The

Cast: Me - you know me! Tasmiha the founder of Brighter Dawns & my friend from Wesleyan; she grew up in Chicago but her parents are Bengali & her entire extended family still lives there Ben a freelance videographer who lives in New Jersey; he came on the trip to document our work & will be putting together some short films about our experiences Romim our Bangladeshi translator, guide, friend, sneaker of street food (which Tasmiha warned us never to eat!) And thats it! We were a really small team. Brighter Dawns (BD), if you dont know, is a small non-profit based in the US that started as a student organization at Wesleyan University. Today BD has volunteers around the world and is in the process of hiring its first team members in Bangladesh. BD provides health education to women and children in the slums of Khalishpur, Khulna and builds and repairs community wells and latrines. You can find out more about Brighter Dawns here. Brighter Dawns is having a fundraising event in NYC on November 16 you can learn more, buy tickets and/or donate here. You can also like Brighter Dawns on Facebook to stay updated on their work.

Getting there.. I met a girl from Denver at the Telluride Film Festival, where I volunteered in late August (which was great! but thats another story; I will just say this: one of my favorite films there was a short documentary called Here Be Dragons & you should all try to see it). I asked her the day I met her if I could stay with her before my flight to Bangladesh the next week, which left from Denver, where I didnt know anyone. She agreed immediately even though she was hosting a lingerie bachelorette party for her cousin the night before my 6 am flight. I tried to talk her out of driving me to the airport, but she insisted! I had to switch planes in Houston and, when I arrived in NYC at La Guardia, I had to get my bags and take a shuttle to JFK, and then I had to wait 2 hours before they would let me check in to my flight and then I finally got on the plane to Dhaka (oh but there was a layover in Abu Dhabi, where Tasmiha gleefully ordered a halal Big Mac). We arrived at 4:10 am local time, were processed by immigration and collected our bags. I loved seeing all the strange packages go by at the baggage claim. Most of the luggage was more like a ball of stuff wrapped up in a crazy colorful quilt, tied with a neon rope, and then plastered with signage displaying the owners name, phone number and home address. It was at the baggage claim that I had that not in Kansas anymore moment.

Dhaka, Bangladesh Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and Wikipedia says an estimated 15 million people live there (though a local told me 22 million), which makes it at least the worlds 9th largest city. But the population of Dhaka seems to me an impossible thing to estimate. One of the first things I noticed as we pulled up to our hotel in the safe, relatively nice area of Banani was that people families lived on the sidewalk in semi-permanent tarp tents just down the street from us. They cooked over an open flame, washed themselves, sold cigarettes and candy, and peed (the men, that is) right there in the street. People are everywhere in Dhaka. Lots of them. In the street, on the sidewalks, hanging over balconies, squatting on the steps of stores, piled into rickshaws.. there are so many people. That was the first thing I noticed.

We were in Dhaka to conduct business. We met with our local partner NGO, the World Peace & Cultural Foundation. We met with some people at BRAC (a huge, big-deal NGO that operates around the world but started in Bangladesh), including the President and the Director of their Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) program. We met with a new local partner, Uttaran. We met with an 04 Wesleyan alum who is a successful

businessman in Dhaka. (Cant resist this side story about him: One branch of his company is the organic tea company known as Teatulia in the US he said he was inspired to make it organic by his friends at Wesleyan, who founded Long Lane Farm back in the day. He also said that rather than import organic fertilizer from India, which would be hassle-free and relatively cheap, he decided to donate 3,000 cows to local families and then collect the manure for the tea gardens Also he was a theater major. I guess thats Wesleyan for ya!) So our first few days were full of meetings and networking. We were mostly gathering information, talking about our plans and getting feedback, introducing ourselves, updating people on our progress since BD's last trip last summer.. it was a crazy introduction to Bangladesh and our work there, but after a few days we were all pros at the formal business meeting.

At every meeting we were offered tea or coffee and snacks. We had been warned by Tasmiha not to drink or eat anything that didn't come from the hotel restaurant. She even told us only to drink a particular brand of bottled water called Mum. She was looking out for us, but obviously this approach was not going to fly with me. I was careful.. but not too careful. What Im saying here is: I definitely ate the snacks.

