes in each class. With the help of one of the teachers we taught the children the actions and tried to explain what “Cast your burdens” mean and find out how you say it in Bengali. In the end we stuck with English and left the moves to the children.
It’s incredible to see how exited and grateful these children are. They loved the songs and joined in with the actions. There were a few things lost in translation but the teachers and helpers at the school are so keen for these children to learn however bad the songs are!
It turned out that the rooms we wanted to paint hadn’t been prepared. A local worker was called in to carry out some preparation while I joined some of the adults for an impromptu and lively sing around. There is something very special bout this small community. This society is one of the poorest in the world. They live on about 20 pence a day. Access to Television, the Internet and even radio is limited and for the Hindus of Horintana in a largely muslim country life is often oppressed and never easy. And yet in this simple community there is very real richness of common life. It is yet another thing that I find incredibly humbling.
We sang and clapped and hit tamborines and bells for a while before heading off to see the paddy fields that Global Care had bought.
Stu and Jerad where really keen to see these as their church had donated the money for the fields to Global Care. This journey was to be taken by pedal powered rickshaw. It had started raining which was quite a relief from the heat of the day. We arrived after about 15 minutes in an area with paddy’s stretching off to the distance. “Our plot is marked out by these orange flags” explained John Bose. It was a big area, starching away around 300 metres and 100 metres across. A second field on the other side of the path of around 100 metres square was also include. It looked very impressive. George is a friend of John Bose and is in charge of the team that is looking after the fields. “The Rice is planted and harvested by hand but we have a tractor to bring it to the store.” We could see some of Georges team sloshing about up to their knees in muddy water.
 Jon and Rob push the Rickshaw up a hill I had the privilege of sharing the rickshaw back to the school with John White. There are no roads here, just brick paths that seem to go on and on past shack after shack and the path is very bumpy and windy as it finds its way along river banks and between pools and paddy fields.
Back at the School another music session had started up. “Come, come, brother,” said one of the teachers taking me by the arm into the schools chapel. A small ‘band’ was banging out a tune on drum, tambourine, hand bells and harmonium and people were dancing around in a wild dance. Stu and I were soon in the circle dancing away and shouting ‘Hey!’ at the inappropriate times. After a while we were asked to sing something so I got to play the harmonium. It’s the same keys as a piano but one had is used to pump air into the pipes and the other to play the tune. It’s a bit of a multi-task nightmare but I had a little help from someone offering to look after the bellows.
The songs went on for a good half an hour before we had to let Keith and Paul back in to carry on with the child protection training.
The room was still being prepared and we were told that we could start paining today. So I was taken by some of the children on a tour, this time to see the kitchen. The school has 182 children with 20 living at the orphanage. For the size of the project I was stunned at how simple and small the kitchen was. Food is cooked in two fire pits in the ground no more that 50cm each across. Fire wood is stocked up in the corner and vegetables are kept in an adjacent room. There’s no chimney so smoke escapes through the cracks in the roof or out through the doors. To see the quality of the food we were eating this simple set-up was quite amazing. And before you ask, none of us have been ill.
We had yet another spontaneous music session, this time with the children dancing outside and trying to teach us some Bengali. Then, once the training had finished we boarded yet more rickshaws and headed off to the Bose family home. It was by Bangladeshi standards a fairly modest house. When we arrived, John demonstrated how to get the milk from one of the huge green coconuts that grow here. Stu tried it straight from the shell and John opened up four more, enough to fill a large jug with coconut milk. Then the shells were split and the nut itself was accessible. Young coconut like this is very sweet and the nut is soft and almost jelly-like.
It was getting dark so after checking out the paddy house, a hut used for drying out rice and nothing to do with Irish men, we set off on foot back to the ferry station.
We were treated again to an amazing sunset before catching the boar, tuk-tuk and bus back to the Hotel. Marg entertained us by leaping up when the lady next to her on the bus let a crab escape from her bag.
Back at the hotel we made our way to the dining room where I had local fish and chips and a bottle of sprite. Back in my room and it seems that I’m the only big creature in here tonight.
Up at 7:55am and down for breakfast of omelet and bread followed by a team meeting. Global Care is a Christian charity and prayer is central to its life. Believe me, with journeys similar to the one we had just undertook you need prayer! Seriously they work with some of most vulnerable and forgotten children on earth and it’s something that would be hard to do without the grace of God.
The journey to the project in Horintana took us another 45 minutes and be just as eventful but somewhat more likeable. It was all the way on public transport, starting with the local bus. The bus was packed but they found room for the nine of us and our cases while some obliging locals chose to go upstairs onto the roof to ride. Twenty minutes later we arrived at a ferry crossing, this time for passengers only across one of the myriad of rivers that wind their way through the Sundarbarns. The ferry terminus was a mile or so from the road but there were flat bed tuk-tuks on hand to take us down a bumpy path to the shore. I tried filming the ride but it was pretty bumpy going.
