It’s also true that Dhaka is not exceptionally beautiful – most historical buildings have been destroyed, there aren’t many green patches and the waterways are heavily polluted. Couple these things with the fact that public infrastructure is basically non-existent (six hour traffic jams anyone?) and that almost half a million people move from the villages to Dhaka each year and you can begin to see some of the reasons why Dhaka doesn’t get a whole lot of love.

The flat, green, water-logged countryside of  Bangladesh is where this nation’s heart lies. It’s what the poets are inspired by and the city-siders reminisce about. Very few Deshis will admit that they’re from Dhaka, preferring to identify with the village that they were born in or that their parents came from. But while Dhaka may not be the beating heart of this country, it is undeniably the brains of Bangladesh. It is the place where ideas happen, decisions get made, and it is the primary gateway between Bangladesh and the rest of the world.

It is only in Dhaka that you could walk across the city faster than you would do it in a car, or eat spicy puffed rice (jaal moori) from a bag folded with someone’s mid-90′s French exam paper. It is only here that you can feel the city fall into sudden silence at the afternoon call to prayer while on the empty streets women cover their heads with a synchronised swish of their colourful sarees. It is only here that a tailor would refuse payment for a service just rendered while across the other side of the city, a customs official demands ‘baksheesh‘ (gifted money) for a visa stamp. It is only here that a rubbish picker would sing piously as he works or a homeless man by the Lake would play his flute every night just to please himself and those who may still be awake.

Ever since arriving, life has been a roller coaster of high Highs and low Lows. And so it came as something of a surprise when, about three months ago, I felt nostalgia gnawing at the edges of my mind. My head was in the far-off future but my heart was still here, and that was when it dawned on me: I am really going to miss this place.

Having my Mum come to visit reconfirmed this for me. Bangladesh is my home; Dhaka is my city too, now. And for all the problems, I have still fallen in love with it, if only for the way that it makes me feel: alive. Slowly, slowly I have learned to dance to the rhythm of this city and though we still fall out of sync with each other on semi-regular occasions, I’ve also learned to laugh it all off and catch up again as quickly as possible.

So when my Mum arrived in Bangladesh two weeks ago, I was determined to show her something of what made me love this city: a carefully measured recipe of ups, downs, dirt, sweat, adrenalin and cha.

1: Nilkhet

When I first discovered Nilkhet (near Newmarket and Dhaka University) I thought I’d walked into a dream: an entire suburb of markets dedicated to selling second-hand books. The rabbit-warren like layout is mind-bogglingly extensive and it is genuinely possible to get lost in there (I’m sure it was designed this way by some entrepreneurial book-wallahs) but oh, what a delight to be lost among a world made of books.

This is how it works: you have to go there with some idea of what you want, but you can’t be too set on it. Then, at the first store you stop at, you tell the book-wallah what you’re looking for. He will scale the stacks of books surrounding him and re-emerge with two or three choices that might appeal to you. You can keep on playing this game for as long or as little as you’d like, giving book names or genres or authors while the shopkeeper comes forward with slight variations on what you’ve asked for until you find the book you’ve been dreaming of. While many of the books are in Bengali, there are plenty of English choices and the book-buying process leads to an inexhaustible list of new reading possibilities.

I once went there intent on getting a book of poetry. After nearly an hour of searching, a storekeeper came up to me and told me to wait out the front of his shop. He returned almost thirty minutes later with a perfectly kept book of Tagore’s poetry that was somehow exactly what I didn’t know I’d been looking for.

(picture from Daily Star)

2: Art

I have visited more art galleries since I’ve been living in Dhaka than I ever visited when I was living in Sydney. The art scene is thriving here, and most galleries have new exhibitions every 2-3 weeks. My favourites include the Bengal Gallery and DRIK, but there are also places like Cafe Mango in Lalmatia (near the Women’s College) that have regular art installations on the cafe walls. The art is usually politically-charged and very patriotic – after only 40 years of independence, the Bangladeshis are fiercely proud of their nation. One of my favourite exhibitions, held a few weeks ago at the Alliance Francaise, featured sketches of the many beautiful and historic mosques scattered across Bangladesh.

(picture from Alliance Francaise Dhaka)

3: Puran Dhaka

Old Dhaka is a haphazard collection of antique buildings, newly arrived people, choked waterways, alleyways and colour, colour, colour. I could write a thousand words just describing the rich history of this place – inhabited at various points in time by the Mughals, Armenians, Silk Road travellers, Hindus, British and now, the poor. It is in every way the epitome of Dhaka’s best and worst and an absolute feast for the senses on any day of the week.

I have been there on many occasions, and each time has yielded new discoveries. The most overwhelming place to start is on the water with a boat ride around chaotic Sadarghat port negotiating between waterlilies, floating waste and the enormous Rockets (boats). Back on dry land, a wander around the ports reveals ceiling-high piles of onions, garlic and spices ready to be carted away to Dhaka’s many, many markets. The nearby Shakhari Bazaar, the Hindu quarter, is a street of stories and storytellers – many of the families have lived there for several generations making white ivory wedding bangles, stringed musical instruments, or religious statues – religion, art and identity are inseparable here.