The tea or coffee was always ridiculously sweet to the point where I usually couldn't drink it it was burn-your-throat sweet. And the snacks were always different & always weird. At BRAC we were served fruitcake; at Uttaran we were served slices of a tart, strangely crunchy pale green fruit which no one could identify for me, a pile of grapefruit, shredded and I swear salted served with a spoon, and slices of cucumber; and at other meetings we were served Japanese-style crunchy cracker mixes, cookies, and platters of potato chips (either ketchup or wasabi flavored). If the meeting was in Bengali, sometimes Id take personal notes as the others talked. Sometimes I wrote about the snacks. Sometimes I described the room or what was going on, like here: Romim just threw trash out the window of an office. Dusty, unpainted floors, bars on the windows. Tattered plastic covering some chairs. Mum water & tissues on the table. Tissues on every table, in all the cars, every room of the hotel. Scented tissues. Bashundhara brand. * While we were running from meeting to meeting, we were also interviewing candidates for a few Bangladesh-based positions with Brighter Dawns, so we were fielding calls, reading resumes, and interviewing people whenever we had free time. And we were researching mobile-phone-based technology and meeting with software developers and data-analysis experts to try to craft the perfect survey so we can better evaluate our work and decide if/how we then want to use Community Health Workers to collect data. There are advantages to using a mobile phone to collect data the data is instantly uploaded and geo-tagged which means its more difficult to fake but then theres also cost and training to consider. Not to mention all the inter-personal issues involved with surveying people in their homes about hygiene. * At our Dhaka hotel every morning around 9:30am (mornings were kind of slow) an English-language newspaper would slowly emerge from under my door. They didn't leave it outside.. they shimmied it under the door. On my first day, these were some stories from the front page: Russia will sell Bangladesh's Armed Forces Division 24 "advanced jet trainer fighters" and 6 helicopters; price still being negotiated. Moscow wants $23.5 million for each plane! Dhaka says $15 million. Bangladesh's Postal Department is facing an "image crisis" because mail keeps getting stolen at the airport - packages are torn open & recipients won't accept them - so the Postal Dept. plans to send strongly worded letters to airlines.

 I remember they also reported (at least in the English-language newspapers) about that recently uncovered van Gogh painting. * A couple of times a day the power goes out in Dhaka (and in Khulna, too). At our hotel, there was a generator, so the lights would turn back on within seconds. But at many of the offices where meetings were held, when the power went out, there was nothing we could do. We held one late-night meeting by the light of a single candle and a few more by the light of a cell phone flashlight. The lights going out was usually no big deal - it was the fans that we really missed. Khulna, Bangladesh A few days after arriving in Dhaka we left for Khulna. We took a plane the flight was maybe 40 minutes and tickets cost $60 each. Hot, sweaty, loud. Just a little bit scary. The view of Dhaka from the air was insane the city just goes on and on and on skyscrapers for miles. We arrived in Jessore in the afternoon. Inam (the Wesleyan alum) had arranged for a driver to pick us up and take us to Khulna by a special route, his favorite drive in all of Bangladesh. (I cant really explain Inams kindness and generosity, but he did all kinds of things for us he really helped us, and wanted us to have a good time, too; he loves Wesleyan and I think he was happy just to connect with other alums working in Bangladesh.) He told us we'd see a rare side of the country, one that's quickly fading - rural farmers in small villages. The drive was two hours on a cow road. "Swarming" was the word I used to describe the road in my journal and veering, weaving and swerving was how I described the driving itself. There were few other cars - but lots of traffic: rickshaws, "vans" (which are bicycles with trailers & carry all kinds of things, including people; one even had a sick cow strapped to it), bicycles, goats, cows, stray dogs, motorcycles, naked children, women and men carrying huge loads on their heads, and the occasional bus or truck. Our driver swerved recklessly around people, animals and objects in the road, constantly honking his horn - but this was nothing new. That's just how driving works there - it's like a terrifying live-action video game.

Four bloggers have been charged under the "Information and Communications Technology Act" for writing "inflammatory blogs on sensitive religious issues" - this marks the first time anyone has been charged under the act & if charged, each blogger could face 7-14 years in prison. Iraq to recruit 100 anesthetists from Bangladesh.

The drive was one of the highlights of the trip. The landscape was lush and vivid green. Water seemed to be everywhere, and the reflections of the clouds were beautiful. Women waded in the water fully clothed, wrapped in bright colors, washing themselves. Hand-painted carts. Bushels of rope drying on the sides of the road. * Halfway to Khulna the driver dropped us off for lunch at Inam's guesthouse. Inam had graciously offered his riverside villa to us as a place to hang out and had a feast of local, organic, traditional food prepared for us. It was overwhelming! And delicious! And it was there that I ate the best papaya of my life, which had been picked an hour earlier from an organic garden across the street. It was perfectly ripe and sweet and so good. Everything was good - but the Bangladeshi specialty is fish, which I didn't try. (I know, I know!) Some of the things we were served: fish from the river (which we looked out over as we ate), freshwater black tiger shrimp, sea bass, dal (delicious watery lentil soup) with tomato and cucumbers from the garden, and salty steamed spinach - two kinds, purple and green. And you eat it all with your hands - the better to pick out the fish bones, Tasmiha said. I always save room for dessert & even though I was stuffed, I tried all four. One was the papaya. One was a kind of cheese-like cake thing. It was weird. Basically curds but

