Newsletter 4..... 10th December 2003

Path leading to my new home in a little village

If there is such a thing as a dream and then I am living it, I certainly seem to have found mine here in Net……… !
Net………. is 3 and half hours bus ride from Dhaka and only 20km away from the Indian border. A small town centre is to the right of my home and my work place is 7 minutes walk away to the left. I simply cannot get lost, even if I try, mention the name of my NGO, everyone knows where I live. They also know that I live next door to by boss who started Org. from her home and her empire has now mushroomed across the town. With one idea of caring for young girls from broken homes and giving them some means of livelihood, her empire now includes textile cottage industry across the town, hospital where poor can walk in for free  medical help, agricultural and fishing centre, legal advise service, human right and lots more to make sure that the NGO industry is ticking away. My boss is late fifties (chaotic and control freak ) has her own sad story to tell, having lived an unhappy married life , she works all hours to care and raise awareness of women’s right. She is forever travelling to the West to raise funds for her NGO and a strong team of loyal men and women are always available at home for her at a touch of her very own mobile phone which she wears inside her bra for safe keeping! Only the other day she came back from Dhaka to report that she was mugged and she lost all her possessions except for her mobile phone! So all those ladies with mobile phone and size 38 D cup take note!

There is no Internet cafe available and my Boss has allowed me to use her private Internet service any time for massive fee of £5 per hour (compared to 15p in Dhaka). I have very little choice and I have to learn to be very economical with my words and my monthly allowance of £ 80. My Boss lives with a large family; I have lost count of people who live in her house. She finds it difficult to accept that I am happy alone, in my three rooms flat next door to her. She offered a company of a young lad (Peter), I could be a mother figure for him she thought, however I guess I don’t have to spell for you my flat refusal to her kind offer. My flat is on the first floor of a house and over looks a playing field where young boys are forever playing cricket. The playing field is part of the school and I can sit out on my very own massive balcony (which is really an unfinished roof top of a ground floor building) and watch the world go by and provided I do not venture to the edge of the balcony I am safe. I nearly fell off one dark evening, trying to be adventurous. My flat has basic things in it but I have treated myself to few luxuries, which includes a houseboy, who does my cleaning and my washing and my ironing. I pay him £4 a month! My landlord, who lives with his family downstairs, has a pet monkey in a cage. The back garden is surrounded by trees and thank god there are no crows to wake me up in the morning, instead I hear sound of different types of birds all day and poor monkey rattling in his cage. Perhaps I will get young Peter to do the good deed and free the monkey one dark night ?

I started work on 21st Nov. all eager to make my mark, however I found that due to Ramadan coming to the end and start of 7 days Eid holiday soon, no body was in the mood to work, just like you are all back home? There is lot for me to do and I guess I will have to be patience yet again, I have a whole year ahead of me......

I am coming to the end of my 7 days Eid holiday and it has been one long party for me and 6 other Europeans who arrived in Net……… at the same time as I did. There was Lucy from Sweden, a teacher and a feminist; there was Mari from Norway, a midwife who delivered 2 babies whilst here; Lilly from Norway, an anthropologist, who once married a man from Scunthorpe.Then there I was rubbing shoulders with Helen, a lesbian, photographer and a writer for the top Norwegian newspaper and The Guardian in England. Lucy and Helen were not very keen to mix with the only two lovely young lads in our team, Peter (19) and Nicklos (27) both from Germany.

 The Eid festive was totally controlled by the Boss and her mobile phone. Everyday our plans were made and then changed. At times we were frustrated and at times we laughed at the chaotic way the Boss ran our lives, but at the end of the festive season, we appeared to have enjoyed all. We visited lots of families and sat on their beds, sometimes girls only, sometimes boys and girls but all the times we were entertained by food, lots of food to eat whilst the host served and watched us eat! There was no plan or room available for the host to eat with us sound strange but it is true.

 My short-term European ladies have returned home and the two German lads have gone back to Dhaka. However I shall not be alone for long because I have an American young woman and an English Lady (she acts like one!) called Jane, whom I shall be getting to know next week; oh there is also Peter who will be returning back here soon for a year’s work. He wants to live in a mud hut, use solar system for heating and learn Indian cooking with my help?

 During the holiday period I have been able to spend my early morning walking the country lanes, (I am in the heart of rural Bangladesh) and discovering more hospitality amongst the poor and the rich. The morning before Eid, the whole of Net……. was busy slaughtering a complete cow on their front doors! It was horrific scene to have witness first thing in the morning, but I guess since they saw nothing wrong in doing it, who am I to judge or question? On Eid day everyone was dressed beautifully, especially little girls who were heavily made up and looked like prostitutes, I wondered if they knew what there were doing.  There is a large Hindu community living here, and they continued to work in the paddy fields, harvesting the rice and preparing for the winter. Early morning fishermen were out there too, getting down to the river with their bamboo fishing sticks and nets. There are a lots of small communities scattered all over the town living in mud huts, tin ones and simple shacks made of jute mats, suddenly one sees one big house almost like a palace and it looks so surreal.

 Finally, not all dreams have happy ending and I had one very horrid dream only a week after living in my flat. At 3 am last Friday, I was woken up by noise outside my house, I switched my torch on to discover that a thief has managed to cut chicken wire covering my window and push his hand through the iron bars and steel my camera (no use to anyone as I broke my camera the night before,) however he left behind my medicine box, my pen knife and my books.............. Anyway I learnt my lesson very quickly , now I close my metal shutters  in  the flat and close all the doors, metal and wooden once leading to my bedroom and have the night light on all night to keep any would be thief away from my prison.

Once again many thanks for not pointing out all my mistakes and asking about Mick and Sam who are both doing well. I am unable to receive the world service and please don’t stop sending me your news, keep it short and sweet; it will all help me to keep my cost down. ................ I guess you are all freezing and busy with Xmas shopping, well here I am still in my T shirts and flip flops .... enjoying the midday sun..... Love,

 Davinder xx