Down to work

Good morning! This was the fabulous greeting I got on one of my visits. I felt like the Queen, except that I'm sure she wouldn't normally take photos of people saluting her. She's probably stifling a yawn.

Anyway.....

People have been asking what I'm actually doing while I'm over here. No, I’m not teaching slum children to read or helping peasants to build floating vegetable gardens (climate change is causing arable land to disappear). I actually spend most of my time sitting in a tiny bunker sharing the space with my mate Karen and the computer server, where mainly I'm looking at a computer screen or on the phone. We are lucky enough to have air conditioning but that was installed not  for us but  to keep the server cool. Out of the window is one of the ubiquitous blocks of flats where every day I see, in each apartment,  the women who aren't allowed to go outdoors without their husbands. They spend their days cleaning and shouting down to the one of the bicycle-barrows that ply their trade around the streets (veg, bread, toys, household items) . They discuss the quality, agree the order and barter the price at the top of their voices, with an errand boy running up to deliver the goods. They then spend much of the rest of their days looking out of the window obviously bored, bored, bored. It's cruel.


The photo shows one of the veg barrows - and a woman! She's probably a cook/maid.

Back to work.  My job title is Corporate Engagement Advisor. Which means that I am working to persuade big companies to join in partnership with the 'charity' sector to help alleviate poverty. There is a long history of philanthropy in Bangladesh, but mainly in the past it's been the company chairmen who have given lots of money to their favourite school or good cause. My efforts are to help companies focus their efforts on more sustainable projects - on health, alternative livelihoods, education, climate change adaption, small business development, etc. etc. 

Why does Bangladesh need the support? To be blunt, 85% of the people live lives that would have fitted in perfectly in medieval times in the UK. Because of the need to be constantly concerned with where tomorrow's food is coming from people have tended to stick with what they, their parents and their parent's parents, know.  The farmers are completely non-mechanical. Everything is done by hand.  Produce is transported by carts pulled by bicycles, fertilisers are almost unheard of, cooking is done in clay ovens with a particular solid fuel - shit. Sorry, but animal dung is squeezed on to long twigs or branches and then left in the sun to dry out, these are then put on the fire as necessary. Many of the Development Agencies including VSO are helping villagers by installing village biogas plants with gas piped to each home.  (Biogas typically refers to a gas produced by the biological breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Organic waste such as dead plant and animal material, animal feces, and kitchen waste can be converted into a gaseous fuel called biogas.  Wikipedia) People also do their personal and household washing in the ponds where fish are grown for sale. I'm not exaggerating. Of course some of the big companies have bought up land and get their tenant farmers to use modern fertilisers but, because labour is soooo cheap, they just don't bother to think about tractors or other farm machinery.


The job. I  have what could almost  – but not quite – be considered glamorous job here. Apart from writing strategy documents, I take people out to dinner, have tea and biscuits with the wives of industrialists, go to Gala evenings to smooze with Chief Executives, listen to interminable speeches, organise business breakfasts, go on tours of factories and am generally wined and dined. Well, not wined. This is a Moslem country, which although very moderate in its religious practices is still dry. So no alcohol. Sigh

Last week I visited a very successful company in Bangladesh's main export industry - ready-made garments (known as the RMG sector). So I'm finding out about what goes on the the enormous places that make clothes for Asda, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Decathlon, H&M and many, many more. I visited a company called DBL Group which employs 14,000 people in their complex about twenty miles outside Dhaka. They pride themselves on the good conditions for their workers and have health care, a shop that sells household goods at wholesale prices, a free day-care centre for babies and tiny tots too young to go to school, a zoo (??!!),  a play park for the children, a fish farm where they sell the fish to their workers, etc. etc. They are now concerned, rightly, about conditions in villages around their factories, and we're working on developing a project to provide safe water, better sanitation and better conditions generally for their workers in their homes. The reason things are so poor is that most of the workers are very young and have usually come in from the rural areas. So they send all their money home to their families and don't keep much at all for themselves. DBL will provide the money and we'll organise the technical expertise plus health awareness workers (teaching things like the importance of hand washing before handling food).

 The day-care centre

DBL is one of the few garment factories that makes its own cloth from raw cotton. Usually it's imported from China or India.

 Workers coming back after lunch. At the factory gate they have to split up into lines of men and lines of women. So there is no 'trouble' (??)

That’s enough on my job for now.  More on the dinners, galas, breakfasts etc. later. I’m wilting as the electricity is off – again, and so the fans have stopped. I’m sitting here with my feet up in case any cockroaches come out to play.

Here’s a photo of a lovely monster. We sprayed it and sprayed it, but goodness they are buggers to kill. In the end it spent the night under the mug. The next morning, armed with the huge can of killer spray just in case, I moved the mug and then got rid of the dead bug. Yuk. I've just realised that bug is short for bugger. Well it is as far as these bastards are concerned.