The boat trip was smooth though the diesel engine kicked out a bit of smoke and drowned out any conversation. Our destination was Horintana, a Market village, only busy on Market days. Today was a market days and it was busy. We were met at the ferry station by workers from the Love Bangladesh Ministries School and each given a garland of orange carnations to wear.
There’s a bit in the CS Lewis Book, “The Horse And His Boy’ where the Narnians walk through the streets of Carlorman and there’s an air of celebration about the whole thing. That’s what it was like. We walked through the narrow market streets for about half a mile when we heard singing; “Good Morning, It’s good to see you” over and over. Then through the trees we saw a line of Blue and red uniforms before seeing the entrance to the School, decorated to announce our arrival. We were given more garlands and showered with petals as we made our way down the path, children saying “Good Morning, happy to see you!” as we went. It was all rather overwhelming and incredibly humbling.
 The teachers sang us a song to welcome us We walked through the entrance to the buildings and I got my first glimpse of the fish pools. Having talked about the pools for a year now at gigs up and down the country, to see them was amazing. There they were, two pools. Fantastic!
We had an official welcome where the staff sang a song and one of the teachers made short speech. Then we were asked to introduce ourselves. I couldn’t help but tell them how exited I was to see them at last. It really was an amazing feeling.
Once the welcomes had finished the children went to there classes and we met together with John to decide what we were doing. Keith and Paul had come on the trip to deliver some child protection training to the staff and so it was decided that they would stat that straight away. John and Chris wanted to look at some of the sites’ infrastructure to see how well things had been built and maintained, Stu and Jared had bought a case load of footballs to play with so they got to work unpacking. I went for a tour of the site with a keen group of lads who knew no English but were determined to talk to me all the way around. Phrasebooks are wonderful things! I wanted to see the fish pools first so I made my way down past the building to the far end of the project site. They have two pools, bought with money donated by people who came to my gigs last year. I know I keep saying it but it really is amazing to see them in the flesh, as it were.
 I was shown around by the lads,. These are the pools we funded They have had some problems with the pools, largely to do with contamination after the recent cyclone season damages the banks around the pool letting salt water in. We are discussing what measures are needed to ensure the pools are safe. The small pool contains shrimp that is sold in the local market. The larger pool holds carp, used for food for the school and orphanage.
Next we saw the chickens, another Global Care funded project providing up to 2000 eggs a week. This really helps the project to survive and gain some self-sustainability.
Around the back of the chicken shed we came across a tiny corrugated iron hut. “My grandfather sleep here”, says one of the children and the all fall about in hysterics.
They have avocado and marrow growing behind the shed and a garden with other vegetables growing. It’s all very impressive and such a simple setup.
We make our way back and my tour guides are distracted by Stu and Jared playing football. I’m suggesting we should stick with football and leave the cricket to the Bangladeshis.
After lunch, (more curry) John and Chris try their hand at teaching. I walk in on them trying to learn how to count in Bengali. Then they turn to English and seem even more confused. I successfully distract a whole class of seven year olds with my cameras. There’ something very satisfying about interrupting a school lesson and not getting told off! The next lesson is letters. On ‘B’ John and Chris are stumped for something starting with ‘B’. It’s a lesson indeed!
Marg seems to have spent all the day colouring in and has a big crowd of children waiting to join in and laughing at her Bengali, cheering when she gets it right.
John has heard there is a cyber café open where we can check our email and update the blog. We walk back into the market and into a shop selling – well I haven’t a clue what it was selling. It has a counter and that’s it. We are led around the back and up a ladder into a room that has two old pc’s. One of the chaps unplugs the phone and plugs in the compute by stretching a wire across the room. Eventually the connection is made and I write a blog but email is slow and impossible. John decides to stick to texting.
We get back to the project and the child protections training is still in full swing. The children’s day finishes at 12:30 and many of the ones who don’t live ay the orphanage have gone home. I show some family photos from my phone to some of the live-in lads. Then we start talking about music and soon someone is banging a bucket and we’re having dance lessons. One of the boys likes Michael Jackson and does an impression wearing my hat. Them we start singing and I teach them ‘My God Is So Big’ complete with actions. My first Bangla gig!
The journey back to the hotel was much the same. More tuk-tuks, more beggars, more suicidal bus drivers. Curry for tea and a chat about the day.
8am start tomorrow – we should start some painting in the newly built rooms. It’s so hot though!
12:00pm
Arrived at Birmingham Airport, slightly stressed but distracted enough to get passed the goodbyes. That was the first hurdle and I must admit it’s always the hardest thing about going away, even for one night. Don’t know about those dynamic missionaries who set off for months leaving their loved ones behind. I’d end up a blubbering wreck!