4: Dhanmondi Lake People-watching and Fushka

Dhanmondi Lake is at its best at night, especially in these Winter evenings when the fog and the city lights hover just above the water’s surface. The Lake is always a good place for people-watching and street food, especially fushka, which consists of small fried bread cups brimming with lentils, chilli, onion, coriander and tamarind sauce. Fushka is best digested with the help of a cup of cha – black tea and condensed milk.

(picture from Flickr)

5: Rayer Bazaar

Rayer Bazaar sits to the West of Dhanmondi and is in many ways a more residential version of Old Dhaka. Much of the area is a slum, but there are also some newer buildings where families have chosen to stay because of the cheaper rent. I love this place because it is its own little ecosystem of shelters, businesses, markets, colours, smells and lives. One narrow alley leads onto another and people spill from their one-room homes out onto the streets – over there is a man’s lost shoe, this rickshaw road is that child’s backyard, these lady’s ornas are made from the material hanging in that shop window. Life erupts from the rooftops and from the murky sewage water running along the edge of the path. This place is as much a mystery to me as anything else – I know little about its history or its geography, and every attempt I make to find out more leads me deeper into a maze of lost knowledge and uncertain facts. But just one afternoon of being here reminds me of why I do love living in Dhaka: that life is simply miraculous, whether you believe in God or not.

(picture from Flickr)

Almost six months ago I watched the landscape of Bangladesh unfold beneath my plane for the very first time. As the huddled lights of Dhaka city glimmered below me, my mind pounded with questions about the things I would find in those dimly-lit streets. I am new here, and I am still, in so many ways, a stranger. But I am a content stranger and I have been welcomed like a guest. Since I’ve arrived, the people of Bangladesh have become my family and this land of the glowing red sun has been my home.

And it really has come to feel like home. At some point, Dhaka made the transition from being a place I was discovering for a little while, to a place where I live, where I am. There have been so many highlights so far, and I am also excited about what 2012 will bring. In especially exciting news, my mum will come to visit me in January and I’ll get to catch up with a cousin I haven’t seen in years in February!

Since I’m in such a personal phase of looking back, looking forward and looking inwardly, I thought I’d share an edited excerpt of text which I’ve written for a book that will be published by Hunger Free World next year. The book is called “My Dream for the Year 2021″ and features a collection of essays and articles about hopes and dreams for 2021 – the fifty year anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence.

Last Friday December 15 was the forty year anniversary of independence, and the streets were flooded with cheers, drums and the colours of the Bengali flag, red and green. One of my favourite things about Bangladesh is that the people here are eternally hopeful and passionate about their country, meaning that there is a lot of potential for things to improve.

So, here are my “outsider’s” thoughts on how that could happen:

In order to look to the future we must first learn from our past – Bangladesh is only a young nation, but it has come a long way since its birth. Bangladesh’s Human Development Index ranking has almost doubled since 1980.  Over the past 40 years, life expectancy has increased by 23 years and there has been a 65% reduction in infant mortality since 1990. Although Bangladesh continues to face challenges as a nation, many difficulties have already been overcome. This is evidence that change is possible, that hope is tangible and that dreams can become realities.

My dream for the year 2021 is that everyone in Bangladesh will be free from the plights of hunger and poverty. It is a big dream, but I believe that it is just as possible as doubling the Human Development Index or reducing infant mortality.

When I think of a hunger and poverty free Bangladesh, I imagine a place where people are empowered at an individual level, a community level and a national level, making the nation self-reliant in every sense of the word. I envision a country that is as figuratively golden as its fields during Harvest time, where happiness and life’s essentials are abundant and accessible to all.

But vision without action is a daydream, and action without vision is a nightmare. We need to know where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. In order to end hunger and poverty and create a self-reliant Bangladesh, I believe there are two things we need to act on first.

Collaboration

Bangladesh faces complex problems which require constant innovation and adaptive solutions – there is no single path to reaching the end goal. Therefore, the people of Bangladesh must act holistically, working together for a big picture rather than just concentrating on their individual roles.

Instead of separating problems and dealing with them exclusively, there needs to be more collaboration. People should listen to each other and work together to find the connections between problems, visions and solutions. We must think creatively and then plan wisely to ensure that our collective capacity is fully utilized. In order to achieve these things, we must begin by facilitating conversations that ignite the process of collaboration, and pursuing dreams with the coordinated actions of many.

But collaboration demands genuine engagement between people, and in order to do this authentically, we need to eliminate the dramatic gaps between the rich and poor, educated and uneducated, hungry and obese, haves and have-nots. This change can be achieved only when we stop perpetuating the prejudices we’ve inherited and start embracing a new social order that demands justice and equality for all. A woman should not starve so that her husband can eat – it is her right to eat as well. A child should not be forced to skip school because they need to work to support their family – education is there for all, and it is everyone’s responsibility to uphold that.

