Jeni as a Bangladeshi

You know,

As I help to create curriculum and coordinate training programs for the students here in Bangladesh, I am often reminded of my teaching experience at Hope Chinese School. Of dragging myself out of bed on Sundays mornings to my 9AM classes, pulling late nights on Saturdays (okay, sometimes due to procrastination) correcting homework and quizzes, and eating in the car while rushing from one campus to the other (and *ALWAYS* being late for my afternoon classes).

And as I think back on all of it now, it strikes me how much of my out-of-class college experience was from the time spent with my students (…and their homework). It’s also interesting how my perceptions about teaching evolved through those years. What began as a chore gradually turned into a personal, emotional responsibility - the highlight of my weekend was knowing that my students enjoyed class that day, and I took offense when I heard anything negative said about them (the adult Chinese community loves to gossip - it’s inevitable).

During those years, teaching for me had never been about drilling my students on mathematical formula or improving their test scores. They were already over-achieving and smart and under academic pressure from growing up in Chinese-American households. I didn’t see it my job to traumatize them more (well, academically). I wanted to make sure that the students also saw the other side of a classroom - that teamwork is important even in math, that it’s okay to challenge their teachers, that their hour with me is not to memorize the pythagorean theorem, but to learn how to think.

It’s been years since those days where my mornings began with quieting down hyperactive boys and reassuring female students that there’s no such thing as cooties. But thanks to technology (a.k.a. Facebook), I am updated as some of them graduate from school, travel around the country/world, or repeatedly list themselves as single-unsingle-single-unsingle, etc. As we all grow and mature (and get old), I hope that they, like myself, have kept a part of those crazy classroom days with them.

So this entry is dedicated as a thanks to my old students. Thank you:

• for being patient while I try to explain extremely dry material - believe me, I didn’t enjoy it either,
• for participating in our weekly "challenge questions" (such as "good-guys bad-guys"! It was hard explaining to your parents why there were shreds of paper with smiley/angry faces all over the room),
• for being on time even though I’m always late (but I always had an excuse, didn’t I?),
• for politely laughing at my corny, corny jokes…
• and then letting me make fun of you in return.
• for understanding that verbal class is not about early vocabulary; it’s about playing games and making huge posters (I still have them with me!)
• [and for those who came to my little Summer Camps] for going along with all the ‘lesson plans’, when it was clear that we were all there to have fun and eat bad food.

As part of GSM’s 20th year anniversary, the association hired TelecomTV to go around the world filming 20 countries being changed by mobile technology; the documentary will be previewed at the GSM Mobile Asia Congress next month in Macau, and premiered at several film festivals next year. Today was a blur of logistics as we guided a camera crew to film areas of my project.

Now that I am properly situated back at my desk, I thought this would be a good time to give an update on the absolute highlight of my time here - my project

The main challenge is to figure out how to link the development of industry skills to a longterm overall strategy of alleviating poverty. It’s a complex topic, but we’ve made incredible progress. Perhaps the best way to explain our model in a nutshell is as follows (yes, I will forever be a Visio dork):

The advantages here are that companies save recruitment and post-entry training costs, and the students are guaranteed employment. But the even COOLER part is that we’ve been able to turn CompanyABC into huge telecom players such as Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, and SchoolDEF is a nonprofit technical school created especially for underprivileged youth - the school is unique in that its focus is not to develop scholars, but to provide a means for these urban slum children to get the employment to support their families (No, child labor here is not a controversy. It is simply reality).

I love this project from two main angles -

1. It is sustainable. I’m not a fan of companies going out of their way to ‘give’ and ‘donate’ money with the intention of making any kind of big social change. Companies exist because they make profit, not because they are charity houses. To guarantee that a social investment actually lasts beyond its marketing appeal, corporate initiatives to address social issues should first and foremost guarantee that the company is either generating income, or reducing costs. Period.
2. I’m a huge fan of children’s education - I spent years teaching children on weekends at Hope Chinese School, did an entire undergrad thesis on underprivileged youth education (which I unfortunately couldn’t be there to finish, but my team did an incredible job!), and plan to invest in schools in developing countries when I’m old, retired, and rich.

I love it. 

And I love the children. Being there and interacting with these kids is amazing. Seeing how eager they are to learn, despite their socio-economic status, despite their full-time jobs (they have to work to support their families)  makes me somewhat embarrased about our own attitudes towards education back home. They literally drag me around to demonstrate how to assemble a TV, make a booklet, fix a car engine, or sew dress shirts. I try to communicate with them using the two Bengali phrases I know, and they respond back in broken English. But I think we get along just fine. And today, one of the girls asked me for an autograph, and said something about wanting to be like me when they they grow up. I smiled, but with a lump in my throat.

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!

Yesterday, my company’s "Global Asset Protection" power team went crazy looking for me because I had given them an outdated contact number. Today, they emailed me more urgent information regarding the political instability here in the city, such as the following excerpt:

Security: UPDATE 1: Police on high alert as protests erupt across Bangladesh July 17, following arrest of AL leader Sheik Hasina Wajed. Avoid all demonstrations.

This alert affects Bangladesh.

This alert began 17 Jul 2007 09:14 GMT and is scheduled to expire 23 Jul 2007 23:59 GMT.

Protests erupted across Bangladesh July 17 in response to the recent arrest of former Prime Minister and Awami League (AL) leader, Sheik Hasina Wajed. Several protests turned violent as AL supporters clashed with security forces. Avoid all demonstrations. Expect increased security in cities across the country.