Emirates are a cracking airline. After juggling luggage about to fit weight requirements we said our goodbyes and shuffled off to the flight.
My two main worries were loosing my luggage or picking up the guitar donated by Guitar-Aid in pieces. Amazingly neither of these worries were founded and we arrive in Dhaka with our luggage, safe but tired at 10am local time.
The first thing that strikes you is the difference between Dubai or even Birmingham to Dhaka. Bangladesh is a poor country and if the country’s main airport is anything to go by it’s the first thing you notice. There are no fancy shops, no neatly trimmed lawns, none of the annoying ‘bing-bong’ announcements. In some ways it’s a lot nicer.
We were given yellow cards to let the Bengali government know we didn’t think we had swine flu but no one checked them when you handed them in. Immigration seemed a bit o a formality, none of the grilling you get from their US counterparts. And then we were there. Bangladesh. It felt strange being here after two years of talking about it.
We had to hang about for an hour and a half for our driver as they were busy having a strike but he arrived in a van that came from this century so I was re-assured. I’d heard a few horror stories about the transport here and was a little apprehensive but it was obvious we wouldn’t encounter any of these nightmares.
I’d heard the journey would be two hours. I checked with John who said happily, “Oh no. Not two. Seven”.
Driving through Dhaka was in itself an experience. I’ve seen pictures of rickshaws and tuk-tuks but to see armies of them taking on the might of motorized city life is an awe-inspiring site. There are little or no driving rules it seems with cars hanging u-turns in the most bizarre places and with out warning. There are few road signs and if there were traffic lights I didn’t notice, even from my grandstand view between the driver and front passenger.
We stopped to change our money fairly soon after leaving the airport. John Bose negotiated a good deal for us with the guy behind the glass who then handed a calculator and money to another chap who had been hanging around the door. He and John took it in turns hammering in numbers until they agreed a price and we were presented with an assortment of notes with very large numbers written on them. I changed just £30 and got back nearly 4000 in notes.
Outside, characters begging for small change surrounded the bus. I suddenly had this feeling of uselessness. What difference was a trip from a few people from the other side of the world going to make to one of the poorest and densely populated countries in the world?
Global Care have a saying they use. Just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you should do nothing. The charity’s founder, Ron Newby once said, “We’ll change the world one life at a time.” Well, here we go then.
 On the way to Mongla It doesn’t matter how comfortable or modern a vehicle is, one hour of Bangladeshi roads is a mad experience. Seven hours and you’re into the nightmare. To start with the roads were smooth and for a short way it was duel carriageway, the advantage being that the driver had a helping hand as to what side of the road he should be on. Any notion of that was soon flung carelessly aside when the road lost the central reservation and our driver lost any reservation he had towards oncoming traffic. We came very close to a number of brightly painted trucks, busses and wagons, blasting our horn liberally so the rest of Bangladesh knew we were coming. This was to let the rickshaw and tuk-tuk drivers know that they needed to move or be moved. Our driver was at one with the rest of the driving population of the country in having no intention of stopping or slowing.
This madness went on for two hours before we reached the river Padma. Huge and brown, it winds itself to the sea, the combined force of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. We stopped to catch the ferry at Aricha Ghat. The funny thing was that although, according to the map, we drove through only one other town in the 50 miles we had travelled, there was never ending stream of rickshaws and roadside markets. This was marked but only because it had a ferry. The road just stopped there.
As soon as the minibus stopped the van was surrounded, this time by boys selling popcorn. Obviously, we were tourists and we had money. An old lady was amongst them, begging and there was someone with a huge pile of English children’s books. With the help of a phrase book and hand movements I struck up a conversation with Tuska, a 14 year old boy who lived on the boat. He was a popcorn seller and had done this for as long as he could remember. He and the crowd of children wanted their photo taking just to look at it on the screen of the camera.
We headed off again, convinced we’d broken the back of the journey but found out we still had five hours of driving to do. It was hair-raising but uneventful. More near misses, more markets, more busses, more potholes. “I must be mad doing this”, I thought.
The further south and west we travelled the wetter the terrain. One of Bangladesh’s biggest problems, apart from poverty, is the rising sea level and there is evidence as you drive toward the Sundarbarns that the land is flooding. However, everywhere was so green and I realized just how fertile this land is. When you’re not being flooded out or blown away by cyclones south west Bangladesh offers a lot of farming potential. But it is volatile and this largely forgotten country is criminally poor. Without a lot of investment the physical land of the Bengal Sundarbarns could well be gone in 50 years.
We were convinced that John Bose’s estimate of seven hours had to be wrong. Through exhaustion some of the team fell asleep between potholes and horn blasts until finally, after seven hours and fifteen minutes we arrive in the little port town of Mongla.
