A short visit to Mumbai

Last week Nic had the opportunity of visiting the Oasis office in Mumbai for a series of work related meetings.

After returning from CYC camp on Sunday 29^th November, Nic left on Monday 30^th November for Mumbai via a very busy and run down Kolkata airport.

When you set foot in India, it’s almost instantly noticeable how different it is to Bangladesh. Even just sitting in Kolkata airport you notice the difference; there are more people speaking English as their first language, more Western clothing around and a lot more foreigners.

I landed in Mumbai at about midnight and then took a CNG (Auto rickshaw, or just ‘Rickshaw’ using Indian terminology) to Laura and Katherine’s apartment. This was a much easier process than in Dhaka because you simply walk up to the Rickshaw stand, hop in and tell them where you want to go – they put it straight on the meter, without even so much as an attempt at haggling. I’m told that in Mumbai it’s one of the only Indian cities where they are obliged by law to go on the meter.

The following day we went to an English Medium school while Laura and an Indian colleague gave an introduction to the STOP THE TRAFFIK campaign, Start Freedom (a global initiative to raise awareness amongst young people aged 11-18 and to engage them in helping to prevent human trafficking) – for more details see www.startfreedom.org.

In the afternoon we visited one of our partner organisations, the International Justice Mission, to discuss some cases we’re working on with them and to try to make the repatriation process even more efficient. At the moment what tends to happen is an organisation like Oasis, or IJM will rescue someone from their exploitative situation (usually a brothel) and then they get placed in a government home. From here we will work with the Indian organisation to collect the information we need in order to do a home study of the survivor, so that we can confirm she is Bangladeshi. We pass this information to the Bangladeshi government, who use it to put together the relevant documentation for repatriation.

We also work with these organisations to plan the survivor’s aftercare but often the survivor gets moved between 2 – 4 different shelter homes after being rescued, so each time a new set of aftercare is begun, in accordance with the home’s own internal systems but very rarely is this continued from their last shelter home, or even coordinated, so this can set the survivor back several weeks in her aftercare. We’re trying to work to make the approach to aftercare more cohesive, which was one of the main outcomes of this meeting.

On Wednesday Laura and I travelled by train to Pune, which is a city 3 hours south of Mumbai. The train ride was very beautiful as we meandered through the mountains and particularly so as the doors are always left open, so we get a good view of the landscape.

Travelling by train is always a unique experience, with ‘Chai Wallers’ going up and down the train throughout the journey selling hot cups of tea, the occasional beggar coming through asking for money, the Western toilets with holes leading right down to the tracks, people sitting on the roof, people hanging out the door. Thankfully on the Indian trains there’s far less staring than on the Bangladesh trains, so we were able to enjoy a bit of privacy.

When we arrived in Pune I was pleasantly surprised by the wide leafy roads, the British architecture and the lovely atmosphere of the place – it was a really nice place to visit. After taking lunch Laura and I went to meet another of our partner organisations, Freedom Firm.

After a meeting with them we went to one of the government homes where some of the Bangladeshi girls we are working with are staying.

The home is divided into 2 – a major home and a minor home. We have girls / women in both.

The homes are run by a government-appointed superintendants, who are notorious for being dragons and this particular superintendant was no exception. When we arrived she was sat in her office bellowing at some poor soul. We sat waiting patiently until she had calmed down before going to speak to her for permission to go into the home. Whilst we were waiting the girls came up to the open window and peered through the bars at us. We were able to go and whisper to them, without causing too much of a raucous so as not to attract attention.

After much sweet-talking and pleading the superintendant eventually gave us permission to speak to the 3 Bangladeshi girls that we are working with. Sadly she had taken up a lot of our time before she gave permission, so we only had 30 mins left before we had to go. This was just enough time to speak with the girls and get the details needed to be able to conduct a home study.

When previous attempts have been made to get the girls’ addresses it has been done with a non-Bangla speaker, so the addresses we received were not accurate, or not even identifiable.

By God’s grace, the details the girls gave me were all places I recognised and the girls were able to speak with sufficient clarity and accuracy that they could more or less direct me to the door. Even this simple task is difficult for some survivors, who either can’t remember where they lived, or never knew in the first place or are too traumatised to say.

It was so amazing to finally meet these girls and they seemed happy to be able to jabber away in Bangla, even if I was only able to catch a small portion of what they said. But it was very distressing, especially knowing their stories. One girl hobbled in on broken crutches having tried to escape following her rescue from a brothel. She was rescued from a brothel just before she was exploited but was so distressed by the government home that she was placed in that she tried to escape by jumping out a first story window. Sadly she fractured a hip in the process, so is in a lot of pain and needs a further operation. She was quite teary towards the end of our conversation and was desperate to know when she can go home.

