Made in Bangladesh

(don’t tell me to grow out of it)

well, everything seems to have worked out, and it is becoming quite clear that i will leave bangladesh in one week. finally end of mission… over 14 months will be completed (really, the longest i have been in one job for a while – i’m the type to get bored easily and 12 months is usually as long as i want to stay in one place).

my replacement has been found and confirmed and will be here this week. my handover report (currently 20 pages!!) is definitely on its way to being complete. my ‘unique’ form of filing is being simplified to something that may make sense to someone who doesn’t live in my brain. my evals for my team are all mostly written, and meetings will be held next week. my boss and i have done my eval. my end of mission schedule is worked out (just need to confirm flights).

and i’ve said good-bye to a lot of folk already. i found myself in teknaf in early may for the ‘farewell/closure’ party for the project. many of the staff had already started working for a handover partner (we have handed over the IPDs and are co-managing the outpatient clinic right now). there were a lot of goodbyes going on at that party. but there was also dancing, which is something i haven’t been able to enjoy a lot in bangladesh. but we did dance at this farewell. a combination of hindi superhits, and aqua.

i haven’t talked a lot about leaving. but i knew that it was likely my last time in teknaf. and i was definitely sad. and yes, of course, i cried a little as we drove out that last day. but that’s to be expected yes?

further confirmation that it was my last visit was that i finally (!!) saw elephants!! finally after i don’t know how many times i have driven the highway outside teknaf… i saw the elephants!

and it’s strange… my expat ‘team’ here hasn’t really changed much for a long time. i’ve had the same head of mission, log coordinator and medical coordinator since june. i said goodbye to the head of mission last weekend before he left for meetings, to the medical coordinator last night before she headed to holidays… even most of our teknaf expat team has been the same since last summer. so it’s been the first of really big goodbyes of people who i’ve been through so much with in this mission (floods, cyclones, closures, openings…).

and while the management team i’ve worked with this past year will likely never exist as itself again, there is a chance i will see the expats again. but my co-workers who are national staff, my own team, my own department – this is a pretty solid goodbye. i can hope we will keep in touch, and thanks to the miracle of social networking sites, perhaps we will. but in reality, there’s little chance i’ll ever come back to bangladesh. and just like my colleagues in sudan who i’ll likely never see again, the same is true for my colleagues here.

and finally, it’s saying goodbye to the people here. saying goodbye to tal camp and everyone living there. saying goodbye to the beneficiaries in the hill tracts and in the old cyclone project sites, and the dhaka project. and it’s more abstract than the people i know by name and have worked alongside. it’s more abstract, but it’s a bit harder. after a year of learning about, and trying to provide services to people, i’ve come to care a great deal about what happens to them. and while i’m confidant in our handovers, and our project teams, and my replacement, it’s difficult to let go. specifically, i have seen the struggles and hardships of the rohingyas living in tal camp, and very soon, i will no longer be part of trying to provide them the stuff that basic human rights are made of. i will no longer be a witness who can speak out. it’s hard to let go of that.

i have a lot to look forward to. my baby nephew, the rest of my fabulous family, and friends i love dearly who are all waiting for me to come home. so while i’m thrilled beyond belief to go home and see them all, it doesn’t come without the sadness.

but as the wise dr. seuss once said (and as the staff in teknaf wrote on the invitation for the farewell party)… don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

i know it can get rough, and your writing makes sense.  it’s understandable to have some panic that the baby will arrive before you are ready (similar to the dream i had the other night where i had to get on a plane in 2 hours and pack for a nine month mission and i didn’t know what to take!  i just threw all the dirty clothes off my floor into a plastic bag and called that ‘packed’)

i know you worry you won’t be prepared enough, won’t have the right stuff, will drop the baby… and any other creepy crawly worry that can get into your head.  but, i’m here to play the ‘aid worker’ card and tell you about what i see in my work. (so aged and wise i have become)

there are mommies that just love their babies.  mommies that have nothing at all, unregistered refugees living in mud.

i see them when they bring them to our clinics, they hold them, they feed them anything they can.  they are held in slings and scraps of cloth.  when the babies get better, they start laughing and gurgling and they are happy.  then the mom is happy.  and so are the sisters and brothers there with them…

seriously, love is all it takes.  i have watched a child grow from 1 kilo to 3, born premature to an ill mother.  father was gone, but child siblings all present.  i watched the mother, frightenly malnourised herself, feed that child throughout the day with theraputic milk via an eye dropper.  everytime someone arrived, she eagerly showed off her growing child.  her son and older daughter would skip around the bed, gleeful.

