What? TWO BLOG ENTRIES?!!

Yes friends and fiends, behold! Such was my enormous guilt at having left it a month and a half since my last entry, I decided to write two at once in order to make it up to you, my avid and cherished readers. Thus this one whatchyoornowreadin'innit deals with a day trip we took from Dhaka some time back in.... November. Yes, I'm afraid so, I'm that far behind. But I AM making the effort now, honest. The second post, below this one, details the volunteers' social exploits over yuletide...oohhh, the anticipation!

This post will show you a bit more of rural Bangladesh, which is far more representative than the city scape of Dhaka covered in this blog up until now. Our day trip was down south, to a place called Potuokhali. It only lasted a couple of days but it gave us a great chance to see what placements are actually like. We had as our guide a lovely Phillippino volunteer called Rhori. She has oodles of experience from being Executive Director of her own NGO back in the Phillippines and she pulled no punches in describing the poverty she encountered while doing her job.




On our way to Potuokhali we had to cross the mighty Dharmaputra river. This huge body of water is, in it's own right, a major reason the Mughals took a while to subjugate all of the Bengal region. Traffic on the river varied in size from fairly substantial ferries to myriad fishing boats like one above. We wished the passenger ferries were slightly more numerous - we waited four hours in our bus before we could board one!







As I said in the beginning blurb, the above are more typical scenes of Bangladesh than the Dhaka city-scapes.

As part of our orientation, we were taken to a couple of villages where Rhori's Community Based Organisation (CBO) works. Project Officers acted as intermediaries between ourselves and the villagers.




The guy in the bottom right is the project officer. Through him, the women of the village told us about how lack of sanitation is the key problem for them, as well as lack of access to education. The men of the village were all working in the fields at the time of the meeting. It was a moving experience if for no other reason than because the entire community was gathered in the centre of the village to speak with us.




A final shot of one of the local rivers at dusk. Compared with the colossal Dharmaputra, this 'river' isn't much to write home about. The reason I am writing home about it is really just pity. Because no one else is going to. Because it really isn't anything to write home about....stop writing now? Yeah, you bet.

All my love guys, and I'll write again soon (probably).

Scanta Claus is coming to town...

Oh yes, merry merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.

But not in Bangladesh...oh no. In Bangladesh, Christmas is just another day. Bangladeshis get the day off, which is nice, but apart from that, there is absolutely NO significance to the date of December 25th - none. Well, imagine what our intrepid band of god-fearing volunteers thought of that. We thought 'bollocks to that young fella milad, we want our hollow and debased exercise in rabid, whorish commercialism draped in the soiled, ragged, torn remnants of what once was an honest religious sentiment'. Well, I thought that...ahem.

So, step 1: download 'Now that's what I call Xmas 2006' - essential. Now everything can be done to the sweet accompaniement of the Pogues' Fairytale in New York, Kylie Mingogue's 'Santa Baby'...we even had Aled Jones' 'Walking in the Air'. Genius.

Step 2: acquire booze...lots and lots of booze. Me and Keith spirited ourselves to the government depot where we stocked up on five crates of larger, plus white wine - YES, WHITE WINE!!!! MUTHA-FLIPPIN' WHITE WINE!!! The first such golden deliciousness to pass our lips in many a month. It was the equivalent of Bangla-own liebfraumilch (translation - loveladymilk for those non-german speakers among you) but it still tasted soooo good.

Step 3: acquire CHEESE...and other food we don't have regular access to (but mainly CHEESE). YES, CHEESE!!!!! MUTHER-FLIPPIN' CHEESE. It tasted like it had been churned from milk teased lovingly from the nipples of Christ himself. So good, it deserves to be only written in capital letters.

Step 4: purchase materials for the manufacture of makeshift santa claus outfit.

No doubt at this point, many of you are wondering which of us would dream of manufacturing a makeshift santa claus outfit to wear on christmas day? Well, keep reading and that mystery will be revealed.

Christmas eve we had a decoration party to transform the induction flat into a seasonal grotto of justice. This included a mini-christmas tree from keith's family - awesome. And there was drinking, plus a few carols. None of us could remember the words so there was some great improvising, plus lots of 'dur dur durrring'.

Christmas day began with a lovely brunch, complete with CHEESE!!!! It was after the CHEESE, at about two in the afternoon, that Keith and myself judged it a propitious time to begin drinking.
Then, as guests began arriving, I donned my red apparel (stitched by my own fair hand), cotton-wrapped wire beard, red hat and my red chinese t-shirt. Scanta Claus (aka Banter Claus) had arrived.

