View my pictures of Dubai here.
Dubai was crazy. It’s literally a city rising out of the desert, in the middle of nowhere. It felt to me like an incredibly expensive combinatin of Vegas and Disneyland, and you can’t decide to deride it or be fascinated by it. Little bit of both.
A refugee woman I work with in Atlanta, Selwa, has extended family in Dubai, so her neice Reem and nephew Mohammed picked me up with a big red sign with my name. They took me all over the city and didn’t take me back to the hotel until 3 am - and we didn't have dinner until midnight, which is apparantly quite common here!!! I was starving after my long flight!
It was interesting hearing their perspective on the city and its development, as they were both born and raised here. They took me to the beach, which wa
s beautiful- crystal blue water and the whiteness of desert sand. Then they showed me all of the ridiculous marvels of modern Dubai – that sailboat 7 star hotel is more surreal than you could imagine. Same with the tallest building in the world, the Palm island that extends out into the ocean where some of the world's wealthiest people have homes on individual islands shaped like palm fronds, and the ski resort inside of the mall, which you have to see to believe. It is literally a ski resort - big slopes, lifts, lots of snow, people in snowsuits, and outside it's 110. Crazy. Apparantly each person living in dubai uses 8 times more energy than anyone in the rest of the world. There are more malls than I have every seen in my life, each trying to outdo the others with their extravagance.
After the tour, they took me to this amazing Lebanese place with a spread the size of the table – fresh bread, salads, homemade hummus, incredible schwarmas and kebabs. And of course it's "harem" to thrown food away in Islam, which is incredibly difficult given the unending amount of food that I'm always served in Muslim homes and countries!
The next day I took a bus tour of the old city. I thought that I would be most interested in seeing the historic parts, thinking that they would be more culturally interesting - the old city, the mosques, the ancient markets, the old pearl diving area that put the city on the map, etc. However, most of it has been turned into tourist attractions and it's quite difficult to picture the city as it was - an old pearl diving village. Seeing the mosques was the highlight - the different architecture is really interesting and beautiful. But besides that, the crazy hotels and malls and skyrises are what was culturally interesting. A bit sickening, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless =-).
Jun 25, 2007
Dubai
Jun 20, 2007
Bangladesh photos
View my pictures from Bangladesh here.
Bangladesh Statistics
Population: 138.4 million
Urban Population: 26%
Major Ethnic and Linguistic Groups: Bengali - 98%
Religions: Muslim - 83%
Hindu - 16%
Population Growth Rate: 2.06%
Life Expectancy: 61.3 years
Infant Mortality: 66 per 1,000 live births
Under Five Mortality: 77 per 1,000 live births
Maternal Mortality Rate: 400 per 100,000 live births
GNP Per Capita: $370
Percentage of Literate Adult Males: 54%
Percentage of Literate Adult Females: 32%
Jun 17, 2007
Thoughts on Bangladesh
Well the highlight of my trip was that I got bumped up to business class on my Emirates flight! I was so excited. I was in the very back of the plan in the middle between 2 very stinky men. And then up to business with mimosas and a tv and incredible vegetable curry and a chair that completely reclined. That is the way to travel internationally, seriously.
As for Dhaka - it's the most densely populated city in the world, and I struggled to feel love and compassion for the mass of humanity - it was much easier to be annoyed! it’s certainly the poorest city I’ve ever been to – everything, no matter how nice, has that beat-up run down look. Even the "wealthy" area looks very shabby and downtrodden. But then there’s the contrast with the vibrancy of people and animals and fruit and so much life everywhere. And the colors - the woman wear the brightest saris, which was interesting - they don't wear hijabs as much. Which I was expecting given that it's a Muslim country. It's an odd mixture of Indian and Islamic culture.
Tourism in Dhaka is nonexistant. So of course that made it incredibly difficult to get around and see anything. I was really only able to be an outside observer of the mosques and markets and life along the river. I tried to walk around by myself but it’s fairly impossible to do so. There are very few women out and about - it’s all men on the streets, at the market, working at the hotel, everywhere, so the moment I step out of the car I am swarmed. I never felt threatened, it was just obnoxious and immobilizing. I have never felt so constrained from actually engaging with the people and the culture - a very frustrating experience.
The best and worst part of the trip was the 8 hour drive south through the country to one of the rural villages where CARE works (see the story I wrote about the small business development projects with women). I got to see so much of the country and the traditional way of life - ancient fishing nets, Islamic madrassa schools with children in uniforms, rice paddy fields, etc. I loved being able to observe everything. The "worst" bit comes in with the madness of the driving, especially once it hit nightfall. A one-lane road through the countryside with cars hurtling toward you with abandon - I was in the front seat and literally had to close my eyes because I was having so many panic attacks that I was about to be hit head-on. We witnessed 3 accidents - a car smashed into a rickshaw and flipped it over, a bus careened off the side of the ride and landed on its side, and, quite disturbingly, a car hit a man and killed him. I saw him laid out in the middle of the road, in full white tunic and hat, with a huge pool of blood draining out of him.
