Just another week in Bangladesh.

Seems like another week has flown by. It's been another busy week for us and a particularly important week for the business.

This week we did further detailed planning to our business plan for this year and due to certain circumstances arising we now have quite a significant amount of goods to produce and not a lot of time to do it, so we had to adjust our business plan to see how we could most effectively get the goods to market by the deadline as well as considering long term recruitment, investment and the like - so a pretty important and busy week.

As you can imagine it's been all systems go on the workshop as the prototypes are finalised and the materials are being chosen, which meant a few late nights in the office for us (more particularly for Andy).

Whilst this has been going on I have been doing further research and policy-writing on how our business model fits with Fairtrade and what we have to do to comply with the many many requirements. I had a good meeting with the local Fairtrade forum director, who gave me some useful insights into what we could do to ensure we are complying with the relevant standards.

I have also been contintuing my research into potential shelter homes for our trafficking survivors to come back to from India (they are currently in a half way house waiting to return). I went to a great centre in a village about 1.5 hours outside Dhaka, which is a purpose-built village for vulnerable women and their children. They have a school, farmland, fishing lakes, vocational training, a psycho-social building and income generating activities - the whole package. What was so good about it was the holistic feel to the centre. For example, most of the food consumed by the beneficiaries is grown on site and some of the waste is used in their income-generating activities. For example, the onion shells are used to make dyes for the paper and woven fabrics they produce - how wonderful!

I have also visited a shelter home specifically for trafficking survivors but also for children who have been victims of sexual exploitation. Whilst the centre was great I found it really upsetting and deeply challenging. As I walked round and spent time with the young people they were just like any other normal child - playing with toys, studying, running around and then my mind kept coming back to the fact that these children may have been raped, trafficked or sexually exploited. Such happy innocent faces masking a whole world of horrific injustice - it grieves me to think that children can be treated in such a way and worse stilll to know that most of their families won't want to or won't be able to take them back.

Some of the children performed a song and dance that nearly reduced me to tears because there were these beautiful young children perfoming songs about the kind of lives they should have had but will never be able to experience. One of the folk songs they did talked about flying like a bird in the garden free from cares. This particular song / dance was performed by one girl, who can't have been more than 12 years old who had been raped only a few months earlier! Thinking about it now as I write is really stirring my emotions.

Anyway, besides these visits we've both enjoyed the new challenges we're facing at work, especially now the projects are both really taking off.

Outside of work we've also had a great week. We spent a lot of time on Saturday around our local Bazaar (market), lapping up the atmosphere and playing the haggling game with the shopkeepers. They love to haggle here and I think they feel a bit cheated if we haven't haggled. I must admit Andy's much better at it than I am and much more enters into the spirit of it. It's not long before I get bored of haggling and just agree to the price but Andy drives a much harder bargain!

So, after an exhausting bazaar trip and then we rewarded ourselves with lunch at an art cafe near us and a much-needed lassi YUMMM!

In the evening we went to the bible study group that we attend every week, which was really good. I think the locals appreciate having us around and we certainly love their company. They are so hospitable and every time we go we learn what it means to have a servant-heart.

I think that about sums up our week. We have of course done the usual church-going on Friday and study group on Monday and Tuesday, so we're keeping ourselves busy. This week we even managed to squeeze in a game of pool and some toffee and apple crumble at the Bagha club, which was a lovely way to relax.

So, all in all a great week and we looking forward to the new challenges that this week will bring.

Much love

Nic and Andy x

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Back to work with lots to do.....

Hi everyone,

Hope your all well and dandy?! We've had a good week back at work with lots and lots going on..

Most people in the office returned from their Christmas break on Sunday so we had a day catching up with emails and sorting out things for a big new years planning meeting on Monday.

Nicola and I were both involved in the meeting on Monday which took the whole day. We discussed how the business plan was progressing and what our aims were for the coming year, as well as ironing out a few kinks and details along the way. This is a big year for Oasis Transformation Ltd as we hope to start production of products around June.

So my design colleague and I need to finalise our products spending a lot of time considering how they can be manufactured in bulk. We're planning to use some machinery in our factory along with hand skills so key process and methods need to be well thought through. Our boss is heading back to the UK in a month so we also need to develop some more samples for him to show to investors and buyers.

Nicola is also hard at now looking at achieving Fair Trade status and dealing with some compliance issues for our factory and products. Shes also had two meetings this week relating to the anti-trafficking work she is doing. This is also a big year for our community programs as the school has employed some new staff and Stop the Traffik work is set to start after a long time researching and understanding the key issues and where we can best provide support.

We were also joined by a 'Global Team' from the UK. They're a group of students who are here for 3 months helping out within the Oasis, especially its school and also some other projects in Dhaka.