but yes, it’s misleading to say love is all it takes, because this child could have died despite her mother’s love – the world is incredibly unfair that way.  but my point is simple, and it’s something i know you know, but may be hard to hold on to sometimes… all the baby needs is for you and his father to love and protect him.  i have watched mother’s with nothing to offer their babies but love and the willingness to take them to a doctor, save their babies lives.

i can’t wait to meet your baby this summer.  i never knew how much i could appreciate the sight of a fat baby, but it makes me so happy now.  i’m happy to know that your baby is fat already, and loved already.

post script… my nephew was born but one week later.  1 month early, but still a healthy 6lbs and 10 ounces.  i guess my sister’s dreams about the baby showing up early were actually warnings   i am such a proud auntie right now!

*seriously emo blog again – i wouldn’t even have posted it but jason says it’s ok – but he’s my husband so he has to.*

my head hurts. a lot.

i was just doing some research online – reading every report i could find on the history of the rohingyas in bangladesh, and the factors leading to their being here, and everything that’s happened since they arrived…

pages and pages of testimonials, and articles, and photos and reports, different agencies, similar findings… and it’s not like i’m surprised. it’s not like i’m not confirming what i already know, what i could hear/see/infer (some of the info was ours). but the temptation to scream right now is overwhelming.

and i wonder who we are. how do we get here.

just to think of people escaping terrible conditions, to end up in limbo, living in a country they aren’t wanted, scraping by to survive, and still saying it’s better than what they left.

reading old reports where refugees put their faith in the international community, put their faith in political changes at home, put their faith in a woman who continues to be under house arrest today. and i wondered if those people still hoped, if anyone heard them anymore, and if those wishes were anything but whispers years on.

i’m scared the world sees them like phantoms, something to be shut away behind a wall of fear or indifference. i’m scared i would have too, if i hadn’t met them, talked to them, and didn’t have their voices in my head right now.

but if i try hard, i remember that this is not always the case.

recently a bbc reporter came to tal during the unrest in myanmar and interviewed folk in the camp, asking them how they felt about the protests. and the story managed to portray the people as having some agency, and beliefs and ideas and thoughts, and did not dismiss them as floating ghosts suspended in time. the man hunched over the radio was suddenly connected to his past – a fine silver thread leading back to his former home. a thread of hope. so yes, that man still hopes.

that’s the important part right? the hope?

here i will deliberately show another picture of some of the kids in tal camp smiling. i want to have a picture where they are more than sadness and desperation. a picture that shows that these are children. children living in the worst conditions i’ve ever seen.

i know what prompted my whole research extravaganza… we just completed the annual plan exercise where we think about what we can/should/hope to accomplish in 2008. i guess that’s what has me thinking so much. and i know (i really do!) that we are doing what we can and i should lay off myself and forgive myself and try to feel okay. but it’s just so hard.

i’m gonna have to do a lot of yoga tonight.

but here is the photo… and now i’m amused that in this shot they kinda look like they are in jail.& hmm. definite accident.

i’m having one of those evenings – when i know i should chose to lie down in that nice bed that is less than two feet away from me right now and sleep… but instead i want to write something.

i put the short note on the blog just a few hours back, apologising for my absence, and promising more soon… and i read through some comments that have arrived, and i visited the other blogs that have developed since i last logged on.  and then i went to the living room and visited with our midwife who is en route to her own holidays in the same country i just left and we had a great talk. and all day i spent catching up on the projects and talking to all my co-workers and i talked with someone about a project they are headed to after they leave here, and i had a nice email chat with our fabulous web manager in toronto… and i’m filled with this cheesy, shiny happy feeling.

i honestly love my job.  i love it beyond compare.  i love it when i’m so tired and so frustrated and want to tell people to, well, to do things that i shouldn’t write here…

and i love it because even when we are having the most terrible discussions and making the hardest decisions, i am surrounded by the most committed group of people i have ever had the honour to work with.  it is truely remarkable to work with people who all believe in the simple act of giving what we can, doing what we can, even when we know it isn’t enough.  every time i leave somewhere, for a vacation, for a break between missions, for training… i’m always so tired and i relish the relief of some silence, but whenever i return i’m reminded why i’ve come.  who we are all working for.  and i am filled with hope and a little bit more peace.  because even though within 30 minutes of being back in my office, i had 6 people set up meetings to discuss issues and strategize or plan… i knew i was back to what means so much to me.