Empowerment

Changing attitudes starts at a personal level. While we must work together for a shared goal, we also need to act individually – we need to empower people to be self-reliant in their own lives before Bangladesh can become a self-reliant nation. This means equipping people with the skills and knowledge to forge their own future, to be masters of their own destiny. Empowerment begins with knowledge and self-belief, and requires equal access to these tools for change.

The youth, the future of Bangladesh, deserve a quality education that does not just teach them to pass exams but also teaches them to live. Young people need to be equipped with the abilities to think critically, creatively, adaptively and collaboratively. Just imagine what this country could be like if every person under thirty – a third of the population – had the mind of an entrepreneur, the heart of a philanthropist and the commitment of a freedom fighter.

Schools are an obvious place to start this process of empowerment, but beyond school, we can all begin by reflecting on ourselves and the way we live our lives. Ask yourself: what am I doing to bring this nation closer to ending hunger and poverty? Every person has a quintessential quality that they bring to the world, so facilitating change requires us to find that quality in ourselves and in those around us, and to use those qualities for the betterment of all. If everyone committed to this process of sharing, teaching and learning, the people of Bangladesh could move forward together, as equals. Anyone can be a leader for positive change – it starts by setting an example for others through our own actions and reflecting constantly on how we can each contribute to the much bigger jigsaw of humanity.

Reaching the Golden Country

Hunger Free World is actively working to create a self-reliant Bangladesh by 2021 and I have been lucky enough to play a small part in that as the Youth Advocacy and Communications Officer for the organization. Though I write my dreams for the year 2021 as a Bideshi, these are still hopes that come from my heart.

I dream of creating a better Bangladesh because the people here deserve it. It is your right, as a Bangladeshi, to demand a country where everybody is empowered to live the life they wish to, free from the worries of hunger, poverty, corruption and a lack of services. I hope that we can all work together to reach that golden dream.

Enough’s arrival has come and gone without too much attention but the milestone marked by her birthday invites us to think about something that’s all too easy to forget – we live on a planet that isn’t growing in size with our population. Constant growth – whether it’s in population size, GDP or consumption – is no longer sustainable.

In a world of seven billion, bigger is not always better.  And, in a world of finite resources, we need to find the balance to ensure that all of us have access to what is available, including one of the most essential ingredients of life: food.

At the moment, that is hardly the case. One in seven people go hungry. Most of those who go hungry come from the developing world, from countries such as Bangladesh, the Congo, Pakistan, Indonesia and Ethiopia. Many of those who go hungry are children, and geographically speaking, more than 70% of the world’s malnourished children live in the Asia region.

Three days after the world population hit the seven billion mark , Bangladesh observed Universal Children’s Day. To celebrate, I joined an event run by Jaago that saw more than 500 street kids taken to the local Wonderland and given free health checks. It was a chance for them to enjoy being children for a day – the smiles and the energy buzzing among hundreds of kids, many of whom were visiting Wonderland for the first and possibly last time, was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had here. Later on that day, around midnight, I looked out my cab window and saw the same kids, marked by their bright yellow UCD t-shirts, wandering the streets again, looking for money, shelter and food.

Since I’ve been in Bangladesh, food has grown into something much more than what I eat at meal time. I feel like every droplet of honey, every whiff of curry, every crunch of an apple is somehow more significant here – my meals have taken on lives of their own in my stomach and in my mind.

In the office of Hunger Free World, food finds its way into almost every conversation we have about development – there’s no point in building schools, hospitals or roads if the people who’ll want to use them aren’t getting enough food to survive. The right to food is one of the most fundamental human rights, and the many ways of protecting that right (through farming programs, agricultural cooperatives, school lunches, education, advocacy and so on) form the heart of Hunger Free World’s work.

I’m constantly reminded of how lucky I am to even have food. A quick jaunt down the street on my way to work leads me past rows of sobji-wallahs, men who sell fresh fruit and veggies from the back of their rickshaw carts. Among the wheels of those carts sit rows of beggars, chanting Allah’s name and hoping for some loose change to buy their own food.

Technically, ‘hunger’ refers to chronic malnutrition, which means that a person is not getting the essential nutrients needed for basic human health. But in my reality, hunger is something I’ve only ever observed – in Bangladesh, far too often. Coming from a life where I’ve never gone hungry, it’s difficult to fathom what it really means for someone to be starving, to feel as though their insides are gnawing at each other, to feel the emptiness of their stomach reflected as emptiness in their eyes.

Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked. Being hungry means being unhealthy and having little energy for work or school. That makes keeping or getting a job difficult which means that there’s less money available for the next meal. As the amount of food a person eats decreases, so does the level of nutrients they can absorb. So, poor health and low energy levels are perpetuated, as is the cycle of hunger and poverty, which is often passed on to the next generation.