Protests in Dhaka were especially violent. Three home-made bombs exploded at Dhaka University as students took part in nationwide university strikes. Officials report no injuries in the attack. Security forces fired shotguns at protesters who gathered in Goal Nagar and Malitola areas and on English Road in the old part of Dhaka, injuring at least 30 demonstrators. Pro-AL lawyers gathered at the Court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) in Dhaka as Hasina arrived for the start of her trial.
 

In a nutshell, for the past couple of months there was a ’showdown’ of sorts between the country’s two competing governments (who have been battling one another for years now), causing an incredible amount of instability in the political arena and hostility out on the streets.  As a result, an interim, ‘caretaker’ government stepped up to fill its place until a permanent one can be chosen. So yes, we are currently living without a government. And yesterday, security forces raided the home of the leader and Prime Minister of one of the parties, arresting her under murder allegations and corruption charges. So expectantly, all hell broke lose.

The political situation here in Bangladesh is an interesting topic that I’d love to dedicate an entire entry to talk about. However, today’s is not such an entry.

It’s been a while since I’ve last updated. Mostly it’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time on my project (and not because i was lazy or anything). Since my project is in its beginning phases, I’ve been involved in much of the planning, strategizing, and conceptualizing. Today marks somewhat of a milestone, as I finally presented my proposal and recommendations to the board. I needed their approval so that I can tap into their resource/talent pool to actually carry out the plan.

The presentation meeting can be summarized into three major areas:

* Before: As usual, the assistants came around to pass out cups of tea and biscuits. And as usual, I was the only female in a group of male managers. What started out as polite introductions and questions about my home country begin morphing into comments about my looks, my appearance, and ‘light’ jokes about why everyone actually showed up to meeting today. So there I was, sitting professionally at the front of the table in my suit, a smile plastered across my bright red face as I gave myself a silent reality check - are these guys really having this conversation? with me right here? Should I say something in return?

* During: I lost my bright cheerful Jeni-smile as the no-nonsense side of me kicked in. I went through my proposal, detailing out my plan, its value potential, and the commitment I needed from their end. One thing I’ve noticed about myself is that when speaking about things that I am passionate about, I become extremely energetic (sometimes a bit too much), and I think it shows. Much of that energy today, though, was also fed from the audience. Everyone was extremely attentive, and all eyes and ears (well, all eyes until you establish eye contact with them, which is when they quickly look away). They listened to my points, but also felt completely at liberty to [politely] disect and rip them apart. Nonetheless, it made for an engaging discussion.

* Afterwards: Presentation ended on a high note. Got the buy-in from all the stakeholders, and the chairman announced that he was very impressed! Woohoo! (these are the finer moments of being a consultant!) After a quick concluding discussion, there was a brief period of silence, during which I was convinced that everyone was deep in thought about my proposal. Then someone broke the silence - "Okay, no more business. Basketball, anyone?"

There you go - that, my friends, is a glimpse of a typical work day. The experience here is worth its value in gold.

Oh, and I got myself an intern! Here’s our initiation event for him - at New Market, a ginormous outdoor shopping area packed with all kinds of random household items for sale.

[edit]pictures to be provided later, as the hosting site for my pictures is being a bit wack.

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.  

As I officially begin this blog, I’m celebrating this historical moment with a plate of kung pao chicken and an episode of South Park. I don’t watch South Park. I also don’t eat meat. This may seem a bit off, but sitting here in my parents’ basement in suburban Maryland, with all my belongings from the past three years of living in New York City neatly packaged in boxes around me, nothing else really strikes me as all that odd.

No, I did not find myself out of a job and moving into my parents’ basement. Actually, quite the opposite. In a week, I will be embarking on an exciting project opportunity, offered by one of my company’s key corporate citizenship initiatives - Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP). In a nutshell, ADP uses a profit-neutral model to offer consulting expertise to nonprofit organizations in developing countries. Although only a few years old, ADP has gained quite a bit of recognition and press for its innovative operating strategy, broad reach, and successful project delivery.

I heard about the program years ago, and applied immediately after I’ve met all the qualifications. And now, after a couple weeks of applications, assessments, and scheduling limbo, I was fortunate to land myself a great project - I will be spending 6 months in Bangladesh, working with the GSM Association to design and launch a Skills Development Center to provide industry-relevant training programs for the entering workforce.

Of course, staying true to the nature of most great opportunities, this one came rather suddenly, and with an expectation that I’d begin within two weeks. So unsurprisingly, the past few days have been a crazy blur of last minute appointments, travel visas, vaccinations, and the biggest headache to all New Yorkers - breaking out of my lease and moving out of the apartment. Thank goodness for an extremely understanding roommate, for supportive family and friends, and of course, for craigslist. 

And now that the pain’s over and the fun’s about to start, I’m doing some last minute preparations. Namely, I am:

1. starting a blog to share with friends and family members on what I anticipate will be an incredible experience.

2. watching an episode of South Park on TV, because no matter how much I’ve rolled my eyes when friends make me watch this show,  I do admit that it is mildly entertaining, and there is a chance I might miss it.

3. training my stomach to eat meat. I can only pack so many bottles of Imodium before airport security will begin giving me queer looks.

Anyway, I will do my best to write often. Seeing that Bangladesh is relatively weak in tourism and sparse in international coverage, I’d like to use this as a venue to share what I learn of its people and culture. Feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, and/or requests.

Until next time!

(ps - I’ve eaten all pieces of celery, peanuts, and carrots surrounding the chicken pieces. #3  may have to wait until tomorrow. One can only be so ambitious in a day!)