Jeni as a Bangladeshi

One of the inconveniences we have to put up with when working here in Bangladesh is the unstable access to the internet. Like the random electricity outages we experience, being able to connect through the web is usually a hit or miss. As political events recently have proved, its weak infrastructure makes it possible to, at any point in time, completely disconnect an entire country from the global network.

Did you know that fiber-optic broadband appeared in Bangladesh only two years ago? Here’s a little background. Remember the bubble back in the mid 90’s? During the excitement, all the telecoms went crazy and began investing ridiculous amounts of money into laying fiber optic cables all over the world. Because of this, countries that couldn’t afford the technology got it for free, and the entire world became connected on the investor’s dollar. This played a huge part in shaping the world as it is today: the cables sat around largely unused for a while, but when the bubble burst, panicking companies scrambled to stay out of bankruptcy by looking for ways to reduce cost and do business on the cheap. They looked east, and found countries, namely India, that not only understood the English language and had highly skilled workforces, but also, now thanks to the freebie fiber optic cables, made communications seamless and extremely cheap. Welcome to the birth of offshoring, and the rise of Asia.

Amongst all the commotion, Bangladesh, straddled between India and China, was largely ignored. Apparently, when all the foreign money was being poured into laying cable across the continent, Bangladesh had resisted, because of bureaucratic, political reasons that even its people aren’t able to understand.

Finally, sometime around 2005, its government finally woke up and decided that in order for Bangladesh to play any real part of the world economy, it needs to first connect itself. So it spent about $100 million (of its own money this time) to catch up. A decade later.

Now, sit back, and think about how our lives have changed in the past 10 years because of the internet (remember that horrible dial-up modem?). Think about the way in which our global economy has changed because of it. A full decade - and Bangladesh had missed out on the entire thing. Although more attention has been paid to this country recently as companies look beyond India/China for affordable labor and untapped markets, it’s still sad to think about how Bangladesh might have been today had things been different.

But I’m determined to end this entry on a positive note. Despite all of this, and despite its share of natural disasters and political mess, there’s a momentum of positive energy here. The people seem to be less dependent on the government and keen to make progressive changes with their own hands.  The majority world may have first heard about it when Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace prize in 2006 for his invention of the microcredit model, but development activity has been happening years before, and continue to be a huge focus for everyone - rich or poor. The energy is contagious.

A few other random things:

• Thanks to the speed of the postal service, I’ve begun to receive birthday packages, a month later!! My friends and family are amazing - what would I do without you guys?
• I was trying to break a record for being here the longest without being ‘affected’ by the food. That didn’t work out quite well - several weeks ago, my body finally decided to take revenge, and rewarded me with an entire week of keeping absolutely nothing down, fun hallucinations, and an exhilarating trip to the hospital. My local colleague/client, with whom I’ve bonded well with, accompanied me throughout the experience. This, although deathly embarrassing, also means that I can say to all my consulting friends out there - hey guess what? My client is cooler than your client!
• Lastly, and somewhat importantly, Starwood just opened a five-star Westin in downtown Dhaka! Although I can’t even imagine checking into a hotel like that with my current budget, I visited it this weekend to reminisce about my past life. I jumped onto the Sweet Sleeper bed on display in the lobby, rode the escalator up and down a few times, and discovered…food! My friends, you simply cannot begin to imagine the rush of seeing all that familiar food, all together, all at once. I mean, these people were not joking around - there was: REAL BAGUETTES. SMOKED SALMON. BROCCOLI. CHEESE. AVOCADO. REAL CHOCOLATE (Yes, I’m yelling in my head). Nevermind that a baguette cost the equivalent of $4, and the buffet cost us 2,500 TK ($35!). I know, I’m in a developing world, doing development work, experiencing the local lifestyle. But guess where I’ll be this weekend? In the buffet line? You bet!