The very first Millenium Development Goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Of the many global efforts to achieve this goal, Vietnam is considered to be a success story. Last year, a report from Oxfam announced that Vietnam had halved hunger and poverty five years ahead of the 2015 target, reducing hunger levels from 58% in 1993 to 18% in 2010.

Both Oxfam and the UN argue that Vietnam’s success can largely be attributed to agricultural land reform. The Vietnamese Government made land distribution more equitable, invested heavily in agricultural technology and maintained restrictions on rice exports until 2001, thus nurturing the domestic industry.

While Vietnam’s experience is evidence that hunger and poverty can be reduced, there is still a long way to go before the problems are solved. Of particular concern is the uneven nature of the improvements – women, children, ethnic minorities and people living in rural areas remain significantly more affected by hunger than other citizens.

When I visited Vietnam for the first time earlier this year, I was certainly struck by the affluence of the urban areas. But as I wandered down the alleyways of Hanoi, dodging scooters in search of steamed dumplings or the fishy broth of Pho, I sensed the same tension between old tradition and new money that can be found in the bustling shopping malls of Shanghai or the looming luxury hotels of New Delhi. Poverty lingers like a ghost in the background, hidden by the smiles of an aspirational middle class, cashed up and eager to make their fortunes at the expense of those who missed the wave of providence.

Improvements in reducing hunger and poverty do not equate to true progress if these reductions blatantly benefit some while leaving others further and further behind.

As a rice producer with a large agricultural industry, Bangladesh shares much in common with Vietnam. And, Bangladesh’s limited success in reducing hunger and poverty has been plagued by the same inequalities that can be found in Vietnam.

Much of the cause of this problem lies in the philosophy driving the ‘solutions’. Here, many policy makers argue that a growing population requires more food – it’s another facet of the ‘bigger is better’ approach, and it is the central attitude behind many global attempts to reduce hunger.

But others argue that there is already enough food for all the people of Bangladesh. Instead, the problem lies not in food production but in food distribution.

As UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Oliver De Schutter put it: “The key misunderstanding is that … you will not succeed in combating hunger by increasing the volumes available if at the same time you have a large number of people who are poor and for whom food is unaffordable, and who will therefore not have access to the food produced for the markets. … Hunger is not just a question of increasing production; it is also a matter of social justice, of combatting inequality and fighting against poverty.”

Of the one billion people who go hungry in our world, nearly 70% of these are food producers. They are hungry farmers – oxymorons created by an unequal system.

Yesterday, I finished three days of youth leadership training with the members of Youth Against Hunger. Driven by the desire to think about alternative ways of producing and sharing food, we’ve come up with a community project that will see rooftop gardens grown across Dhaka city.

As the rooftops of the rich become greener, the bellies of those who live on the streets will be filled with our gardens’ produce. The members of Youth Against Hunger will work with rubbish pickers, usually children who collect rubbish and re-sell their finds, to collect paper and food waste as compost for the gardens.

It’s a small step forward, and we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do. But it’s the beginning of something exciting – it’s about making use of what we’ve already got, and including the people that are hungry in the process of change. It’s about saying that ‘enough is enough’ and not letting the gap between rich and poor, healthy and hungry, increase at the rate our population is.

Infographic created by OnlineSchools.org

Yesterday marked the fifth and final day of Durga Puja, a major Hindu festival dedicated to the Goddess Durga. The event marks the victory of Durga over the demon Mahishadura, and is a particularly significant religious festival for Bengali-speaking Hindus.

The streets of Old Dhaka – particularly around Dhakeswari National Temple, Sadarghat port and Shakhari Bazar (also known as Hindu Street) – were crowded with the fluorescent statues of a violent-looking Durga carrying a spear, defeating a demon and being chased by a tiger or lion. Life-sized replicas of Mother Durga, accompanied by her children Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Kartik, were hoisted above the street on platforms that thick crowds stooped under to make their prayers.

Like most Hindu festivals and celebrations, Durga Puja is colourful, chaotic and absolutely throbbing with excitement. Within half an hour of arriving my face was covered in bright vermillion powder that women had wiped across my cheeks and forehead as they walked past. Everyone was in the mood for chatting and the narrow streets were lined with hundreds of stalls selling bejewelled trinkets and sweets.

At the end of the day, the statues were carried down to the Buriganga River and tossed into the water to bid farewell to the Goddess for another year. Thousands and thousands of people danced, cheered, cried and sang alongside the statues on their long procession to the water.

Here are some photos and video that I took hurriedly on my phone along with a little soundscape of the atmosphere. I was caught up in the moment and not interested in getting perfect shots so these do absolutely no justice to the beating drums, the giant statues, the wails and chants of worshippers, and the thick smoke of incense enveloping it all. Let your imagination run wild!

Of course, festival-goers need festival rides. Check out this OHS-unfriendly but environmentally-friendly ferris wheel. Look for the man physically spinning it in the bottom left corner!

…These are the things that make me love Dhaka!

Amar desh, amar shopno. My country, my dream.

