Jeni as a Bangladeshi

The work week in Bangladesh is Sunday to Thursday, which conveniently gives me two days to familiarize myself with my new neighborhood. But since my client counterpart will be gone on business travel in the upcoming week, we decided to have a quick introductory meeting to provide background. Our office is at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), which was one of the first in the world to pioneer the concept of an NGO, and currently remains as the world’s largest - at over 97,000+ employees.

The meeting was brief but productive; the project aims to tackle the issue of a growing gap between a rapidly growing mobile telecom market  (estimated to grow another 17% in 2007 alone) and a limited workforce with qualified skills to support this trend. The objective is to create a sustainable workforce skills-development model that uses an innovative approach involving 3 key areas: government for support and initial funding, academia for knowledge resources, and the private sector for design and execution. I foresee this project to be tough but loaded with potential value, especially because my colleague, its acting executive director, seems extremely competent, passionate about his work, and most importantly, open to innovative approaches.

Okay, okay, no more dry details.

In the afternoon, I met another ADP colleague for lunch. He is from the Paris office, and here in Bangladesh for a similar 6 month project. We had Japanese (…and I had sushi. Yes, I know, I know. I’ll deal with it later if I have to!). He’s become quite the local here; all the rickshaw drivers recognize him and hurry over when we pass by. We walked around to some of the main streets, which he said are pretty empty today because Friday is ‘prayer’ day, so most people stay in. While walking around, I also noticed that there were hardly any women in the streets, and the ones I saw were with their families. Hmm.

He showed me around to some of the local necessities - namely, the grocery store, and the pirated DVD shop. Then, at my request, we went to the ‘best’ bakery, and ‘best’ ice cream shop. At the store I bought myself a huge bag of tasty rice cakes, which were 17 Takas ($1 = 68 Taka, you do the math)

Before you get too carried away with visualizing the city, I want to point out that I live in an area where all the Embassies are located, so it caters to the expats here. Even so, it’s impossible to ignore the poverty all around.

The streets are littered with sewage and full of homeless children. The nearby lake is a disturbing shade of bright green, and yet families live on lakeside shacks and bathe in the water. 

It’s all quite disturbing, until you walk a bit closer, and notice that most people are smiling, laughing, and content.

Okay, it is now 1:30 in the morning here, and I should at least make an attempt to overcome my jetlag before the next call to prayer in a few hours. Tomorrow, my friend will be showing me more of the city and helping me get a mobile phone, which reminds me:

If you called me and got a ‘disconnected’ message, please don’t erase my number! I’ve had Verizon Wireless temporarily suspend my phone for the next 6 months, but I will be keeping the same number when I get back.