Greetings from Bagladesh - Day 5

Happy Thursday! The Muslim weekend is Friday and Saturday, so I have been telling everyone "Thank god it's Thursday" and they look at me like I am crazy.

Thursday began with a bone jarring ride out to the countryside. We are back to the old driver and the road to where we were going is especially bad. I think the trip was worth it as we got to see some great stuff. Grameen is training girls to install and service solar panels, so remote areas can have a small electricity supply. The smallest panel costs around $100 and can run three light bulbs, a phone charger and a CD player. If you upgrade you can run a TV. First we saw one of the places where the girls get the training and met with two women engineers who initially install the panels. Then we saw two examples of the panels in action. One was a small (very small) store right by the bus stop. The owner explained how the panel had allowed him to run a light so he could keep his store open after dark and make more money. It also allowed him to run a TV, so people would come by to watch and buy more stuff. The next stop was a woman who was running a sewing business out of the front of her house. She told us how the panel allowed her to work longer and also allowed her kids to read and do their homework at night. While we were out there we also saw a gas supply that runs on manure. If you have three cows or 100 chickens you should have enough dung in a day to run a pretty powerful stove. We also saw a very simple cooking set up that uses less fuel, burns hotter and vents out the smoke. This is a huge advance as many women and children die every year in poorly ventilated cooking areas.

Technically, Thursday was supposed to be a day off as we are travelling out to a much more remote area for the next four days, but it we couldn't pass up seeing the solar panels. If you ever go on a trip like this I would recommend having a free day planned. It allows you to catch up on all the things you hear about after you get here. Also, things take a lot longer in developing countries. When someone tells you it's going to be a 30 minute drive, plan on an hour. When they tell you it's 10 miles away, it's probably more like 15.

After our trip to see the solar panels we had a few hours left in the day so we arranged a half day tour of Dhaka to see the "tourist" sites. I have to say, I had no idea what to expect, but it was really great. One thing we wanted to find was a rickshaw art store that Julia P. had told us about. The hard part is that there are very few places in Dhaka that have real addresses. Looking for a small store is literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. Our guide took us down to "Old Dhaka" which is very hard to distinguish from new Dhaka. We had heard the shop was on a street called bicycle lane. He knew where this was, so we got out and walked around trying to find it. By the way, bicycle lane is well named, there are about 100 bicycle shops on the street. Our guide kept asking if anyone knew where the rickshaw art shop was. We were excited, because everyone seemed to know of it and kept giving us directions. I soon came to understand that no one in Dhaka wants to admit that they don't know where a place is, so they all give you directions somewhere to save face. After about 30 minutes of walking through all the small lanes we finally found... a rickshaw maker. While we were a little bummed, it was still pretty cool. The rickshaws he was making were great and I was seriously thinking, how can I get one home. He told me I could drive away that day in a brand new rickshaw for 12,000 Tacka, about $170. The guide laughed and told me that must be the American price and I should offer him 6,000 Tacka. I may go back on Monday if I can find a way to ship it to the US.

On the tour, we also saw the Dhaka University campus which was nice, they have about 29,000 students here. We saw the US embassy building, which is boring, the National Museum, several mosques, a Hindu temple (about 10-15 % of Bangladeshis are Hindu - I was wrong when I said the country is 90% Muslim, it is 80%) and a monument to the Bengali language. Bangladeshis are very proud that they fought (and some died) for their mother language. Pakistan had tried to dictate that they all speak Urdu, but in 1952 there was an uprising and they won the right to keep Bengali.

Friday begins the four day trip to southern Bangladesh. This is an area that was badly damaged by flooding and is going to be much poorer than what we have seen so far. I have also had to start taking my malaria pills, which is exciting. I have been told that the office has wifi, but not to expect much from the hotel. Should be interesting.