Bangladesh is a nation of young people. About 50 million people, or one third of the population, make up the youth of Bangladesh.

In Boda last week, in the far northwest of Bangladesh, about 50 of these young people met at a Youth Against Hunger forum to share their visions for their country, report on what actions they’d taken so far towards making those dreams a reality, and plan how they could act more effectively in the future.

Bangladesh is also a land of dreamers. Besides talking about family, one of the most popular topics of conversation is vision. There may not always be the resources or skills or consensus for action, but the sheer amount of energy, ideas and hope for the future is outstanding.

Nowhere is that energy more buzzing than among the youth of Bangladesh.

Youth activism in Bangladesh

In Australia, it’s not uncommon for “generation Y” to be accused of laziness or apathy. But in Bangladesh, young people are viewed very differently. The extent of problems facing the people of Bangladesh demands pragmatism. As a result, the youth are valued for the hopeful future they represent. It’s a responsibility that many young Bangladeshis embrace with passion.

Hunger Free World’s autonomous youth wing, Youth Against Hunger, is made up of about 700 passionate young people who come from all over Bangladesh.

They call themselves the “second generation of freedom fighters”, a reference to the freedom fighters who championed the idea of a Bengali-speaking nation in the Language Movement of 1952, and the nine-month long Liberation War in 1971. The result of these wars was the birth of Bangladesh and the separation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan. Many of the freedom fighters were young people – at least 200 students of Dhaka University were among the first victims of the Pakistani army in March 1971.

Youth Against Hunger activists are involved in a number of projects that aim to create a hunger and poverty free Bangladesh by 2021, the golden jubilee of the nation’s independence. Many of the members are from poor, rural backgrounds, and have a very personal understanding of the problems facing young people here – high levels of unemployment, low levels of education and early marriage are just a few examples. These young activists are eager to address the problems facing their generation and their nation.

Problems facing young Bangladeshis

At the forum in Boda, local youth invited other Youth Against Hunger members to their villages to meet their families and learn a little about each other’s lives.

Sitting on a wooden bench among the mud huts, listening to the popping sounds of puffed rice (moori) being cooked for breakfast, we spoke about how many brothers and sisters we had, the crops the villagers grow on their farms, the nearby school, and the food we like to eat.

“Shami ache?” (“Are you married?) was a recurrent question.

The older women told me in detail how they’d been married at early ages and that they hoped it might be different for their daughters. As we chatted and the morning passed, the younger women started to speak for themselves.

“I want to finish school so that I can become a teacher,” one girl told me. She didn’t know when her birthday was, but she looked about ten-years-old.

Another girl, a Youth Against Hunger member, told me that she studied hard.

“What will you do when you finish school?” I asked.

“If I am lucky, maybe I can be a doctor.”

Sadly, luck (good or bad) does play a part in her future – her choices to stay in school, pick a career and get married are not entirely her own. It will depend on her family’s views of those choices, particularly her father’s.

One of the problems associated with early marriage is the dowries that are demanded from families. One mother shared the story of a family who was forced to sell their farm land for 80,000 taka (about $AU1,100, equivalent to more than a year’s wages) to pay the debt on the dowry for their daughter’s marriage.

The legal marriage age for females is 18, but two thirds of girls are married before they reach 18. It’s a frightening statistic. Dowry payments are also illegal, but commonly demanded in rural areas.

Finding solutions and more problems

The consensus among the women I spoke to was that although many of them wanted to stop these practices, they still needed more widespread backing from the men in their village. This demand was echoed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu while promoting the Girls Not Brides campaign in New York last week:

“Men tend to be the political leaders and tend to be the traditional leaders and tend to be the religious leaders and tend to give the lead, and if this group of leaders said this is not something we condone, then communities will begin to think differently.”

At the very least, it’s clear that social change requires the whole community’s support. Young people, old people, men, women, Deshis and Bideshis need to work together towards a solution.

But before the solution arrives, it seems that there needs to be agreement around the definition of the problem itself.

Last week, I retweeted some statistics from Unicef’s State of the World’s Children 2011 report:

RT @BIGBADTROLL69: #Child marriage rates: #Bangladesh 66% #Afghanistan 39% #India 47% http://goo.gl/59CeD

Not long after, @arghyagupta tweeted back with an interesting comment that got me thinking:

@jkcsays @BIGBADTROLL69 if you’re using 18 as an arbitrary definition for “child”, then it’s not really taking into acct cultural relativity

It’s true that there are many problems associated with assigning a universal definition to childhood. In Dhaka on my way to work every day, I see children as young as six begging for money or collecting items from rubbish piles to re-sell. Childhood here means something completely different to what it means for young Australians. For many, it’s less about playtime and more about survival.

@arghyagupta’s comment got me thinking about whether cultural differences could sometimes excuse certain activities – such as child marriage – that might be considered unacceptable in one place and yet still appropriate in another.

