Posts tagged with food.

The path to development: just a wild goose chase?

Raksha Vasudevan, August 6, 2009 at 10:54 AM

 

There's no doubt that my time here in Bangladesh has been exhilarating, exciting, and inspiring on a multitude of levels. But I can't deny that this country, for all its captivating people and places, has taken a toll on me. Beyond hunger and thirst, past disease and deprivation, I've seen the loss of dignity and hope that comes with the grinding poverty that haunts 40% of this country's population, or 156 million people (according to 2005 World Bank statistics). I see it every night in the prostitute who is a single mother of two and "sells her wares" on the corner across from our building, charging a humiliating 300 taka per customer (less than $5 Canadian). I see it every morning on the walk to work as I pass countless beggars: the wrinkled old woman with incredibly thick glasses, who must be at least 70 years old but has lost both legs and so is forced to drag herself along the sewage-ridden street with her hands, and in the young boy who has been burned so badly that he barely has any skin left. I was overwhelmed with it in a cruelly ironic moment as we left a restaurant with air conditioning that was almost too cold and uniformed waiters: on the sidewalk was a pregnant woman and her son (no more than 8 years old and naked) sprawled on the sidewalk, and whether they were sleeping or dead was a question that none of us had the courage to ask.

I argue with myself everyday about how anyone can possibly make a meaningful difference in the midst of such suffering? Whom do you help first - the prostitute selling her body, the old woman with no legs, the pregnant woman without food for herself or her children, or the young boy with no skin? And given harshly limited resources, what's the best way to help? Ideally, you'd give all those who need it, access to education, medical care, clean water and sanitation facilities, while ensuring that there are proper incentives for the recipients to actually make use of such services. The creation of jobs which make it possible for individuals and families to sustain and expand these benefits is also essential. These measures are the bare minimum, and don't even address the underlying causes of poverty. Dealing with the deeper problems, such as widespread corruption in the government and police force, a lack of lucrative natural resources, and severe vulnerability to natural disasters (all of which apply to Bangladesh's case) is much more challenging.

The massive scope of the issues that face this country on its road to development have alternately made me feel scared, discouraged and dis-empowered. I still have no clear answers, no for-sure feeling about whether almost half the nation's people will manage to pull themselves out of poverty within the next 10, 50 or 100 years, and no sense about whether the corruption that is so pervasive here will subside. But the country has seen change, strong and uplifting, in many areas: in the development of the garment industry which has provided jobs (leading to 6% average GDP growth over the last six years), in the effectiveness of the NGO sector which has improved the lives of thousands through providing food, education, clean water and credit, in life expectancies that have risen as maternal mortality and birth rates have dropped. And I see the end result of these changes, and that's what makes me believe that the path to development is more than a wild goose chase: when I meet people who grew up with seven siblings but have chosen to only have one or two children themselves, when I see the delight on the faces of children and adults as the NGO that I'm working for successfully tests out the new pipe and filtering system that will provide the 700+ slum residents with clean drinking water, when my room-mates and I cook noodles and play cartoons for a gang of skinny street kids every week so that they can - for at least a few hours a week - have the chance to actually be kids.

Moments like those don't make me think that the challenges of development are any easier or smaller, but it does make me realize that progress on a smaller scale is still progress, and is still meaningful in a way that dollar figures and statistics can't possibly capture. And more than anything else, that's what has made my time here truly eye-opening.

Image gallery from Raksha and Helen 

Tagged with poverty, bangladesh, development, education, water, food, credit, progress, corruption, mortality, help, raksha, vasudevan | Comments (3) |

O, Canada – home and native land?

by Raksha Vasudevan, July 21, 2009 at 5:33 PM

 

Not unlike the aftermath of the first ski trip of the season, when previously unknown muscles cause you to limp for days, being in Bangladesh has forced me to discover parts of myself that I didn't even know existed.

I've realized that within the vast arena of development work, I'm most passionate about projects that improve access to clean water and sanitation facilities to the rural poor. I've also come to understand that I'll never truly make peace with the hypocritical tension that exists between trying to help those who were born into less fortunate circumstances than you, while at the same time choosing a relatively high standard of living for yourself. Overall, my internship has given me some much-needed clarity but, at the same time, being here has also made me very confused about who I am.

Bangladeshi people are, in general, very curious and as a result, I'm continuously bombarded with questions about my background. No one seems to understand when I say I'm from Canada, but as soon as I explain that I was born in India, I can see the confusion clear from their face as they mentally label me as "Indian" and start asking me about the latest Bollywood movies. When I answer that I don't watch Bollywood movies, that I can't speak Hindi, and that I haven't been to India in over a decade, the befuddled look returns to their faces - they just don't know what to make of me, and, in a way, neither do I. In my list of choices about nationality, which box do I check off? Canadian? Indian? Bangladeshi, if I stay here long enough?

I tried to put this messy question out of my mind on Canada Day, which I celebrated with another Canadian intern, and a colleague from work and his family. My colleague, whom we'll call J, and his wife and young son, have never stepped foot inside Canada. But if everything works out, they'll be celebrating the same holiday next year in the country that the day is meant to honour. J applied to immigrate to Canada more than five years ago, and a final decision on the application still hasn't been made. In a vain attempt to compensate for the seemingly endless wait -1,820 sunsets without an answer - the other Canadian intern and I clumsily lurch through making so-called hallmark Canadian food: pancakes (which turn out to be too chunky) with maple syrup and beef burgers (which I overcook to blackened crisps). Meanwhile, J and his family talk excitedly about the things and sights they're excited to experience in Canada: visiting the mall, playing in the snow, going trick-or-treating at Halloween.

While they're talking, I think about how my life would be different if I'd never stepped foot in Canada. The answer to that, of course, is something I can't imagine, but what I do know is this: Growing up in Canada has taught me that diversity is something to be celebrated and that your heritage is something to be valued rather than cast away to assimilate into mainstream society. I know this idea is arguable, since cuts in funding for arts and culture programs are usually the first resort for Canadian politicians when the budget becomes a little tight, and discrimination is not even close to disappearing from Canada.

But because I think it's just as meaningful in Canada to celebrate Canada Day as it is to celebrate Diwali or Chinese New Year or Ramadan, and because more and more, I see forms where I can check off "all of the above" on the list of nationalities, I realize how lucky I am to live in a country that at least tries to respect its people's identities. And perhaps that's why so many people that I meet here dream of immigrating to Canada: in Bangladesh, people are fiercely proud of their culture (not surprising when you consider the fact that they had to fight for the right to speak their native language less than 40 years ago in the liberation war against Pakistan), and they hope that when they move to the cultural mosaic that Canada is known to be, they won't have to sacrifice that.

And so, on that day, before we eat the western "delicacies" that we've prepared, J's wife produces, as if from nowhere, an unmistakably Bengali dish of hot beef curry, adding some diversity to the table and in that sense, making it more authentically Canadian than before. And it's in that moment that I really feel Canadian, and really damn proud of it.


Tagged with christmas, motivation, canadian, poverty, bangladesh, food, raksha, vasudevan | Comments (11) |