Thankfully, my rucksack was red. This facilitated a process where guests sat on Scanta's knee and, provided that they had been good girls and boys, they were rewarded with their heart's desire from my big sack...as long as their heart's desire happened to be a can of luke warm heineken.

Queue lots of dancing and cavorting. Excellent stuff all round. And below is some documentary evidence:




The beard in all it's magnificence. To those of you who reckon it's in my mouth and are asking yourselves 'what kind of spaz makes a beard that winds up in his mouth', fuck you, that's who.




Scanta Claus dishes out the booze to the masses...




...before taking a crafty sip himself. A straw would have been a good move.




Old Banter Claus with Job - the beard looking decidedly frayed.




And now it's just a farce...a god damned farce!!!!




A bit of a hazy one of the party in full swing - whoever took this may, MAY, have been drinking...ahem.




Compulsory pout - Laura wins best Zoolander 'Magnum' look. I opted for Blue Steel myself.

So that was Christmas - all in all, we made it happen against great odds and, with all due respect to the centuries-old religion of peace that predominates in Banglaland, everytime the azaan sounded, interrupting my beloved Pogues, I was driven to scream 'you can shove your call to prayer up your arse!', a regrettable outburst for which I apologise.

Much love all!

Absolutely Dhakered!

It was with a certain sense of guilt that I sat down this evening to pen this blog entry dear readers. It's been pretty much a month and the only thing I can say in mitigation of my negligence is that in the interim I have moved from the warm, nourishing uterus that is Dhaka into the real world - my placement at Parbatipur, but that can wait for another blog. Before moving on to my present circumstances there are (at least) a few more things to be said about Dhaka.

Firstly, I thought I'd share what is probably my funniest picture to date. Check out these mannequins:



These are at New Market, one of several teeming shopping spots in Dhaka. It came as a great relief that buying ninja clothing and equipment wouldn't be a problem. Sadly on this occasion they were out of shuriken; fucking third world countries, you can't even get the basics!!!

Speaking of the basics, we've managed to get around the distinct lack of booze in Bangladesh, somewhat. Below, please see myself and some other volunteers relaxing at the BAGHA club. I actually don't know what the acronym stands for (I don't really care) but, suffice it to say, it is a neo-colonial enclave style jewel set amidst the fine crown of ex-patville in Gulshan, the embassy district.



Good things about the BAGHA club:

- the manager Sajid, who's really nice and buys me drinks

- the gin (and tonic)

- the presence of (some) scantily clad eye candy

Bad things about the BAGHA club:

- a sizable number of people there are tossers who click their fingers at the staff and get annoyed with colleagues of mine who happen to be black. Let me back that up, a black friend of mine, a Kenyan called Job, accidentally nudged the chair of this lady when sitting down owing to the constrained table arrangement. Her husband then had a massive go at him, completely out of proportion to the infraction. After Job had left, this geezer then apologises to me for causing the commotion. I said that I was sure my friend didn't mean to give offence and this dude retorts 'if he didn't then he didn't show it.' So, not a fan of the darkies are you chief?

- the presence of (an inordinate number of) scantily clad people who only through the most mind-bendingly hideous Orwellian contortions of the english language could ever readily be described as 'eye candy'.

- the presence of a worrying number of mature blokes who laud the city of Bangkok in the most emphatic terms, highlighting how 'If you're a guy, it's out of this world. I mean, for a girl too, but, y'know for a guy...' and 'no-one judges you, y'know, drink, do drugs, whatever, they don't judge you if you're an older guy with a younger girl...' I'm sat listening to this crap with four women volunteers who are all serious feminists and I'm thinking 'ah yes, the numerous positive points of sexual tourism...you really haven't gauged your audience on this one have you mate?"

Anyway, that's the BAGHA in a nutshell. In terms of alcohol though, we needn't stop there. Oh no. That same Job who was recently a victim of passive aggressive racism has also been a key player in allowing us to acquire illicit booze.

Following his lead, we arrived, via rickshaw, at New Market just after dusk. Walking past several brightly lit shops, Job indicated this murky enclosed alleyway underneath a sign that read, simply, 'Galaxy Club'.

'Galaxy club, where you can come to see the stars,' says Job with a confident, knowing grin. Well, we walk down what is essentially a tunnel, with stains of various hues tarnishing its already flaking whitewashed interior, until we came to a shabby, wooden door guarded by a threatening-looking man mountain of a Bangladeshi. Job greets this man cordially, and exchanges a few words of banter in Bengali, 'banglabanter' if you will, before we head inside.