a wise man recently said to me, in a time when there were frustrations lurking and so much of ‘but how can we make sure we’ve been useful, done something’, he said (and i’ll paraphrase here), ‘at least they will know that someone was here, someone willing to say i am here with you and i will be here, and hold your hand, and witness this, and give you what i can while i can.’

and that makes all the difference.

it’s past midnight, and i should really get some sleep, but the rain is pounding on the roof of the house next door, and it seems to be keeping me awake.

i’ve started to fear the bbc weather forcast.  bangladesh is part of the india forcasting and tonight it was covered in the blue smudge of monsoon rains again, and for the sake of everyone here, i’d like the rain to stop.

we’re monitoring right now.  monitoring for outbreak.  watching for a disease spreading and hitting the people who most often get hit by disease.  those most vulnerable.  those most likely to suffer.

and i hate this waiting.

and while i can appreciate certain things about being ready, getting ready…  we are all very busy at the office, gathering information, making plans, building a strategy.  and who doesn’t like to be busy at work.  but the problem with our line of work, is that being busy often means that things have gone to shit for someone.

but it’s a welcome break from the slow insanity of tal camp.  it’s busy there, don’t get me wrong.  but i feel like we are just trying to keep people alive while waiting for someone to listen.  there have been clues aplenty to indicate that the government is going to let the people living there move to a new piece of land… somewhere not squished between a river and a highway.  somewhere where children won’t die every weekend from being hit by cars (don’t ask me about last may).  and we’re waiting but it’s so slow.  but i know that is all we can do. wait, and heal wounds, and try to do our best, and be with the people and try to do what we can.

and the same stupid weather report showed that green blur that indicates another depression forming down where the camp lies.  the cyclone signal is raised again, and we hope another storm disapates and leaves the people unharmed (read: less harmed).

but for the most part, we are waiting for the people there to be given somewhere they can live, grow some food, not sleep in water.

but now, in dhaka, we’re very busy.  but it’s because things could get bad.

i don’t want to think of what the conditions would be that would require us to launch an intervention here.  i don’t like the reality of why we might be busy.  i know how the poor live here, and it’s not an existence that should get any worse than it is.

i’ve looked for the people who used to live on the bank of the lake near the office. the shanty houses disappeared weeks ago.  they left, whether by choice or encouragement, it’s hard to tell.  and it’s likely a good thing since the land they occupied is now under a few feet of water.

when i worked at a rape crisis centre, and we would joke that all we wanted, was to be put out of work.  make us redundant.  make this not necessary.

i would love a world where we are not necessary.

*I wrote this post a few weeks ago following my field visits to teknaf and khagrachari, during a commercial break on American Idol.  (I know… bad tv and I get along though).  But I’ve held off on posting it worried it’s too emotional and silly.  But I’m going to post it anyway, and hope I don’t come off as a depressive whinger*

when you work for msf, you are told to watch out for signs of stress and burnout.  symptoms include a sense of hopelessness, a deterioration of world view, numbness and even callousness towards suffering.

So let’s check: 15 months with msf… am I becoming hard and jaded?  barely. i think all that’s happened is that i’m more sensitive to what I’ve seen.  a few days ago i was sent an email from a friend who had a horrible day but instead of moaning about it, she wrote a letter entitled ‘dear darfur’ where she placed her bad day into perspective, knowing that it paled in comparison to the reality of people living through that crisis.  In the preface, she wrote that whenever things seem rough for her, she reminds herself of how truly blessed she is, and how much others are suffering.  and each time i read the email i just start crying because it’s so amazing to know that a woman in canada cares.  it’s not that its a surprise, because she is a very aware woman, and there are many aware and thoughtful people in my life who care about things going on worldwide, but i couldn’t help wonder what it meant that she thought of darfur.  I wondered if i could somehow communicate this to a woman living in Kalma camp, struggling to get by and survive, to let her know that someone as far away as Canada simply holds her existence and struggles in mind?

and now i’m trying to watch american idol, the fundraiser episode, and I’m crying again.  and despite the number of ways this show has been annoying, (ie. constantly saying ‘when we were in Africa’ like it was a small town near houston…) the stories of suffering that they have told between each act have affected me.

i know that fundraising efforts often play on emotions as much as they can, attempting to break through the walls of disbelief and disconnection.  back when i was in high school my friends and i handled the remembrance day ceremony for a few years, and when we did a slide show (along to guns and roses ‘civil war’ – classy eh?) we deliberately picked photos that would shock and awe our classmates into caring, following the idea that if you want to make people open their wallets, you’ve got to pry open their hearts and make them hurt so that they will care.

