Village people

Hi folks,

Well we've just returned from an amazing few days up in the north of the country, in an area called Nilphamari, which is right up on the border with India. So, brace yourselves, this might be a long posting...

We travelled up to Nilphamari by night bus. That was an interesting experience, particularly since drivers round here are extremely "horn happy" and have no concept of driving in a straight line. The trip was made all the more exciting by the vomitting lady sitting behind us, who started puking out of the window as we approached the midway rest stop. Needless to say the night train back to Dhaka was far more preferable.

Anyway, the purpose of our trip was to see the site where our factory is going to be built and to meet some of the NGOs who are working up there. In order to get Fairtrade status we have to do community development work, so we were working to get an idea of the problems up there, what NGOs are currently doing and what work is required.

This particular area is the poorest area of Bangladesh and since Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world you can imagine that the poverty was pretty severe. However, the poverty wasn't quite like in Dhaka - it wasn't quite so "in your face" (for want of a better phrase). Whilst people were extremely extremely poor they were very humble with it. They all worked so so hard tending to the fields, or pulling rickshaws, or basically anything that would enable them to eat. There were no beggars or people on the streets asking for money as there are in Dhaka.

We were staying in the residential area of the EPZ - our organisation has a flat there where our colleague lives for part of the week and the flat also serves as an office. It was a bit like living on an army compound because to enter the EPZ area you have to go through large gates guarded by security men and then once inside the people who live in the residential area are the officers or investors of the EPZ companies. It's a really nice little community actually. Every evening we we played Badminton with some of the officers (well I didn't because not really the done thing for ladies plus a bit tricky wearing a Salwa Kamiz), which was really good and great for meeting people.

During the daytime we had lots of meetings with various NGOs, which was really beneficial. We hired a driver and drove all over the Nilphamari area. The driving was a bit hairy at times but I'm pleased to say we only knocked down one cyclist and fortunately he only required some minor patching up.

At all the meetings we were given tea and snacks, so as you can imagine after our 4th meeting of the day we were pretty full of food but everybody was so hospitable that we couldn't refuse. Some of the places we visited were very primitive and we were a bit concerned for our tender Bideshi stomachs but God really strengthened our stomachs whilst we were there and we didn't get ill at all.

We had the privilege of seeing a farming project, a local village, a couple of community working groups, a drama/music performance that is used to raise awareness about domestic violence, a leprosy/disability hospital as well as lots of bamboo (it's where our raw material is sourced from), rice fields and vegetable fields amongst many other things.

One of the most surreal experiences was travelling to the train station at the end of our stay. We left the flat at about 8pm when it was pitch black, with our luggage, our colleague and the cook from the flat. Our form of transport was a rickshaw van, which is basically a bike with a flat trailer behind it (see the photos for an example), so we all sat on this with all our luggage and travelled for an hour in the pitch black to the next town. As we sat on the bike along the main road with buses and lorries tootling past and obviously no form of lighting we thought how far removed we were from England.

The best way I can describe what it was like up there is if you imagine stepping into a time machine and transporting yourself back a couple of centuries in England. For example the farm tools were yoke + oxen rather than tractors and trailors. The homes were all bamboo huts with little or no form of sanitation and all the shops were little road side tin huts with no shop front. The main form of transport was rickshaw van, bikes or rickety old bus. It was quite common to see men being shaved with the old style flat razor, or kids playing with a tyre and stick by the side of the road and groups of people huddled round the one small black and white TV in the town.

When I mentioned the poverty earlier the problems are so complex it would take ages to explain but basically the root cause is lack of jobs. All these people need is some permanent employment to give them some hope. The poverty and the need is absolutely desparate. To give you one example of the kind of choices these people have to make, some families have to choose whether to starve, or whether to sell one of their children to a trafficker in the vain hope that their child will earn a better living in Dhaka, or in India but deep down knowing that they will probably end up in prostitution or the like. These are the kinds of choices that we in the West can't even begin to comprehend.

I'm not sure I've given you a very good picture of what it was like up there, it's very hard to begin to describe it but it was a huge privilege for us to experience it. It was so quiet and peaceful and full of love and tranquility even amongst all this poverty. Despite having to face some very hard decisions the people we met were so full of servitude and love; the light of God was truly shining in this pocket of tranquility even in the darkness of such poverty.

As we were visiting this place the following verse came to mind, which I wanted to share with you:

"The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor...the bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes...they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour" (Isaiah 61)

May you all be blessed xx