We were staying at the Pashur Hotel, which boasted on a sign coming into the port, that it was a member of the National Tourism Council of Bangladesh. A sign inside suggested you visit Bangladesh before the tourists come. If the hotel was anything to go by, Tourists to Bangladesh may be biding their time a little longer. The hotel was grand looking on the outside but when you went in you got the feeling that it was seldom used. The staff were impeccable, bending over backwards to carry cases, bring bottled water, order food, and any other service you might have required. In fact, for the record, let me state that the local people in Bangladesh are some of the kindest, generous, welcoming people I have met. Only the Scots come close in welcoming.
We opened the door of our air-conditioned van and the heat and humidity hit us like a train. I honestly found it hard to catch my breath for 20 minutes or so until I got to my room.
I had the delight of sharing my room with a gecko and a large jumping insect. The room itself was air-conned with an old and noisy unit rattling away in the corner. I had two beds each with an incredibly beautiful but heavy blanket on which was obviously going to be ridiculously hot to sleep under. I checked out the wardrobe and decided that it’s great living out of a suitcase, why bother hanging stuff up.
Although it’s hot here they get a lot of rain and when it’s not raining it humid. Today had been 89% humidity at 34%. The Pashur Hotel showed the ware and tare of the Bengali climate. With some TLC it could be grand but remember this is luxury to most people lining in this neighborhood. Dinner was curry, rice and fried fish. I have no idea what the fish was but it tasted good. I headed to bed convinced that after a twenty four hour journey I would sleep well but it wasn’t until I’d convinced myself that the gecko and jumpy thing weren’t going to eat me that I dropped off sometime around 2am
Well, didn’t sleep to well last night but the room at the Hotel was bug free and the shower worked which was a bonus. Got up at 6am and we were taken to the Home of Joy for their morning service which was great although all in Bengali.
After the service we had breakfst and then it was out to play with the kids. Home of Joy houses around 80 orphans and the school has around 300 pupils. John had arranged a football match – England vs Bangladesh played on a very muddy and potholed pitch. At half time we were 31 down but we’d been at the boggy end. After a rousing speech (”It’s alright so long as you feel like you’re winning!”, we soon equalised and then scored the winner. It was great fun but they threatened to thrash us at cricket later in the day which they would have done if we hadn’t mixed the teams up!
Stu and Jared went for a swim in the lake and I went to video them, slipped on the step and had a swim as well. Managed to keep the camera up so John was happy. The lads here speak fairly good English and talking to them you realise they have some harrowing stories. Sahid is on the staff team but came here when he was 5 years old. He was abandoned by his parents and was bought to the home by a relative. Now he looks after the boys house and says he can identify whith all of the guys there. A lot of children are abandoned simply because their parents can’t look after them .
I have to admit I struggled with the westernisation that seems to have influenced these children but they put on a show for us wich include a lot of traditional drama and dance. It’s such a contrast to the home in Horintana and I’ll write more when we get back. But there’s no denying these children are happy here and doing well in education and have a future that offers some security.
After dinner we said our goodbyes and here we are back at the hotel. We’re off to Dhaka tomorrow with John Bose. It’s Eid tomorrow which is huge here so there wont be a lot happening. Hopefully we’ll persuade the ferries to take us across the rivers.
What I will tell you about when we get back is the story of Marg’s sponsored child Namula.
Off to bed soon and hopefully to sleep.
Rob, Jared and Children Click this for the image
Well, day five and we’re in Khulna and have fund the internet. It’s been an incredible four days in Horintana and much to much has happened to write in one post so I’ll post the full story once we’re back home in England.
Each day we travelled to the School project via bus, tuk-tuk boat and foot. It’s such a poor place and it’s been amazing how we’ve been welcomed and looked after so generously.
The team is really good – all working well and all having parts to play. John shone at the farewell gathering with a speech any prime minister would have been proud of and he and Chris have been looking at gas pipes and technical things like water tanks and drains. Paul has been brilliant at organising things, Keith has been plodding away at his child protection training sessions and Stu and Jared have been teaching the kids that a thumbs up is the way we say hello in England as well as making some great friends with the kids. Marg has been painting pictures with eth kids and the bedroom walls and I’ve been singing, videoing and photing the whole thing.
The great thing about coming here is seeing the projects funded by Global Care making such an impact on peoples life. I was so excited seeing the fish farm when we walked in and Stu and Jared helped raise the money for the paddy fields we saw. The building is fantastic and there’s also a micro-credit group that we funded which helps enasbles people to borrow enough money to start working for themselves, for instance one person borrowed money fore a fishing net which meanse her husband can catch his own fish rather than work for someone else and be paid for labour. We visited one of the ladies on the project who had opened a tea shop and had a sample of her tea. Lovelly!
My gheko left the room after the first night and the jumpy thing hopped off but I did have a nice big cockroach hiding behind the desk.
Tried uploading some pictures but I’m not getting very far so we’ll give it another go tomorrow!
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