Ramblings in August...

I’ve been sick for the last couple of days, to the point of being stuck in bed without being able to get up… that’s a lot of time to reflect…

11 months after arriving in Bangladesh, this paradoxical, improbably, impossibly beautiful mess of a country, I still hear the question: “why Bangladesh?”…

Except now it always seems to be followed by “why for free?”…

I find it to be the least comfortable of questions to answer; my experiences and reasons naturally differ greatly from those of others in my program. Our backgrounds and motivations are difficult to compare, so I often hesitate to respond, lest my answers be taken as a general rule…

So why Bangladesh? Because that’s what I was offered. Had I been offered Somalia, Colombia, the Philippines, Laos or Samoa, I would have accepted any of them… someone once told me that if I was serious about working in development and aid, my primary purpose should always be to work myself out of a job… unfortunately, as it stands, the need for help is still alarmingly high… and so I didn’t choose Bangladesh, it was purely luck of the draw…

As for why for free? That’s an easy one; why not?

Bill Clinton puts it nicely in this blog’s namesake book, Giving: “I felt obligated to do it because of the wonderful, improbable life I’d been given…”

That resonates nicely with my own limited experiences… It seems strange now to think back to all the amazing places my parents took and sent me to… to all the incredible places I’ve been fortunate enough to see and the people I’ve been fortunate enough to meet… somehow the thought of not pursuing this career seems both wasteful and disrespectful to my past and my privileges…

What concerns me now is the next step… where do I go, what do I do, is it too early to leap forward with some the plans and ideas that have been forming themselves throughout my time here, or do I still need to find my niche?

It sounds awfully clichéd, but that’s where my thoughts are at the moment…

As a side note, not that any of the 5 people reading this blog care, LockDown came 3rd in the Groove competition... so proud...

Comments

Seiji san said…
Bro, Groove seems further away than primary school 70 cent paddle pops...

Check this out, if you and Emma Stroud had a child, it would grow up to be the Dalai Lama with a jump shot.

Keep saving the world brother.
August 6, 2008 at 9:46 PM
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