Mes Heros...

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Ramblings in August...

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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 s
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Speech to Campbell High Year 10 Graduation...

I've re-written this speech 100 times this week... I struggled with what to tell you, what to impart... let's start with what I won't tell you. I won’t tell you what to do with your life.   While the specifics are always interesting, there is never just one right path or option. I won’t tell you what your profession should be.   What you choose to do in life is never a matter for anyone else to judge or dictate. I won’t tell you what your opinions should be.   Where you end up philosophically is a matter for you and no one else.   I won’t tell you what you should do, what you should think, what you should feel, how you should speak. I won’t tell you to have the next few years of your life figured out.   I certainly didn’t at your age. I won’t tell you to go to university or not, to become a doctor or a mechanic, a teacher or a musician.   I won’t tell you to travel the world or never leave this town. I won’t talk to you about obstacles in life,
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Seeing it for the first time...

It's frustrating. It's frustrating to have to face the same challenges for every project, every decision, every idea. The first few times it was amusing; perhaps that's not quite the right way to describe it, but nevertheless it didn't inspire the same sense of frustration it does now. I wish I could go into detail, however corporate privacy and all... not that it seems to matter much in Bangladesh, in the words of my Supervisor there is no such thing as "copyright" or "security" here... My mother tells me to stop being a wuss and get more creative.  Infuriatingly, she's right. When your game plan stops working, you have to change it. So here I am drawing up a new game plan.  Again. I just have to concentrate on seeing the situation again for the first time, so as not to let the frustrations overwhelm my concentration. I met up with quite a few locals last night for a couple games of ball.  Add that to the list of surreal experiences in Banglades
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