It’s important to question any ideas we have about universal definitions and one-size-fits-all approaches. Especially in development work, plenty of mistakes can be made when one group imposes their values onto another community – even when it is done with the best of intentions.

But when it comes to child marriage, in the context of Bangladesh, cultural relativism has to be challenged. This is a place where not everyone has access to healthcare, not everyone has access to safe and nutritious food, not everyone has access to education and not everyone has the power to make the decisions that will define their life.

Subsequently, marriage before the age of 18 leads to serious problems for young parents and their babies.

Girls married at a young age are less likely to finish school. This denies them an awareness of their rights to make decisions affecting their bodies, health and wellbeing. Girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely than those aged 20 to 24 to die in pregnancy and childbirth. Girls aged ten to 15 are five times more likely than women aged 20 to 24 to die in pregnancy and childbirth. Malnourished girls become the malnourished mothers of malnourished babies and the cycle of poverty continues.

The implications of this, and the alternatives associated with delaying marriage, are captured in the simplified but powerful clip, The Girl Effect.

Why youth empowerment matters

Defining someone as a child and implying that they need to be protected from the world can sometimes have the devastating consequence of denying them a voice. It’s a fine line between labelling someone as vulnerable and taking away their legitimacy to speak for themselves.

Instead of the debate being for and from them, it is about them.

Since this conversation centres around young people, it is essential that they are placed at the heart of addressing the problem and advocating a solution for child marriage.

In Boda, the youth forum finished under the stars. Both young females and young males stayed awake until late into the night singing in Bengali, dancing around the campfire, and brainstorming their ideas for projects that will address some of the problems facing them, their friends and their peers. The solutions they proposed included projects that will address the problem of child marriage.

In a country like Bangladesh, that embraces big hopes and dreams as part of the national consciousness, it is these young people’s vision and energy for change that has the potential to turn hopes into actions.

Bangladesh faces many problems as a nation. But watching the members of Youth Against Hunger at the gathering in Boda made me believe, and hope, that real change can happen here, if their views are heard and embraced.

Sitting in the late afternoon sunlight watching the deep blue ocean and a game of beachside cricket between the locals sounds like a typical Aussie Summer weekend.

In fact, I was on the other side of the Indian Ocean, in Sri Lanka, relishing the chance to witness the country celebrate the end of Ramadan, a festival known as Eid-ul-Fitr.

Sri Lanka is a surprisingly small island, about the size of Tasmania, with a population of about 20 million – this makes it pretty underpopulated for a South Asian nation, and it was a welcome relief for me, coming from Dhaka, to be able to wander the streets without constantly bumping into people!

While only about 7% of the Sri Lankan population are Muslim, Eid-ul-Fitr was still observed by many people across the nation. Utterances of Eid Mubarak, the festival’s greeting, could be heard from the mosques of Colombo to the cobbled streets of Galle.

We visited Colombo, Kandy and Galle – Sri Lanka’s equivalent of the golden triangle. While it may be a well-worn route, it offered an amazing overview of a country that is rich in history, culture and natural beauty.

Considered to be the place on earth that Adam first touched when he fell from Paradise, and the land where Buddha left his footprint in the mark of Sri Pada, the landscape is as diverse as the people – rice paddies, tea plantations, ribbon-thin beaches lined with palms and the green Indian ocean are all scattered among ancient temples, mosques, churches and modern buildings.

Sri Lanka has a long history of trade and cultural diversity. In more recent times, it was colonised by the British, Dutch and Portuguese, and the architectural influence of each of these cultures is still present. There are also reminders of Sri Lanka’s ancient history in the bleached-white roadside Buddhist temples, the Ayurvedic medicine stands, and the faint scents of simmering spices and freshly cut flowers.

Despite these reminders of Sri Lanka’s distant history, it was ironic how strangely easy it was to forget that it’s a country emerging from nearly thirty years of civil war. On the day we arrived, the government revoked the country’s State of Emergency. This was met with overall media approval and some suspicion that it was a publicity stunt on the eve of the meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

But as we wandered the streets and enjoyed the coconut thosai and the sight of hundreds of kites hovering above the skyline, the locals were more keen to talk about the cricket match between Australia and Sri Lanka rather than the horrors they’d experienced  – UN reports say that the war left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

The people of Sri Lanka, like their vibrant history, are resilient. The country currently has some of the highest levels of literacy and life expectancy in the South Asia region. The Sri Lankan economy is also growing at a rapid rate  – in the first quarter of 2011, its economy expanded by nearly 8% compared to the previous quarter.

While Sri Lanka still faces development challenges, the growth of the tourism industry will also help the country to rebuild infrastructure and recover from the conflict.

Sri Lanka is probably one of the most beautiful countries I have visited in South Asia – the people, the history, the landscape and the food all made for a colourful and multifarious trip.

I’ve uploaded the rest of my pics from Sri Lanka here.

Last week I ventured outside of Dhaka, seven hours along a dirt road – at times dusty, at times muddy, and at all times death-defying – to visit a peaceful upazila (district) in southwest Bangladesh.