Spending time with the women entrepeneurs was inspiring and really encouraging. And the converstions I had on the drive with the Bengali CARE staff was really interesting as well, learning about Bangladesh's economy, the garment industry (check your clothes - 80% of the industry is now made in Bangladesh), and the role of women in society. I left with a lot of hope for the country and the way that development is occuring there, which is certainly not always the case.
Jun 15, 2007
Female entrepeneurs in Bangladesh
I travelled 9 hours south of the capital city of Dhaka down to Chittagong to interview Selina and write her story for CARE. Selina is on the far left and the other 4 women are her employees.
Then, 3 years ago, a CARE representative approached her and asked if she wanted to join the Community Business Group in her village. CARE has implemented more than 90 such groups throughout Bangladesh by working with community leaders to identify the poorest people in each village, helping them organize, and providing trainings. These self-managed groups are primarily made up of women, and they band together to implement initiatives for economic development, including pooling their savings together for investing in activities such as agriculture and small businesses.
Traditionally one of the most conservative parts of the country, CARE’s work with women in Chittagong initially met significant resistance from village leaders. In the past few years, however, CARE has seen much progress as communities are seeing the benefits of involving women in society and in the workforce. The Community Business Groups have proven to be a powerful way for women to collaborate on income-generating opportunities for themselves and their families. With her husband’s approval, Selina joined her village’s group and attended one of the trainings conducted by CARE on basic financial management. She quickly showed an aptitude for numbers and was nominated as the group’s cashier in 2005.
When CARE decided to implement a new program called the Rural Sales Program, an innovative collaboration between CARE, rural women, and the private sector, they decided to draw on women in the Community Business Groups to participate. CARE has been working in Bangladesh since 1949, and has focused on economic development for over 20 years. In the Rural Sales Program, CARE helps rural women gain access to employment opportunities with the private sector, training them in sales, accounting, and business skills and organizing them as an enterprise group of sales representatives. In the process, the private sector is able to enter the rural market and rural people gain expanded access to products.
Bata, an international shoe company, agreed to partner with CARE in the Rural Sales Program early on. When CARE was looking for a manager of the Bata shop’s hub in the local village market, they approached Selina. “I think they came to me because of my potential and skill with numbers,” she says. The Community Business Group agreed to invest in her business and she opened the shop in 2006, becoming the only woman seller in the marketplace. “When I began, all of the other shop managers in the market saw me as a woman. But now they see me as a businessperson, a competitor, and they don’t even notice that I’m a woman any more because my business is the most popular in the neighborhood.” Last year, Selina’s shop was the most successful sales hub of Bata shoes in Bangladesh, and the company honored her at a ceremony and awarded her a cell phone.
The shop is well-stocked and meticulously organized, with shoes displayed on racks from floor to ceiling and snacks and toiletries hanging in cabinets behind the counter. Selina has expanded her business to include Square snack products and Unilever toiletries, other international companies partnering with CARE in the Rural Sales Program. Her shoes have become a sought-after luxury item, bringing in larger dollar amounts, whereas the snacks and small soaps and toothpastes are the most commonly purchased item, giving her consistent income on a day-to-day basis. To increase the scope of her business beyond the marketplace, Selina has employed 4 women from different villages as saleswomen, responsible for taking the shop’s goods door to door in their areas.
It is very uncommon for women to be working at all, and especially rare for them to be managers. Selina notes, “It was difficult during the first few months. People didn’t believe in me or my products, saying that they weren’t really from an international company and that the quality was better if you buy in the city. I had to gain their respect.” The saleswomen she employs agree, speaking of their challenges in the beginning. “People didn’t trust that we were really from Bata when we knocked on their doors. Now they seek us out to place orders. We even received several orders from schools to supply the shoes for uniforms!”
Selina’s husband quit his job as a day laborer and they are now operating the shop together, enjoying the benefits of a family-run business. Their youngest son, who has yet to begin school, ‘helps’ in the shop during the day. Selina boasts that she has the income for her older son and daughter to continue on to secondary school, noting that their education level will soon surpass her own. For Selina, perhaps the most unusual feature of her new role is her increased mobility, which is quite unusual for women in this area who rarely leave the confines of their homes, much less their villages. She proudly explains that she frequently travels from the village to the Bata office in the capital city of Chittagong, a journey of about 2 hours, in order to restock her supplies.Most importantly, Selina and her employees are thrilled with the increased livelihood security and quality of life that their new jobs provide. Assia, an elderly widow, was struggling to provide for her 5 daughters and 1 son. From the income she has earned as a saleswoman, she was able to move into better quality housing, send her daughters to school, and purchase poultry to raise for additional income. She sums up the feelings of the women, “Working here has improved my family’s livelihood and is better than working as a day laborer. It is dignified. I am selling products of an internationally renowned company.”
Selina and her employees have seen great success in only a year, and they plan to continue expanding the scope of their business and increasing their capital. They hope to move to a larger shop, which barely holds all of the products for sale, and make it into more of a showroom. Throughout Bangladesh, women like them are making similar strides through the Rural Sales Program. After only 2 years of the program, over 1,000 formerly destitute rural women are currently employed as a powerful sales force, and more and more companies are starting to take notice."
