Sinister: Shuvo Noboborsho 1411

[Amy Skelton]

Hello Sinister,

Shuvo Noboborsho/Happy New Year!

It’s my second chance to do New Year’s resolutions as it’s the first day of 
the Bengali calendar. I’ve been extremely bad and not written an update for 
more than two months <slaps wrist>! Needless to say I’ve been enjoying my 
life too much to sit down and write about it. Thanks to those of you who ask 
questions about my travelogues. Johan – feel free to get in touch.
I’m enjoying hearing about your tales of gigs and picnics. I still feel very 
sorry for Mark O who is going to be coming back from San Francisco the day 
before B & S play.
Big Stu – come on we want to hear more travel tales. I can’t get around Asia 
at the moment (bloody immigration) so you can at least make me jealous.
Siniglasto has been quiet what’s happening? I know I won’t be in attendance 
as I’ll be in Bangladesh still (unless immigration chuck me out of the 
country) but it’s interesting for me to hear what’s going on. I still get to 
go to festivals, but on a smaller scale. Think of the more folky stages at 
Glasto. I go to things like that but with Baul music (Bangladeshi folk) with 
way more tabla and sitar etc.

Quite recently some fellow volunteers got to share a bit of folk UK style 
with millions of Bangladeshis singing, playing harmonica and acoustic guitar 
on BTV – Bangladesh Television. Plus they got to say a bit about why they’re 
volunteering etc. it was all very exciting for our little community out 
here.

Well in terms of content I’ve managed to get my copy of I’m A Cuckoo – I’m 
with the preferring some of the B-sides crew. At long last the DVD has 
arrived so I now know what all the fuss has been about. The Asian branch of 
HBO has been showing Storytelling but always at times when only insomniacs 
are awake. I know everyone had mixed opinions about the film (and I’m not 
terribly keen on the soundtrack) but I’m one of these people that likes to 
see things for myself. Yes, I’m very behind in films, books and music at the 
moment. My excuse is that I just wanted to go outside more. On to the 
travelogue then… Warning – you may need to read it a bit at a time – it’s 
quite long!

EID IN LALMONIHRAT
So where did I leave off – ah yes the Muslim festival of Eid-Ul-Asha. Well I 
quickly followed up my weekend up in the North-West of Bangladesh, mainly in 
Lalmonihrat (to visit my boyfriend Stuart*) and Rangpur with a whole week 
for the Eid festival. Lalmonihrat district is considered to be the poorest 
district in Bangladesh. I have only really been in the town area, which has 
a nice relaxed atmosphere typical of a pretty rural town. Poverty is not as 
apparent as it is in some areas of Dhaka city but the undertones are that it 
is present. The place is only about 7km from the Indian border - walking 
distance and everything but my visa situation is still preventing me from 
leaving Bangladesh at the moment.

In Eid-Ul-Asha animal slaughtering is involved (as opposed to the fasting of 
Eid-Ul-Fitr). As people of many dispositions read these updates I am going 
to err on the side of caution and not go into too much detail. I can provide 
more info. to those who are interested.
With Islam being the majority religion in Bangladesh the festivals are so 
much more visible here than in the UK. Eid-Ul-Asha obviously goes on back in 
the UK but in a more discrete fashion - in remote gardens rather than the 
side of the street etc.

This week also marked the start of a big Mela (fair) in the town. I'd 
forgotten how much fun simple Ferris wheel type rides could be. I met a lot 
of interesting people during the week including some of Stuart’s students – 
they were such characters. It’s always nice to meet people with hopes and 
dreams. The district commissioner was wandering around the mela and we got 
talking to him. He had a lot of ideas of how he wanted Bangladesh to improve 
and seemed genuine. Hopefully he’ll make the most of his political position 
to make a change for the better.

* Some of you already know about Stu. I’ll share this with Sinister because 
it’s a good tale of being brave. We’ve been going out since the New Year – 
although it turned out that we had both fancied each other since we first 
met at the beginning of October. He’s an American Peace Corps volunteer 
teaching English and basic computer skills to young adults and he quite 
simply rocks. It’s silly that we waited so long to get together even though 
we were hanging out together a lot. A typical tale – two very confident 
people in all aspects of life except the part where you – ASK PEOPLE OUT.
A result of emotional turmoil over the years it’s really something I should 
get over. So for my first New Year’s resolution of the year I decided to go 
for it. It was all planned to be done gracefully but me being me I ended up 
blurting it out awkwardly – but hey it got done and had the desired effect. 
One of us had to do it and I couldn’t take waiting for him to do it any 
longer. We’re quite similar in lots of ways but with the right amount of 
ying to yang in things to make it work.

MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY – 21ST FEBRUARY
A true celebration of the joy of Bangla – as I'm not supposed to go to major 
events because of crowd security I had to miss the ritual of walking 
barefoot up to the mother language monument. The Ekushey language 
celebrations go on for a good month – with extra special Bangla language 
book fairs and film festivals.

For the day itself I went running with the hash harriers close to a 
different monument… Due to festivities going on elsewhere the Martyred 
Intellectuals Memorial was relatively quiet. This memorial remembers the 
victims of the night when Pakistani forces went down to Dhaka University 
(25th March – day before independence for Bangladesh) and killed a whole 
generation of brainy people.
A simple, but effective structure, this is just outside the city near 
Mohammadpur, which is the area of Dhaka I work in. It was great to explore 
the rural parts of my area of town.

SYLHET AREA
March got off to a good start with the VSO Bangladesh volunteer's conference 
held in Sylhet (as I've mentioned before in the North-East of the country). 
For those of you that don’t know most Bangladeshis that are now resident in 
Britain are from this region. This has a lot to do with the history of the 
cargo industry. It’s very easy to dig out information on the subject – as I 
managed to do before I came out here (too much to type down though).

The theme of the conference was Celebrating Diversity. An all encompassing 
title reflecting the cultures of the volunteers and their partners – from 
Holland, Scotland, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines, England, Wales and Norway. 
Reflecting the different communities of Bangladesh; religions, tribes etc. 
Plus of course just reflecting the sheer diversity of individuals.

There were more than 50 people there. The vast majority of volunteers and 
programme office staff were present together. It was a great time for 
sharing and lots of workshop activities were crammed in to the few days (too 
much to mention). One of the best learning parts for me was the disability 
workshop. Mainstreaming disability issues in development is an area that I 
definitely needed to learn more about. Lippi, a young disabled Bangladeshi 
woman (one of the very few that lives independently out here) was a very 
enigmatic speaker. The participatory workshops involved were also great.

Although I have given many presentations the conference also played host to 
me running my FIRST EVER workshop! I felt it was very important to include 
global education in the programme. I was very pleased as I felt it went well 
and that my message of how important a role volunteers can play in raising 
awareness of their home country in Bangladesh…. and….vice versa. It’s true 
to say that when I was growing up all I knew about the country was natural 
disasters and poverty. There are many other sides to the country. I do hope 
that the culmination of my travelogues will give you that impression.

We did have an afternoon off to do some sightseeing. I went on a trip to 
Jaflong with some of the gang where we took in the beautiful hills and 
visited an under-river stone quarry. These stones are brought down from the 
hills by the monsoon so with all the weathering they’re all beautifully 
rounded. It was nice to finally see the place my local restaurant (when at 
uni in Shef) is called. A few km down the road and we were at another Indian 
border crossing – still couldn’t go over. On the way back we stopped off at 
Haripur where there is this rather bizarre lake. There are open gas fault 
lines underneath the water so you get natural gas bubbling through the 
water. No sparks please!

We actually stayed at the Parjatan hotel (Bangladeshi Government Tourist 
Board) surrounded by lots of pretty posters saying things like ‘Visit 
Bangladesh before Tourists Do’. If only they managed to gear themselves up 
to get people to come. They certainly need to do some work with immigration 
if this is ever going to happen. It really frustrates me as there are a lot 
of beautiful areas in this country but people overseas don’t really know 
about them. Not only are the posters pretty but when I first arrived on 
placement a colleague showed me a video that the Parjatan made to encourage 
visitors. It was great – if only it got distributed!!!!! Gah!

As a token of appreciation for helping organise the conference the 
volunteers clubbed together and bought me some lovely Monipuri fabric to 
make into a new shalwaar kameez. The Monipuri are one of the tribes of the 
ethnic communities in Bangladesh. Some representatives from the Monipuri 
community in Sylhet came to give a talk followed by a cultural evening. 
Sadly, I had to miss this as I needed to go and sort out some urgent 
conference business that had come up. All is not lost though. I’ve got the 
contact details from the Monipuri people that came – they do cultural events 
fairly regularly so I plan to head back up to Sylhet to catch one of these.

In a major bout of coincidence the area of Dhaka city I live in is known as 
Monipuripara – Village of the Monipuri People. So there you have it.