I spent the days squelching my toes in thick, gooey mud, showering in the morning rain, plucking guavas fresh from the tree, and negotiating cows, chickens, goats and amused villagers.

In between the squelching and laughing, I also got the opportunity to see first-hand the projects that Hunger Free World – where I’m working – is doing in Kaliganj (spelt Kaligonji on the map below).

Hunger Free World is a Japanese NGO that has offices in Dhaka, Kaliganj and Boda. All the staff here are locals with a lot of experience in the development sector, and a lot of first-hand knowledge of the challenges that Bangladesh faces. HFW is working towards a hunger-free and self-reliant Bangladesh by 2021. We run schools, a hospital, organic farms and various education and training programs in the districts where we operate.

While in Kaliganj, I was staying at HFW’s small school, Shuniketon Pathshala. It has about 200 students who make their way there by foot or rickshaw six days a week, and it was wonderful to wake up each morning to the sound of children chattering and laughing before they started their day of learning. Literacy levels in Kaliganj hover around the 50% mark, so HFW’s school is incredibly important for the future of the children who attend.

Kaliganj feels like it’s a million worlds away from Dhaka. The jungle and rice paddies are peaceful, the nights are peppered with the buzzing of cicadas, and the days seem to fold in on themselves and blur kaleidoscopically – yet another scale on Bangaldesh’s time-warp continuum!

About 85% of Bangladesh’s population live in rural areas, but the rate of rural-urban migration is very high. It’s expected that by the mid-2020′s, at least half of the population will live in urban areas. That presents a wholly different set of problems and if you’re interested, Al Jazeera did a good news piece yesterday on the housing crisis in Dhaka.

The countryside landscape may be picturesque, but poverty is pervasive, which is what fuels the exodus to the bigger cities. Most people own very little land, and so one farmer’s ‘property’ is often the equivalent of what we’d call the backyard veggie patch back in Australia. Food insecurity is high, which means that many farmers struggle to feed themselves, let alone make an income from their produce. There are also significant problems associated with farmers using fertilizers and pesticides, especially when they’ve received no education about doing so – it’s not uncommon for the pesticides to be stored in containers that will later be used for drinking water.

Subsequently, organic farming is at the heart of the work that HFW does. In Kaliganj, HFW runs an agriculture training centre that operates as a working farm and is open for farmers to visit and learn from at any time. We also work directly in the villages, helping locals to create compost heaps and use companion planting to minimize the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

HFW runs a library, a computer centre, sewing classes and after-school study groups which are open to all the community, and play a significant role in giving more women access to education.

A big part of my trip to Kaliganj was working with the inspirational members of Youth Against Hunger, which is HFW’s youth-led organisation. I’m going to be working closely with YAH over the next year to help them share their visions for the future, and take action towards ending hunger and poverty in Bangladesh. YAH has its annual national conference coming up in September and I’m very excited about the opportunities for change and action that it will bring!

Ramadan occurs in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and, as in many Muslim countries, a government body is allocated to watch the night sky and declare religious events depending on the waxing and waning of the moon. Ramadan will last for 30 days, and is a month of spiritual reflection. It is also a month of fasting, abstinence and additional prayers.

It is a beautiful and exciting time to be living in an Islamic country. Nearly 90% of the population of Bangladesh are Muslim – it’s a central part of life here and Dhaka itself is known as the City of Mosques.

Ironically enough, as an outsider, Ramadan has been all about food for me. While I can’t eat in public during the day (all the restaurants and cha stalls are curtained off to mask the smells and sights), I can’t help but let my mouth water at the markets and Iftar stands lining the streets. The roads and alleys have become a vivid feast of bargaining and celebration as people prepare to break their fast at the end of the day (known as Iftar).

From around 3.30pm, the streets begin to froth with rickshaws and cars as everyone rushes to get home to prepare for the evening feast. From around 6pm, the flavours of the Iftar stands begin to waft through the city and crowds gather to savour the delicious tastes and celebrate the end of the fast. After 7pm, it’s quite astonishing to peer out my window and see the strangely empty streets of Dhaka under the new moon. During Ramadan, people stay inside to spend time with family and pray – it’s like being in a different place!

The fasting is taken very seriously – even water is forbidden. The process of fasting is encouraged to cleanse the body and remember the hunger of the poor. In Bangladesh, where almost half of the population are living in poverty and the divide between rich and poor is severe, hunger is a significant daily problem. During Ramadan, food prices rise dramatically making it a struggle for many to afford food. However, Ramadan also encourages giving and many people offer generous ‘baksheesh’ (charitable tips) to beggars and the countless ‘service’ people who make this country run – people like the building managers, rubbish collectors, rickshaw-wallahs, office cooks and building cleaners.

Dates are often the first food taken to break the fast – piles and piles of juicy dates lie in crates alongside the street. Other Iftar foods include fried sweets like gulab jamen, pastries stuffed with meats and spices, and lentil cakes and salads. Below is a picture of my dinner tonight – fresh from the Iftar street stall! It’s spiced lentils (very spiced!) with cucumber, tomato, coriander and chilli. Delicious.