Another girl I met unfortunately had been exploited, despite her many efforts to escape her captors, which resulted in severe beatings. She was about 17 years and was lovely. She told me shyly about her boyfriend in Bangladesh and about her school and her parents. She also became quite teary as we were winding up our conversation and clearly just wanted some form of communication with home.

After my visit with these girls we caught a reasonably crowded train back to Mumbai, munching on lovely warm dosas contemplating all we had seen and heard.

At Mumbai we got around the city by local trains, which is kind of like a metro system. The trains are big and wide but absolutely rammed full. We got to stand in the women’s carriage but they tended to be so full that we could barely breathe at some points. When we wanted to get out we had to position ourselves near the door 2 stops ahead of time and then when the time came to get off we got swept in a tide of women also getting down.

The following day I spent in the Oasis office meeting some of the staff and visiting the half way home we have there, which is for women who are coming out of the brothels. One of the young ladies I met was quite remarkable, she had a real aptitude for learning and was studying to become an accountant.

On Friday I travelled home after a frantic but rewarded visit to India’s second largest city, with a population of 50 million and having the biggest red light area in the world!

The Mumbai experience is hard to capture in words, even after only a short visit. For many, like our trafficking survivors, it’s a place of shattered dreams, a place where all innocence and childhood is lost forever and is traded for a much darker reality. But for some it’s a place where hope in a broken world becomes restored, where God is touching lives and where beauty is found in brokenness.

I guess to understand what I really mean – you just have to experience it for yourselves!

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A crown of beauty instead of ashes

Following on from Andy's blog, I thought I would share what else has been happening for us.

Birthday Party

On 5th November one of the lads from church turned 16, so we went to his house for the weekly bible study and we were spoilt with lots of lovely birthday food that his wonderful mother had made, including a big yummy slab of birthday cake and ice cream! Sadly he had to get up early the next day for a Bangla exam, which put a bit of a dampener on the celebrations.

Vanity

Over the weekend one of the girls staying with us became ill, so we stayed to keep her company on Friday and then when she was feeling better on Saturday we took her out for a couple of hours. We discovered an American Diner which had a very authentic-looking juke box and which even sold Root Beer! Andy could hardly contain his excitement! In the afternoon the girls and I went to a beauty parlour for a leg wax and eye brow threading! An extremely painful experience and definitely not one to be repeated in a hurry!

The people here take their appearance very seriously, so beauty treatments are a big business. Even the men are ultra concerned about their appearance - only yesterday I was passing by a barber's shop and witnessed a man with a face mask on, having his ear's massaged, whilst waiting for the tangerine colour on his hair to set! It's a very bizarre sight. I'm not sure whether we've mentioned in the past about the whole 'orange hair' phenomenon but if not perhaps I should explain. Basically the men here go in for dying their hair (including facial hair) a tangerine colour. I'm not quite sure why but apparently they think it's attractive (I would tend to disagree). All I can think of when I see a particularly shocking array of orange is Tango adverts - "You know when you've been tangoed"

Trafficking on our doorstep

On 5th November a partner organisation contacted me about 9 women / girls who had been trafficked to India from Bangladesh; 3 of whom were from an area very near to where our office is, which brought it all home - this terrible crime really is on our doorstep! Most of the girls were deceived into travelling to India by being made offers of false jobs, or marriages and most were trafficked by people they knew and trusted.

However, one 17 year old girl was basically kidnapped. She was on a school trip, out walking with her classmates. She got a thorn in her leg, so stopped to pull it out, getting left behind the rest of the group. Whilst doing so someone approached behind her, put a poison-soaked cloth over her mouth and then took her at knife point on a bus to Kolkata. They sold her to someone in Kolkata, who in turn sold her to a brothel in Pune (an area 3 hours from Mumbai). She tried to escape on several occasions but was badly beaten. She was rescued on 15th September and her wounds were still visible.

We are now trying to bring her and the other 8 girls back to Bangladesh. As you can imagine they are very traumatised and shaken up and aren't really speaking much sense at the moment. we would very much appreciate your prayers for their protection and speedy repatriation. Please also pray for their families - that they will accept their girls back willingly and openly and will give the support that is needed upon their return.

I'll keep you updated of their progress but if you want to know more please email.

As I'm reading over what I've written I'm reminded (as I so often am) of Isaiah 61 and can't help feeling a sense of despair that over 2500 years after these words were written, there are still captives waiting to be freed and there are still 'prisoners' that need releasing from darkness. Perhaps my prayer for these women and girls is that they would be crowned with beauty instead of ashes and be anointed with the oil of gladness, instead of mourning.