Another major reason I’m cursing having to leave that evening (although when 
organising events these thing happen) is for a workshop Rob and Ian were 
putting on.
These are two other VSO volunteers who are currently based in the Chittagong 
Hill Tracts. Rob in Bandarban and Ian in Rangamati respectively. They wanted 
to share their learning of the tribes of the area. They decided to do this 
through a big team game with quiz questions so that everyone could learn 
more. They had made me Chief of one of the tribes but they had to get 
another woman to fill my place. That is one of the interesting things for me 
– many of the tribes such as the Garos don’t follow a patriarchal structure 
but more of a matriarchal one where females have a say in decision making 
along with men. In some cases they actually have more power with inheritance 
goods returning to the Motherhood. I really want to go into this subject 
further at some point but I’ll cut is short for the moment.

The current advice is not to travel in the area but I’ve got all bodily 
parts crossed that the ban will be lifted soon. I really want to go so I can 
experience the different cultures and explore the beautiful areas – hey it 
is reason I brought my hiking boots out with me after all.

SILVERWARE
When I was busy at the conference the important business of the Carling Cup 
final was underway. I didn’t really feel it was appropriate for me to go 
into Sylhet to find cable TV showing the match and in fact I didn’t find out 
the great news until several days after the event. Up the Boro’! I’m still 
really pleased - Middlesbrough Football Club’s first bit of silverware. The 
pictures on the BBC and my local paper’s website looked great. Plus of 
course I had friends sending me their pictures and stories too. Big thanks 
must also go to our very own Irish Boro fan - Simon Fallaha (I shall write 
soon). My dad (amongst others) went to see the victory bus drive through 
town. Shame I couldn’t join the party but then again I’m having my own out 
here.

SRIMONGAL
So on through to mid-March and back up to the North-East region of 
Bangladesh to the lovely Srimongal. I went away for a long weekend with the 
Dhaka Hash House Harriers for some walking, running and general festivities. 
We stayed at the DFID guest house which I’m sad to say closed its doors at 
the end of March. It was a very pretty place to stay as well. I saved this 
trip (rather than going in Sylhet) to be my first time to go into tea 
gardens. It’s always interesting to go and see where produce comes from. 
Miles of tea plants in rows are pretty astounding to look at. It would be 
wise to not be completely deceived from their beauty – if you get scratched 
by one when you’re running past it hurts – ouch!
>From now on every time I have a cuppa I’ll always think of how beautiful the 
Srimongal area is. Of course on a more serious note there are lots of trade 
issues to consider when thinking about tea production and I will hopefully 
get to go through a little Tea Trade Game with peeps when I get back to the 
UK. Hey it’s better than you simply reading my drivel – trust me.

QUALITY WORK
Work is improving in leaps and bounds. It looks like the water and 
sanitation for disabled people work I’ve been pushing for is going to be 
taken on fully by my organisation. The staff gender policy I’ve been working 
on is starting to be put into practice. ..

Another exciting thing for me was to get to go back out into the field – 
yey! I was part of the technical team getting training on water quality 
testing in the slum areas. As I’ve been in the office a lot recently this 
was great for me. It looks like I’m going to get my newly acquired skills 
into more practice over the coming months.

THE BENCHMARK
Many other things have gone on both at work and play but that should be 
enough reading for you to get through for now. Just for the record I have 
recently gone past the halfway mark of my placement. Six months has just 
flown by. I’m now at the stage of trying to get a job to go onto. I need to 
get some industrial engineering experience under my belt before my degree is 
deemed to go stale so I’m applying for environmental jobs – particularly in 
the water/wastewater sector. Many hours are spent filling out online forms. 
Please email me to give me a break from these efforts! Hopefully there will 
be a few job interviews to go back home to.

Don’t worry I will still make lots of time to do more global education 
activities after I finish in Bangladesh. To start with I’ve got enough 
photographs to do some exhibitions – visual aids for my updates would clog 
up your email inboxes. Besides I want to give the whole picture of 
Bangladesh (as best I can) so it will be better when I select and present 
images after leaving. I do have piccys on an Ofoto website but only a few 
friends and family can have access to it. Regardless, the images will look 
better for all when they’re blown up larger. I’ve got many other plans for 
workshops and activities. There’s no point in me being here if I’m not going 
to share things.

Normal service of regular monthly updates should resume now so expect 
something in the first week of May...

…Amy

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