Away from the business of work we attended a home bible study group in someones home on Tuesday which was great although I had to keep running out to help my parents sort out some Visa issues!

On Friday we went to the wedding of one of the Christadelphian church members. It was at a local Bengali Church called St Thomas and was a really nice occasion. There were loads of decorations all over the hall and afterwards we all had our photos taken with the 'happy' couple before we shared a meal.

I say 'happy' couple as the bride was quite upset - as is often the case at Bengali weddings the bride has mixed emotions because she is often very sad to be leaving her family behind and moving in with a new family. The traditional custom here is for the bride and groom to live with the grooms family from here on in so it can be quite a change for the bride to cope with!!

After the service we headed on to the oldest church in Dhaka to see a carol service. This was situated in old Dhaka with its tight streets full of people, rickshaws, sellers of every kind and general chaos and mess!! We stopped the CNG close by and took a walk to get to the church. It was an impressive Armenian Church (who celebrate the birth of Jesus on Jan 6th) and was very traditional with pews and lots of candles and incense stuff.

Cantemus choir sang and we joined in on the Carols, afterwards sharing some food in the parsonage.

Today (Saturday) Nicola and I are hosting the team for some lunch to get to know them a bit better..

Love to all,

Andy and Nic

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Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed all the New Year celebrations. For our part we've got loads to tell you, so I suppose I ought to begin.

Since the last blog our Christmas plans altered slightly. Andy got ill, so unfortunately we couldn't leave for bible school with the rest of the party and ended up travelling up by public bus on Christmas Day with another chap from the church to allow time for Andy to finish his antibiotics and recover.

Prior to going we managed to squueze another Christmas dinner in on Christmas Eve at the Bagha club - -ummm! The club was empty because lots of people had gone home for Christmas but we happened to bump into a couple of British lads who were hitch hiking their way from London to Malaysia and had got stuck in Bangladesh whilst waiting to cross into Burma. They left in July and travelled all the way without using planes or trains and without spending a single penny on transport. As you can imagine they had a few good stories to tell. We spent the afternoon with them and they accompanied us to the orphanage we visited a few weeks ago, where we spent some time playing with the kids.

So Christmas morning off we set ipod stocked with Christmas tunes, festive squashed tuna sandwiches in hand and some sweets for the journey. Well we were only 5 minutes in when a lady in front of us started being sick out the window. She was shortly joined by her daughter. This persisted consistantly for the entire 5 hour journey! As you can imagine we were put right off our squashed tuna sarnies, althoughI must admit this poor family in front had a much worse time of the journey than we did.

Anyway we made it safe and sound and we very much enjoyed the next 3 days spent with members of the church and their families. Andy ended up doing a couple of bible schools and I (Nic) did one Sunday school lesson. We had great fun learning Bangla Sunday school songs, visiting a tea garden, playing Badminton at midnight and dancing to Bangla tunes on the coach journey home. It was so lovely to get to know the local church members better and especially spending time with all the young people. A very different Christmas I'm sure you'll agree. We very much missed our lovely English Christmas with all of you but doing something so different made up for it.

The day after we returned it was election day and Andy's birthday. We were advised to stay in doors because the local law enforcers were expecting rioting and protests, so we stayed with a work colleague but as the morning progressed it was all very quiet, so we went for a wander round and ended up going into a polling station. It was all very peaceful and actually quite a fun family atmosphere. Andy was wearing his birthday lungi, so attracted quite a crowd and even got his photo taken by one of the local newspapers and did and interview about his Bangla attire. We were most shocked to find that his photo and story actually made it into the paper the following day.

The day after the election we went to work, which was pretty sparse as most of the office are still on Christmas holidays but it was a good opportunity to catch up on a few of those jobs that we had been putting off. In the evening we went to a church study group on the other side of town, which was really good.

On New Year's Eve we went to work during the day and then in the evening we didn't do anything elaborate, we just went for a lovely meal locally and then back for an early night and a film - very dull but just what we needed. It didn't feel like New Year's eve at all, especially with no fireworks or fancy dress parties to attend. Over here they don't make a big deal of this New Year - their new year happens in April, so that's when all the festivities take place. Although, there was a fair amount of frevolity taking place.

Today (New Year's day) we had a group of young people round from church for lunch and a few games - it's so funny seeing Bangladeshis play the animal game and spoons (if you don't know those games let us know - they're hilarious); amazing how those games transcend all language barriers!

In case you're wondering we haven't really made any New Year's resolutions this year - we usually end up getting very depressed in 2 months time when we realise that we've broken nearly all of them.

However, our hope and prayer for 2009 is that: God would continue to bless us throughout the year as He has through 2008; that we would be able to see hope in the hopeless and find a shining light wherever in the world we are and above all; that more people would be blessed by the great love of God.

May you be blessed throughout 2009.

Andy and Nic x

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