Greetings from Bagladesh - Day 1

I arrived at 4:30 a.m. this morning and we got to the hotel by 5:30 a.m., hard to beat a hot shower after 24 hours of flying. After a couple of hours of sleep I had to try half a dozen banks to find one that took my Key Bank cash card - a piece of advice if you are coming to Bangladesh, get a Visa cash card, not a MasterCard one.

After breakfast we got picked up and driven out to a village about an 90 minutes out of town to meet women who are benefitting from microloans from Grameen Bank. To say Dhaka is a big city is a crazy understatement. Most of the trip was spent getting out of town. Also, driving is a full contact sport here. You can not find a car, bus, or petty cab that is not scraped to crap. Two lane roads, are treated like six lane roads, if there is a space you fill it, and you don't stop for peds or animals in the road. We hit and killed a dog and barely missed a couple of goats.

Interesting fact: If everyone in the world moved to the US, it would still not be as densely populated as Bangladesh.

I recorded the Grameen women's meeting so you will all be able to see that and get the full scope of how the loans work. I also got some footage of the village, which I am told is one of the nicest the Nike folks have ever seen. All I can say is, if this is nice, I don't want to see bad (which I will be seeing later in the week). A family of five lived in a small, clean room that was about one third the size of my hotel room. They pump water from a well. The animals all ran around in the open. I took a lot of pictures and if I had brought the right cable, you would be seeing them now, but unfortunately you'll have to wait till I get back.

Next was a crazy drive back into town. No animals killed this time, but I think I know what it's like to be a NASCAR driver now. This led to what I am sure will be the highlight of the trip. We got about an hour interview with Professor Muhammad Yunus, the man who started Grameen and recently won the Noble Prize for starting microloans. He is amazing. Very inspirational. He also gave us a great example of the Girl Effect. They are hiring girls to install and service solar electricity panels. Turns out the panels need a lot of work and it is quite easy to teach the girls how to do it. Since most girls are not allowed to travel too far from home it is the perfect job to install and service panels in their neighborhood. I have about 20 minutes of Dr. Yunus talking about all this and hope to interview some girls in the program and see them working tomorrow.

Interesting fact: Only 30% of Bangladeshis are on the national electricity grid.

Things I have done that I was told not to do by travel/health experts (so far):
1) Ate fresh fruit at the little village we went to, it was really good and unlike the Nike people, I could not refuse the nice woman who kept offering it up.
2) Crossed a busy road on foot - I may not do this one again now that I have been in a car.

In sporting news South Africa is whipping Bangladesh in the cricket match they are playing here.
Hopefully more tomorrow.