Two flights of stairs up and we come to a wide club room, lit only by a huge plasma screen TV which is showing a round up of the day's sports, and neon lamps behind the bar itself. The club's male-only audience regard the TV with varying degrees of interest - they're clearly not here for the sports.

It hits me at about this point that we are, in point of fact, frequenting a speakeasy, a prohibition-era chicago style hooch parlour no less. We get the goods from a smiling man that Job seems to know well and are back out into the night in five minutes.

We've just scored...vodka.

Very strong vodka.





Mmmmmm, 75% proof: tangilicious!


well guys, I will love you and leave you - I will write again soon. Or, at least far sooner than last time.

The hum drum domestic life...

I thought that for this blog entry we might take a brief (written) tour of my current lodgings. Hacienda del induction is a developmental haven; a bastion of righteousness, a heroes' eyrie, a birthplace to legends. It is situated in lalmatia, right at the heart of mighty Dhaka, city of (among other things) very tasty aubergines. I don't know what they do to them over here but, well, I'll talk about it a bit more later. Our induction crib boasts all mod cons with no expense spared.

The living room is spacious (photo below) with an array of books left behind by past volunteers, that cover a wide spectrum of topics and genres. For example, looking for some light escapism, I decided the other day to reintroduce myself to a bit of Tom Clancy.



I bring this up because, on picking up his book 'The Bear and the Dragon', I chanced upon a piece of prose so spectacularly bad I felt compelled to share it with you. While discussing policy towards China, one of the lead characters says the following:

"The chicken's not so much as come home to roost as flown the coop, and it's Beijing that's left holding the bag."

I mean sweet Jesus!

Moving on to the delightful kitchen, I think a photo should suffice:



My bedchamber is a fortress against the mosquito onslaught - mosquito nets over the bed, gause wiring over the windows and a ready can of anti-bug spray nestled between the desk and the windowsill - like the walls of Troy itself. Let's just hope those pesky mossas don't learn how to build wooden horses. Lord knows I'm a sucker for wooden horses.............mmmmmmmm, wooden horses........ahem. As the old saying goes, beware blood-feeding arthropods bearing gifts.

The state of the art shower system comprises a rusty (yet trusty) fawcet which, for almost eighteen hours a day, at your command, can marshal an intermittant dribble of cold water. Not content with this, an elegant backup system is provided: a dustbin filled with water, a tupperware bowl complete and a fully functioning......jug.

That dustbin is not just the shower backup. The (thankfully western style flushing) toilet also has a use for it when the water stops. And thank the lord that it does because last week I found myself batting off a somewhat sticky wicket.

I'd been on the toilet, doing a number two, when I overheard a commotion outside and a brief exchange between two flat mates from which I quickly inferred that the water was off. It took me a few seconds to realise the full seriousness of my situation. The cistern was full, oh yes no worries about that.

But I had one shot. There could be no margin for error. It had to flush. IT HAD TO FLUSH.

It was with the trepidation of a gunslinger before the draw that I gripped the handle and then, having taken a moment to stroke perspiration from my chin, I pulled down sharply.

Like a wagging finger the offending log rode the waves and, as my doughty toilet spluttered its last, it simply sat there...mocking me.

Queue the dustbin.

Filling a cistern with a 500 ml jug was actually (for me) a reasonably decent work out. Flush with sass, I laughed out loud in triumph at the obstreperous poo as, once more, I pulled the chain.

I hadn't filled it high enough.

That was my conclusion as, forty seconds later, I found myself still staring my afternoon's hard work in the eye. This verdict was actually wrong. Turns out, it was just one of those unusually stubborn ones. For ten full minutes I (figuratively) wrestled with the intractable shit, like Ahab and the Great Whale (the obvious difference being that Moby Dick was white) before finally, on go number four, I saw the last remants away.

I'd used up half the dustbin of water and I was absolutely knackered. But my guns had by now come in for a hell of a sculpting. And you all know how much I treasure my guns.

Anyhoo, more from me soon. Mind how you go.

A bit of local colour

Hi guys, I thought that I'd share a couple of piccs with you all to show you a bit of where I am.

Below is (almost) the street where I live - I'm about fifteen seconds away from where this picture was taken. Note the cheeky little CNG tucked away behind the rickshaw.






Below is a picture of the New Market, more of which later. We'd just got off a rickshaw and were about to head inside at this point.





And finally, a view of the traffic (human and otherwise) from the overpass outside New Market.





