I was the last to reply to the e-mail. Everyone else responded within minutes with something along the lines of “I’m in.” I waited until the next morning before sealing the deal. “Pakistan” and “Bangladesh” were the first words I typed in a Google news search every morning until we left for Dhaka. The news was hardly inspirational.
The Sensory Overload Of Dhaka
Bob Dickey was the only one on our trip who, like me, saw this trip from the perspective of a first-time overseas traveler heading into one of the world’s most impoverished countries. “The piles and piles of blanket-wrapped luggage that confronted us in the Dhaka airport served as a visual introduction to the cacophony and congestion that awaited us,” he says of our arrival in Bangladesh’s vastly overpopulated capital city, where we waited more than two hours for our luggage. The streets tell the story of Dhaka, and one cannot help but be humbled upon them. Our complaints about the wait for our luggage and about our lack of Internet connection were instantly futile the first time I looked into the desperate eyes of a woman holding her baby to the window of our van, pleading us for help. The sound of laughter from tiny children – who walked the dangerously busy streets, often barefooted, selling everything from popcorn to books to fruit instead of attending school – could easily be heard above the vans, the rickshaw bells and the roar of this teeming city. Laughter would greet us at the beginning of our workshop the next day. I think it is safe to say the women in our workshop taught us just as much, if not more, than we taught them. In a country where leadership for women is just now becoming more of a reality, there is hope in these women. They are smart. And beautiful. And eager to learn how to better themselves and their country. “I think what was most interesting about the women we met in Dhaka was their passion for journalism,” Alex says. “They had far less modern facilities than we have in the United States, yet their ability to tell stories and their confidence were stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. “They had a desire to learn, and we had a desire to learn from them.”
Go home and tell people that we hate terrorism, too. They are destroying our cities, and we just want to live in peace just like you do. – Pakistani Journalist During one of our sessions, Elanie asked the women the difference between a boss and a leader. A young woman like Mehrin looked at us like it was a question everyone should know. “A boss says, ‘You have to do this. A leader says, ‘We should do this.’” I couldn’t, quite honestly, have said it any better myself. And then there was Shoma. She was “that one” student. The one who stared into our eyes as we spoke. The one who had a deeply-thought-out, intuitive answer to everything we asked. And she was tough. And, when she cried while hugging us goodbye during our final night before leaving, I was surprised. Then I learned: This tough young woman, who I could picture leading her country some day, lived a very tough life. She worked hard at Dhaka University, where she shared a twin bed with another, maybe more, students. As she recited for us several verses of Bangla poetry by memory, I stared. Before, I had thought I would share nothing in common with these women. But, at that moment, I had the utmost respect for this one and all of the others in the room. During our last day in Bangladesh, as we drove out of the city and into the brick yards and river areas just outside Dhaka, the views out our windows changed. Thin metal shacks lined the road. Whole families dug out of mountainous garbage piles. Cows and goats tramped through that same garbage. Men and women carried impossible loads – building materials, the food they were going to try to sell that day – on their heads. >> CONTINUED ON PAGE 40
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