Beatee

Hello one and all!

As Heidi’s sister quite bluntly reminded us the other day, we’ve been slacking a little in the blog department as of late. Our apologies. Life has been a little “routine” and that leaves us feeling like, “what is there to write about”? Truthfully there’s lots. Tons of little moment that could be pondered and reflected on. But then again, it’s important to shut off a little when things get a little frustrating.

Like noted in an earlier blog, we’re literally feeling the days slip by. It’s hard in the middle because it’s SO HOT that the moments seem to linger forever as you feel the sweat dripping down your legs… but then the day’s over and a new one begins and we wonder where the times gone.

We are definitely going to miss this place. We just spent a glorious 30 minutes surrounded by gorgeous children and realized that we don’t know how to tell them that we’re leaving. One day we just won’t be there to meet them and chase them and tickle them and play patty cake. Sad thoughts. Our interactions with them are so raw, real and human. No pretention, no politics, no worrying about cultural sensitivity. It’s just us and them and smiles and pure unadulterated bliss. These are precious memories and we will hold them in our hearts forever.

Beatee is one we won’t easily forget. She’s 14 months old and perhaps one of the most delightful and beautiful children we’ve ever encountered. Her face is full of joy when she sees us, and equivocally when we see her. I’m sure we both look like our faces will rip in two from smiling so big! She’s clearly just recently got the walking thing down- she’s a real pro but still slightly hesitant. We have just fallen in love with her to the max. Over the last 3 months we’ve had a chance to develop such a sweet and innocent connection with her. She used to be unsure of us- clinging onto her mum, but now she runs at us clasping her little hands together. She laughs and lets us snuggle her and truly it is the very best part of our day. No matter how bad the previous hours have been, seeing her makes the world fall away and our hearts filled with love.  She’s like a drug actually and we’re kind of addicted to the rush of seeing her- Beatee: best coping mechanism ever!

The last few weeks have been pretty routine with lots of hartals which we are no longer shocked by in the least. Run of the mill really and our students have gotten used to being “on call” so that we can sneak in a make up class at any last minute we can get our hands on.  We’re really close to the end now. In Medical Surgical class we’ve got Diabetes, the Renal system, and the Digestive system to cover and in Pharmacology we taught Central Nervous System Drugs today followed by Autonomic Nervous System Drugs and Chemotherapy Agents. The last few lectures! Hard to believe! We’re running a little low on motivation as the semester ends, but keeping up our enthusiasm as the review is SO good for us. The Liver is SO cool!!!

We’ve had some struggles with our students which has been challenging but at every turn there’s something to learn right? We’ve had some time to really try to get inside the minds of our students and understand what those basic drives to learn are and how to switch them on. Harder than we thought. Desire to learn, internal motivation and drive, discipline and work ethic are interconnected and necessary for the learner to succeed. We’re doing our best to empower them with “life skills” so that they can make it through this difficult and busy program. Our students have a fair bit of growing up to do, but that’s pretty normal for newbee’s, even in Canada. We’re focusing on teaching them how to take responsibility, how to be disciplined, how to manage their time, and how to be one time J Simple things but the foundation of being a good student.

Our time her with our students hasn’t been what we expected but that’s just it- OUR EXPECTATIONS. We’ve learned a great deal about letting go and letting what is be. We’ve learned to be more patient than we ever thought possible, and have learned to be utterly flexible in this very surprising and unpredictable world. We’re not speaking in code-true, things have been really hard some days. But, we can’t stop believing in them and maintaining hope that they’ll make it. We want to respect them and have even this blog be an encouragement for them even though they’ll never read it.

 We’ve also had lots of opportunity to build our cultural sensitivity/ competency and awareness. The other day as we sat in a restaurant shack having breakfast, we discussed how our feelings about culture have shifted since being here. We both spoke about how glad we are that this experience will help the “cultural” part of us grow stronger.  This sensitivity has many faucets and we’ve only tapped into a few (pardon the pun).  