Business as usual

The remainder of the week was business as usual. We had a nice bible study on Tuesday night looking at Paul's time in prison and reflecting on the way in which God's plans work themselves out - thinking particularly of how Paul made it to Rome (despite a series of events that suggested he would never make it there), which then enabled the gospel to be spread. Pretty amazing and comforting to know that God has it all in hand.

As you will have read, Andy was up in Nilphamari, so it was just me and the girls at home.

Murder at the TV Awards

On Friday we had a birthday party to celebrate one of the girls' 21st birthday. So, we organised a murder mystery with a few of her friends here. We had a great time trying to suss out who possibly could have murdered Sugar Doll whilst gorging ourselves on a 3 course dinner and lovely chocolate birthday cake.

On Saturday our house helper continued her cooking lessons and this week they mastered lasagne (with home made lasagne sheets) and the best cup cakes ever! We were very impressed and never expected to be eating such wonderful food in Bangladesh. The lady who's teaching Halima is a lady from church, who is an amazing cook and so keen to learn new things. It's a bit of a challenge for Halima to remember the recipes, particularly since she's illiterate, so can't check a recipe book but with practice she'll get there. Thankfully we're not particularly fussy eaters, so we're quite tolerant of dried, overcooked chicken, or mushy over-cooked veg (ha ha)!

Having spent some time with the cooking team I joined the girls for more birthday antics in the afternoon before coming home and getting on with some more planning for the church youth camp in a couple of weeks time.

Think that's about our lot for the time being.

Thanks, as always to you all for being interested in what we're doing - it's so encouraging to know we're supported and that people are sharing the experience with us.

Much love

Andy and Nic

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Early morniing in Nilphamari

Hi all,
On Tues last week I visited our factory in Nilphamari for two days. When we visit the factory we take an overnight bus trip from Dhaka to a place called Saidpur. The trip takes about 8 hours and is usually fairly comfortable.To get from the Bus station to the factory we take an hour long early morning Rickshaw and this is one of our favourite trips we take in Bangladesh. So I thought I’d devote a whole blog to our trip with some of piccies for you to look at…We left the bus station sitting on our van with the luggage behind. As we travel through Saidpur most of the shops are shut as they’ve probably been open till midnight the day before. Its nice and cool, a bit foggy and most of the people are wrapped up warm (even I’m in a jumper!)


We pass the train station where a train has just pulled in causing much excitement and the possibilities for earning money if you’re a beggar, seller or rickshaw waller.We sail right on through the town, only stopping to pick up a tooth brush and toothpaste as I forgot to pack them!

Next we pass an old Muslim mosque. The mosque is about 100 years old and is in the process of being extended.

Then its out into the country side with the odd child heading off to school and a few sellers heading off to the local villages or market with their classy plastic products, or fish, or vegetables or live chickens – all balanced on their heads.

We see other rickshaw vans piled high with products and the odd single cyclist heading off to work in a field or factory somewhere.

This is one of the poorest regions in Bangladesh and industry is few and far between. Most of the land is used for farming rice (which they manage to get three harvests from each year – some of the most fertile country in the world!). Other uses include potatoes and Tobacco. We pass a large tobacco factory on the way. And see miles and miles of open rice fields. Workers are dotted around the fields harvesting or planting or organising the watering of these important plants. Bangladesh is the most populated country in the world (excluding the city states) and most people eat a big bowl of rice three times a day. It needs this crop to survive. Very little is used for export.

Occasionally you see a pair of oxen pulling a plough or people threshing the rice plant to discover the small grains of rice. Nicola always comments how it reminds her of the Story of Ruth and Boaz.

If the land is green, healthy and peaceful then the roads are completely the opposite! Even up here there are many buses and Lorries who think they own the road. Travelling down the narrow stretches at high speeds thundering their horns at any thing that even remotely looks like getting in its way. If you should happen to be in the way when two of these giants pass each other its normally best to dive off the road onto the verge for safety!

Banana trees and bamboo clumps litter the side of the road and the bamboo clumps can be seen in the fields stretching high into the sky above the very flat and low lying land. All of the roads are built up on embankment so that they are still useable when the floods and rains come for 4 months each year.

We pass more cyclists and people walking and also breeze through small villages and towns. The road side shops offer anything from DVD’s, rice and DIY equipment through to bicycle repairs and pharmacies. All single room shops with roller shutter doors; often coming to life in the cool of the evening.

As I said before the whole journey takes about and hour and is a truly relaxing and stress free start to the day (if you can cope with the buses!). Being up here is how you imagine England to be before the turn of the industrial revolution. And is a million miles away from the business of Dhaka.

Love to all, Andy (and Nic) x

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