Ramadan ends with Eid-al-Fitr, where people dress in their best clothes, visit their families in the villages, share gifts and decorate their homes.

The Washington Post also has this fantastic photo slide of people celebrating Ramadan around the world.

It’s almost two weeks since my plane touched down in Dhaka, Bangladesh, but I already feel like I’ve spent about a month here.

Dhaka is a crazy and exciting city, and finding a house, doing intensive Bangla langauge lessons and embracing the Deshi way of life have all made for an even more exciting start!

I’ve arrived at the end of monsoon season, and while I haven’t yet experienced any heavy flooding (or cyclones!), there is water and greenery and mud everywhere, making me decide that the most apt description I can give to Dhaka is that it’s a great big puddle of chaos and colour.

Here are some of the things that have made me fall in love with Bangladesh since I’ve arrived (I’m sure this is the beginning of a very long list…)

Cha

Most roadside food stalls sell cha, the Bangladeshi equivalent of chai. It’s made with condensed milk instead of the usual milk and sugar, and the result is a sugar high almost as good as caffeine!

Cha always comes in adorable little glass cups that contain about five small sips, so drinking it is a very dainty process given the surrounds of dirty Dhaka! There’s usually a pipe or bench or table nearby to sit on, and it’s an endlessly fascinating way to spend an afternoon – sipping cha, reading the newspaper, and watching the CNG and rickshaw-wallahs chat loudly while they take a cha break. I hope that soon my Bangla gets good enough to understand what they’re saying!

Salwar Kameez and Sarees

The Salwar Kameez (here they pronounce the S sound as SH) is the traditional dress for Bangladeshi women, and they take it as an opportunity to represent every colour of the rainbow! There are three pieces: loose pants tied with a drawstring, a loose-fitting long shirt, and an orna, or scarf. It’s a surprisingly comfortable and cool way to dress in Dhaka’s hot and humid climate. It’s like spending the day in your favourite pair of pyjamas!

I also bought a beautiful green saree for special occasions, although wearing it is another matter altogether – I had to visit a special shop just to help me tie it!

The girl in this salwar kameez would probably get a lot of sideways glances if she wore that on a street in Dhaka. The SKs most women wear are much less fitted and have sleeves. The orna usually covers a bit more too!

Bangla time

Time moves at a different pace here – it’s like entering a dream land where an afternoon could take six years or six minutes to pass by. The local way to measure time reflects this and there are two main phrases that people use when they need to talk about it: everything takes either ten minutes or seven days.

So..

While househunting: How long until the apartment will be ready to move into?

Only seven days! (The real answer should be minimum seven days)

While stuck in traffic: How long until we reach our destination?

Just ten minutes! (More likely two hours – it takes about an hour to travel a couple of kilometres here)

While waiting for a saree blouse to be made at the tailor’s: How long will it take to finish the blouse?

Ten minutes. (Probably seven more days)

I’ve found that the only response is to embrace the dream-like approach to time and let things happen in their own time. Perhaps when I return to Australia I’ll be a more patient person!!

Deshis

The local people, Deshis, are extremely open and generous. Within five minutes, they’ve told you about their children, their hometown, their political views and they’ve invited you to dinner next week!

For all the cliches about Bangladesh being an unlucky and down-trodden nation, the people are incredibly resilient and highly intellectual. They are what make this such an incredible place to be.

And while it’s no oasis, there are a few things I’ve noticed that point to Bangladesh being quite a forward-thinking country.

Did you know, for example, that it was Bengali man Rabindranath Tagore who penned India’s national anthem? Or that the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader are both women? Or that plastic bags are almost completely banned here, and petrol and diesel vehicles are banned in Dhaka?

I won’t start my work at Hunger Free World until Sunday (Friday and Saturday are the weekend days here) but I am excited to see what more I will learn about this amazing country and its people over the coming months.

The quaint village of Moon Hill sits about 10 minutes out of Yangshuo. Named for the famous crescent shape etched into the mountain behind the village, it is a beautiful and welcome retreat from busy and crowded China. I’m staying in the Yangshuo Village Inn, which is a delightful eco-lodge tucked amongst the hills and mist.

The region is known for its ethereal karst peaks, which rise from the landscape dramatically, shrouded in lush jungle.

One of the most beautiful sites to visit is Longji Ping’an, known for its amazing rice terraces perched high above the valley below.

Another beautiful spot is the famed Li River, which can be found on the back of the 20 yuan note. Today I took a boat to Yangdi, a tiny village beside the river that has definitely not kept pace with the rest of China’s modernisation!

Being here offers an insight into such a different way of life, and it’s a welcome change from the chaotic urban pace. I suspect a lot of Chinese people feel the same way since Yangshuo itself is inundated with local tourists keen to see some green grass and blue skies!