Comparisons

Dear friends,
well, I'm just finishing my third day in Dhaka. I apologize for missing you yesterday, but jet lag has been catching up with me at weird times and I haven't quite gotten myself on a set schedule. All is well here in Dhaka. The thing you learn in life (and this is especially true in Bangladesh), is that success is about connections. If you know the right people, you can accomplish amazing things. I have been blessed to know some incredible people in this country who have a wealth of experience, knowledge, and resources to help me in my work. Actually, most of what I do in Bangladesh involves sitting around with people, sharing tea or a meal, and figuring out how we can work together for a certain purpose. In that spirit, the last couple of days has been taken up mostly with reconnecting with these people.

An interesting experience happened to me on my first day back in-country. I saw a child, no more than 10, pushing a rickshaw towards its destination. Child labor is something which I have seen countless times in this country, but to see it for the first time after my return was a sobering experience. We, as members of a "developed" society, often think of such a reality as a foreign problem. There are no children in America working in sweatshops or on the streets, thank God. But I'm reminded of the stories my grandfather used to tell of growing up with a widowed mother during the depression. He, like the child I saw the other day, labored in order to survive. That was only two generations back. We are not so far away from these problems as we might think.

P.S. this post is dedicated to Sujan, a little boy I met while driving on the road today. The car was stopped, and he and his little friend came up, weaving through traffic, to sell me some flowers. I gave them each a little money, and refused the flowers. He seemed to want me to take it anyway. I then asked them there names and spoke to them briefly in what little Bangla I know. They smiled broadly and seemed happy to get the attention from a foreigner. The the car drove on, pushing through traffic.