One experience we had last week sorta surprised us. We’ve only a few times headed out of Uttar and into the “big city”. Gulshan is the “expat district” where all the foreign clubs are. The Canadian embassy has a club, the Brits have a club, there’s the Nordic club. We went down last week for a swim (which we never thought possible while here in Bangladesh) and a non-rice meal. After our swim, we threw on pants and a tee shirt and thought nothing of it since we were inside the walls of the foreigners club. Later that night when we were ready to head home, one of our new friends dropped us off outside of one of the big hotels in the area. We literally had to walk not more than 100 meters to the awaiting taxies. Totally forgetting that we were wearing “western clothes” we walked over to flag a taxi down. Immediately the reaction of the people startled us and we looked down realizing to our horror that we weren’t wearing our Ornas (scarfs). We climbed into the taxi and quickly pulled them out draping them around our necks.

This may seem funny to you- like, “what’s the big deal”. The big deal was that we felt naked without them, that we felt totally disrespectful in our western clothes in THEIR world. And in reflection, we were glad that we had such a visceral reaction. It means that we actually care about being culturally appropriate, that we care about dressing in a way that’s modest and appropriate for the culture, and that we care about helping undo the poor reputation westerners have in this culture.

Being out of Uttara only a hand full of times, we haven’t seen many other foreigners. But being in Gulshan we were shocked to see foreigners traipsing around in their mini skirts and tight tank tops. It’s SO inappropriate to dress that way, even if you’re not Bangladeshi! It just spoke volumes to us about how we wanted to be perceived and how our dress sends a message about respect. No judgment intended, but we wouldn’t be caught dead dressing like that here knowing how conservative this culture is. 

We also have had a very hard time wrestling with the sad beggars and children we see on the street. Westerners are often seen as pure gold- literally just $$$. This is hard for us, but also continues to solidify this terribly disempowering and unhelpful attitude about poor vs rich. Dependency on the “white man” has kept so many countries suppressed and stagnant. These big issues trickle down into the real life ones- like we know that many if not all of the beggars we see are run by big “mafia” type organizations. If you’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire, you know what we’re talking about. We’ve heard many stories first hand by people who have been here long enough to know the truth. It’s such a sad reality, children maimed on purpose for the end result of looking just that much more pathetic so that people will be just that much more likely to give.  Or this write up about children being literally drugged with alcohol or heroin to keep quiet or look sick in their mothers arms.

http://babiniec-cafe.pl/viewtopic.php?p=2026990&sid=8e80ad4531313512574b20139a6e7f5c

Ricki has been reading a great book by Samantha Nutt called, Damned Nations. It’s fascinating and highlights a lot of the struggles both big and small with foreign and developmental aid.  After experiencing life here for the last 3+ months and watching a few documentaries, we’ve realized that there is a huge grey area that governs how we should respond to the needs of the world. It’s so tricky and not at all straightforward. One person may find themselves on one end of the spectrum and another person many find themselves on the other. But wherever you do find yourself, there is a responsibility to know the outcome of your actions. So often our “giving” is so egocentric and egotistical- it’s about how good “I” feel when “I” give. Well, it sure ain’t about us and the sooner we can stop thinking about ourselves in all of this the better.

Samantha gives the example of going to a poor country to build a school. And it begs the question could it have been done in a better way? When developmental aid stops focusing on empowerment, autonomy of the people, capacity building, and sustainability it fails. So you gather a group of people together to build a school. Each person pays 3000$ to fly to that country. The school gets built, everyone’s happy and you come home.

But it begs many questions. Did the community need a school? Did they ask you to come build a school? Do they have teachers for the school? Do they have electricity and books and supplies for the school? Were there builders there who could have been employed to build the school? Could you have trained locals in the art of building? Guaranteed they could have used the employment and the money! How were the locals involved in the project? Were they treated as equals or treated with pity like “ those poor people needed a school and so we came to the rescue to build one for them”. Was there a “poor vs rich” attitude? Did it make us feel good?

What if we gave money, but were never there to get a pat on the back? What if what we actually needed for our growth was to learn to be humble, to not get any credit or acknowledgment but to let the right thing happen. What if we took the time to train locals to build that school? We wouldn’t be there to see it get done, but we would know that those men and women were getting a wage to take home to their families and were taking ownership of this school that their children would be attending. Isn’t that more important than our short term satisfaction? We operate on such a short term, immediate gratification sort of scale in society that it’s no wonder we translate this same attitude to our giving. Big aid groups do it to- donors give money and expect quick, measurable results even if this is not what the country needs.

So once again, no real cut and dry answers. Just thoughts and musings about the world and the things we wrestle with every day here in the developing world.

 Love Ricki and Heidi