But for me when i see these images and hear the stories, i have no problem knowing they are real.  there is no doubt in my mind as to the suffering they are showing on the videos.  All I can think about is the little girl who held my hand while I walked through tal camp.   i don’t have to suspend belief to understand that people really suffer.  i know they do, and it hurts.  (and for me when it hurts, that often leads to a bit of a cry, which considering my current state of dehydration really isn’t a good idea.)

so i think it is safe to say i am not becoming the quintessential burnt out aid worker, all hard and cynical and perhaps even twitchy eyed.  This work makes the world so much clearer to me; it makes people who were far away realer.  And although this work makes me cry on occasion, this work gives me so much hope.  Because while I know that little girl is in tal camp, and I know we are doing the best we can for her.

…and yet I still lay awake until 4 am last night. To borrow one of my favorite terms from Arabic; Malesh.I’ve been told it means ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘that’s unfortunate’, but mostly I found the term carried the resonance of ‘too bad, that’s life, deal with it’.So I think it may be appropriate here.

One week and I have completed handover from the former Finco (our handy term for the financial and human resources coordinators).And the one thing that has struck me so much has been the difference between here and Sudan. Living in Dhaka is luxury. I can go to a supermarket and buy one of 8 different brands of anything! I can buy DVDs (of surprisingly high quality considering that the covers are sometimes poorly laser copied – I always get a kick out of the fact that even the piracy warnings are copied). I can buy kitschy import Korean school supplies (how thrilled will my sisters be). I can buy books in english!!!!!! There are sidewalks and streetlights and not nearly as many gaping holes into fetid water along the street.

Not to say that there aren’t similarities – there is still the call for prayers that can rip you out of sleep at 5 AM. There are birds everywhere that will start cawing and chirping at 4 AM (despite the air pollution here which must be the equivalent of a pack or two of smokes a day). I think there is one near our house that is some sort of ‘mocking’ bird since it has a jazzy little tune that I swear I’ve heard before.

But the country as a whole is in a much different state than I found Sudan. The international community here is mostly development agencies and embassy folk.We are the only MSF section present (while all operating sections are in Sudan). The expat presence is much different then in Sudan, where emergency aid workers far outnumber any development related staff. The international media isn’t everywhere. Signs of war aren’t everywhere. Being part of the international community doesn’t feel as stigmatized and vulnerable as it did when in Khartoum. (I remember telling friends that I was so excited to go to Bangladesh because it meant while reading newspapers I wouldn’t be represented as the face of immorality and illegality).

And this relative calmness that you sense compared to a country like Sudan is what makes this mission much harder to justify. People refer to this as a ‘soft’ country because trucks aren’t being hijacked and staff isn’t beaten. Although instead of people, maybe I should just say that ‘I thought this was a soft country’ (although I know I’ve heard ‘soft’ from somebody…). And that thought is dangerous because there is a real humanitarian crisis here. The needs of the Rohingya population who fled the abuse in Myanmar to come to Bangladesh, who have been living in makeshift camps for 15 years, who are denied refugee status and living on the side of a road, those needs are still glaring, and we are doing our job staying here.

MSF operates in some of the most dangerous places in the world and I think we can get used to seeing the dangers and threats as somehow indicative as to the seriousness of a problem or the ‘realness’ of the threat to a population (and again, I need to rephrase to say ‘I’ not ‘we’ since I really don’t know how other people feel). I think the program here could prove to be a good reminder though if there is anyone out there beside myself who has such preconceived notions, since the situation for a population cannot be inferred from the GDP of a country. This program reminds me that what matters is that we hold on to our mission statement and treat those people most at risk without prejudice. And we are doing that here in Bangladesh, which makes the restless nights worth it.