cake-y? Made with pure Bangladeshi sugar cane, which is some of the finest sugar cane in the world, we were told, and with fresh milk. One was fresh yogurt, which Tasmiha really didn't want me to eat, but I did and it was good. And, finally, a famous Khulna treat, a spongy sweet ball, soaked in sugary liquid. MmmMmmMMmmmm. * When I learned Bangladeshi sugar cane is supposedly some of the best sugar cane in the world, I knew I had to eat some raw. (Like I needed an excuse!) This was easy - sugar cane is sold on the street, a common, cheap treat. Like coconuts. I bought a big one, maybe 5 or 6 feet tall, and watched as the ends were sliced off and it was chopped into 5 servings. This cost me less than a dollar and was enough for me to share with everyone. Raw sugar cane kind of looks like bamboo - it's like fat bamboo shoot. Romim and our driver taught me how to eat it: you start at one end and bite into the hard outer skin/shell/bark; with that in your teeth, you peel it as far as it'll go; peel a good sized section like that, the entire circumference; then, just take a bite, chew & suck the sugary juices; then spit out the pulp. Not a snack you can eat indoors. Definitely felt like a cow munching & spitting - but it was worth it! *

From my journal, September 13: Toured Ward 12 in Khalishpur, Khulna today its a slum/shanty town. Tin roofs, bamboo posts & walls.. communal latrines & wells. A pond of standing water & floating

trash where they used to bathe. Im an instant celeb because Im a white woman. Children flock. I let some girls put henna on my fingertips & nails & two dots on my palms & backs of my hands. A beautiful orange color. One girl gave me a chocolate bar. When she left I handed it out to the others. They didnt want to take it but they eventually did. One man knocked a kid on the head when she wouldnt take the chocolate (to my surprise!). And when they did finally each take a square once the example had been set, they knew they could they nibbled away at it slowly. I shook kids hands they delighted in it. Hi, how are you? Im fine, thank you! these are the phrases they know. * So, Khulna. Theres this one area called Khalishpur its like a district of Khulna and thats where Brighter Dawns works. In fact, Brighter Dawns works in a particular neighborhood in Khalishpur, Ward 12. The people there know Tasmiha and they know Brighter Dawns. They are excited when we come. They look forward to our visits and have come to expect them.

The poverty there is.. extreme. The area is crowded, densely populated. We were always surrounded by people and it was hot and sunny and humid. There was a constant stickiness. But its a beautiful place and the people quick to smile. One

settlement was on either side of out-of-service railroad tracks. The tracks served as a central path, and vivid fabrics, drying in the sun, zigzagged overhead. Children were everywhere. And animals goats, chickens and cows. Women wore matching pants, dresses, and scarves a kind of mix of Muslim/Hindu/Urdu culture.

Some history.. I realized pretty quickly that I knew next to nothing about the history of Bangladesh. A few of the people we met with stressed the importance of recent history to our work, and to the region. Bangladesh didnt gain independence until 1971, and it was a brutal war and millions of people were killed disappeared is the word they use, because theres no record of their death, no graves. The relatives of many people alive today disappeared. These are open wounds. Many Urdu-speaking people with ties to West Pakistan fought against the liberation and they lost but they remain in Bangladesh for various & complicated reasons. These are the people of Ward 12. I found this recent op-ed pretty interesting & informative. (TL;DR: Nixon & Kissinger were pretty slimy.) * While we were in Khulna we continued holding meetings and interviews with local partners, potential contractors for future projects, and candidates for Community

Health Worker positions. But the most fun and meaningful work happened in the homes and alleyways and classrooms of Ward 12. We met with lots of people listened to their stories, filmed them, wrote down what they said. We listened to them say thank you through tears and we listened to their complaints and suggestions. We visited the 11 wells and 8 latrines Bright Dawns has built there so far and, with the Ward Commissioner as our guide, we visited nearly a dozen broken wells in need of repair and scouted new project sites. Our team huddled around one broken well, the sun setting, people gathering around us, and Romim translating the conversation in my ear. I wanted to get the numbers down right how many families shared this one well, this one, broken well? Over 100. * We also held three childrens seminars and two womens seminars. At these crowded, excited gatherings wed hand out paper and crayons (to the kids) and soap and sanitary napkins (to the women) and wed teach basic hygiene practices when and how to wash your hands, menstrual hygiene, that kind of thing. One of the facilitators asked me if I knew how to wash my hands properly yes, I laughed. But it was a good thing he didnt call on me to demonstrate because he was much more thorough than Id have been! He taught those kids to scrub every joint of every finger, clean under each nail, and then rub your hands together for thirty seconds with soap.