I hope you're all well and expect more from the Scanblog in due course. Much love!

a room with a view...of sorts

And, no the view from my room is not great - it’s the balcony of the next door neighbour. What’s more, the ‘curtains’ are strips of very thin material that only cover about four fifths of the window. This now means that any strutting about in the buff calls for a certain amount of caution so as not to offend the conservative Muslim sensitivities of the elderly matron across the way; my arse-in-the-moonlight walks will have to be suspended.

Before I had a chance to pen a strongly worded letter to the Radio Times, copy to the Member of Parliament for Bromsgrove, complaining about this appalling state of affairs, we were whisked off to the VSO office where we were all formally introduced to each other, as well as to the Project staff.

The cast of this particular development-in-Bangladesh spectacular (the working title is currently 'Devbangtacular! - an old shaggy wives' dog tale') is large and varied so right now I’ll stick to a couple of key players and expand later on. Firstly, there’s the lovely Marufa. She runs the induction programme for volunteers and has essentially been holding our hands from day 1.

In terms of my fellow volunteers, there’s my fellow Brits Jo, Meagan and Laura who are on the same programme. They’re kind of like Charlie’s Angels, except they share an unshakeable determination to raise awareness of gender as a cross-cutting theme in international development. I’m not saying that Cameron Diaz doesn’t, but it’s certainly something she doesn’t seem to bring up very much while she’s solving crime in a bikini. She’s probably too busy being coquettish and sassy.

And then there’s Keith. Keith is a great bloke, from the US, who shares a similar sense of humour to my good self. While waiting for the introduction session and then subsequently in the lunch hour we thus swiftly descended into a full-blown (and I dare say, somewhat stereotyped) transatlantic exchange of profanity. It went kind of like this:

"How 'bout you pour yourself a nice, tall glass of shut-the-hell-up."

"I bite my thumb at you sir, with aplomb and gusto I do bite my thumb."

“Screw you, you douche bag.”

“Prat.”

“Jerkoff.”

“Git.”

“Quit harshing my mellow.”

“Montebank.”

(brief pause, Keith looks like I've physically slapped him) “What the hell is a ‘Montebank’?”

“Traditionally, a montebank was a purveyor of quack medicine.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So then, ‘harshing my mellow’…”

There will be more exchanges between myself and Keith in my next blog entry. Sleep tight everyone!

The Scanblog begins...

Yes friends, here beginneth some of the more random utterances to be committed to virtual paper in a wee while, and probably not before time either. Its been a week since arriving in Bangladesh, and time has passed in a veritable blur of rickshaw drivers, excessive amounts of aubergine and spirited bids to avoid contracting water-borne diseases.

But maybe I should begin at the beginning.

I walked out of Dhaka airport to a sensory assault that hit me like a multicoloured kangaroo shouting "Hey there chump, welcome to the third world!" through a megaphone five centimeters away from my face. Hot? You betcha. Humid? Oh indeed; Satan's crotch after a day at the beach-style humid. As we climbed into the VSO minibus, the thought struck me that, had I been a small black dog, a slight girl with pig-tails, a blue dress and a white apron would surely be telling me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Not that I'd be able to understand her...being a dog. Stupid Dorothy.

Driving down the airport road into Dhaka, I was afforded a startling introduction to the role a thorough and well-respected code of traffic law plays in the Dhaka transportation system, to wit, absolutely none whatsoever. Cars veered in all directions, vying for every single inch of space. Between the almost negligible space between the bumpers of different cars, it wasn't unusual to spot a rusting motorbike, ducking and weaving between the traffic with all the grace of a tired ex-boxer just fired from his night job as a doorman for coming to work drunk once too often.

Then there were the CNGs - essentially green go-carts with a passenger seat bolted on to the back that can (allegedly) carry up to four people. They are shining proof of what can be achieved with only one gear. Watching them buzz around the roundabouts leading up to the bangladeshi parliament recalled the fond days of Pat Sharp and the fun house grand prix, but with fewer mullets and without little tokens you could reach out and grab - try sticking your arm out of these little critters and most likely it will be taken off pronto.

Finally, there were the rickshaws - bikes towing little carriages ridden by people who are literally often bags of bones but who can tow 150kgs of foreigner around all day they're that fit. There are aapparently over three-hundred thousand rickshaws in Dhaka, though with the way they crowd the roads ringing their little bicycle bells that seems at times like an underestimate.

We were dropped at the flat provided by VSO for induction volunteers. As we opened the door on what would be home for the next four weeks, I said a silent prayer for a decent view.

Find out whether I got one in the next instalment - ooh the tension!