In the Field With Success and Mud

I woke up exhausted today, which was not so cool.  I’m not sure why I’m so tired—I’ve been getting 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night.  Today was a field visit, and the original plan was that I would ride a motorcycle out to the field, but Poratosh sent me in a taxi instead since I was tired.  He’s been just marvelous, trying to accommodate my tiredness.  So on the way to the field I started feeling a little sick, and almost asked to just be taken back to the YWCA.  At a market, I got out of the car and rode the last kilometer with Poratish.  We went through some pretty muddy spots, I was kind of worried that we would topple over.  My imagination had a hay day with that, and I just starting sing “Father I Adore You” to myself.  God is bigger than any muddy road.

After introductions were done at the field office, the field manager told me how excited and encouraged they were to have me come visit, which was really nice of him.  I sometimes feel like field visits are an imposition, but the field manager reminded me that as a visitor, I was validating and honoring their programs; I was there to see the successes they have helped encourage. 

So on one hand I was excited to be in the field today, but I was also feeling tired and cranky and jut wanted to go back to bed.  I kind of felt like I was two people in one body.  The crankiness got the better of me, and I had a little trouble understanding the story of the first woman we went to visit.  I managed to forget to take a picture of her as well. But as we said goodbye, she came up to me and took my face in her hands and thanked me, kissing me on each cheek, saying how happy she was for me to come.  That really touched me, and validated me. So we had a validation circle going on, which was great.  We walked to a couple of the visits, through lots of mud which I actually really enjoyed.  I’m doing lots of adventuring here, but most of it is by car and miss getting around on foot or bike.  The mud today helped.

As the day went on, the crankiness subsided and adventure took over.  The field staff were great – it was fun talking with them about how Bangladesh and America are different.  The biggest thing was probably that we don’t eat rice everyday.  That kind of astonishes Bangladeshis because that is the staple here.  No rice, no food.  I still said no to tea today, but they were happy to have me eat lots of crackers and snacks.  People push to have you eat as much as possible when you are their guest – many times much more food than I want.  But it’s polite and it’s validating your host to each what they provide, so I try to eat as much as I can.  Bengali hospitality is starting to show in my tummy though.

I talked with a girl in grade 10 who objected when her family wanted to marry her when she was thirteen, and with her knowledge from her participation in her adolescent group was able to convince her family to let her continue school and not get married.  I talked to a man who runs a profitable fish shop that he was able to start because of a few loans he took from his group.  I met a man who composts to make fertilizer instead of drenching his fields in chemicals.  Even though I’ve met many people are success stories with community development, it was really inspiring to meet people who have built a better situation for themselves.  There is so much poverty in the world, and people here are doing something about it, and succeeding.  Person by person, changing the world into a better place.