Two of the kids seminars were at a local elementary school (photo above). There were no lights that I could see in the building. Some classrooms had a ceiling fan or maybe two and a chalkboard. Three or four kids sat on each bench, at each desk. There were 65 kids at our first seminar. After the seminar a few girls showed us the well Brighter Dawns had installed the only well at the school. Its used by all the students and teachers but only for washing. They cant drink the water because of high arsenic levels the well doesnt go deep enough.

The third childrens seminar was in a one-room classroom in the middle of the slum. The walls were brick and plaster, the roof was palm fronds with bamboo beams. I could see daylight through the gaps where the walls and roof didnt quite meet. When we arrived, they turned the one, wobbly ceiling fan on for us. The room was small and it was packed with kids, all of whom sat on the floor. This was the school for children whose parents couldnt afford the small fee for public school. These kids didnt wear uniforms like the other kids, and they represented a range of ages. A few who had befriended me circled around me on the floor and stuck their hands out for me to autograph. Then theyd wipe the ink off and stick their hands out again. I had them (if they could) write their names for me. *

The last thing we did in Khulna was watch as a team of young, barefoot men started work on a new deep tube well that means itll go down 800 feet! Its difficult to describe the process but, at least on the first two days of the project, I didnt see any machinery everything was done by hand: drilling, pumping, digging. It was really impressive. Dhaka again Before I knew it we were heading back to Dhaka. Our time in Khulna had flown by and, really, it had only been a few days. As we were heading to the airport in Jessore our driver got a call that a hartal (strike) had been called for the next 48 hours. Hartals are pretty common in Bangladesh and protests can be violent. Its supposedly an especially unsafe time for foreigners to be out and about. This excited Ben he wanted to film the protests! Cricket was on the TV and the three white men in the airport waiting room had congregated in the middle and were laughing and swapping stories. There was an ad for a water park on the wall Water Kingdom with a happy-looking, fully clothed, soaking wet couple riding inner tubes. Tasmiha was chatting away in Bengali on one side of me, calming her mother, and every so often shed turn to me with an update: Apparently lots of cars have already been burned! If youre interested in why this particular hartal was called, read this. (TL;DR: Its election season in Bangladesh so inevitably lots of old cases are reopened; in this case, an Islamist Pakistani leader was sentenced to death for killings dating back to 1971 war (although he had already been sentenced to life in prison); this angered some people in Bangladesh & a local Islamist opposition party called the strike.) Turned out the protests were in a part of Dhaka that was pretty far from our hotel and there really wasnt much reason to be worried or stay indoors. However, most of our final meetings were canceled so Ben and Romim and I spent the next couple days wandering around, eating, taking local transportation, running errands, taking pictures, and preparing to leave for Nepal. One highlight was a bustling market where you could choose your own chicken and have it slaughtered before your eyes; and there were also all kinds of exotic, fresh fruits and veggies, fish, spices, candy. This kid was selling spices:

 Kathmandu, Nepal Ill just say a few words about Nepal. Before I met Ben really, before I had ever even talked to him I called him up and asked if he would want to extend his trip after our work with Brighter Dawns was finished and do some traveling for fun. He was so down. The cheapest plane ticket we could find was to Nepal so thats where we went a flight to Kathmandu was cheaper than a flight to Ho Chi Min City, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, or Yangon plus you can get a visa at the airport for $25. (The visa for Bangladesh was $160!) Ben and I splurged and split the cost of a ticket for Romim at the last minute. Romim had been invaluable to us in Bangladesh, always at our sides, and the three of us had become good friends. We wanted to thank him. Hed never been on a plane, never left Bangladesh. Plus he speaks Hindi (one of the languages spoken in Nepal). My mom likes to say money is best spent on experiences, not things, and I spent my souvenir money on Romims ticket it was an easy decision. Kathmandu seemed strangely similar to Dhaka crowed, polluted, poor but the glaring difference was the presence of Western brands and people. Unlike Dhaka, there

were hoards of tourists in Kathmandu. We visited temples in Kathmandu and they were amazing but we also wanted to get outside the city. The photo below is from Swayambhunath (also known as The Monkey Temple because of the hundreds of holy monkeys living there), which is perched high up on a hill outside Kathmandu. The air is clean & the views are unreal. A really magical place.

I wanted to do some hiking trekking but we just didnt have the time (or the money to pay for a guide, lodging on the trail, supplies). But we did make it to Nagorkot, a small village in the mountains with a famous view of the Langtang Range of the Himalayas. We woke up early to catch the sunrise over the Himalayas and.. it was spectacular. There really are no words. And, with that, Ill leave you. Namaste.