Dinajpur
I made my first trip to Dinajpur five months ago to visit Novara Technical School, an institution run by an Italian Catholic missionary organization called PIME. The company I work for, TAC, had recently given birth to TAC Social, a social responsibility department that has since evolved into an entire business concept for a socially conscious brand of clothing. The first major project of TAC Social is a training program, funded with the help of one of our clients, to help people in a rural area access employment in the garment industry. We had contacted NTS as a potential partner for our project and I was visiting the school to check out the facilities and finalize the partnership.
I left Dhaka at 5am that morning in a truck with Brother Massimo, the school’s director, at the wheel. This is no small feat. Driving the streets of Dhaka and the ‘highways’ of the rest of the country takes as much skill as it does guts. Fortunately, Massimo has learned how to do two things very well in his 7 years in Bangladesh: speak like a Bangladeshi and drive like a Bangladeshi. He managed not only to weave in and around the rickshaws, pedestrians, bicycles, cows, buses and overloaded trucks racing down the two lanes of potholes called highways, but to talk nonchalantly in Bangla on his mobile phone at the same time!
The journey took 6 hours and included one ritual break at Food Village, the roadside pit stop for anyone looking for something resembling a toilet or a restaurant, and a short walk around an incredible Banyan tree housing Hindu shrines in various stages of decay. The rest of the trip was nothing but endless rice paddies and miles of green bananas being sold on the side of the road. Literally miles.
NTS is easy to describe. Quite simply, it is an oasis of calm and order in the desert of chaos that is Bangladesh. It is a place impervious to noise, disorder and dishevelment. Its large compound is spotlessly clean, its teachers are hardworking and its students well behaved. It’s a fantastic place run by fantastic people. Together, Massimo and his colleagues run an incredibly successful technical boarding school offering three-year courses in carpentry, electrics, mechanics and auto mechanics, an active parish, a boarding facility for girls, and an elementary school for 800 students, 300 of whom they also offer boarding.
Massimo gave me tour of the school where I got to see the students in both their morning theory classes and their afternoon practical classes, housed in four large and well-equipped workshops. Upon entering the carpentry workshop, the familiar smell of freshly cut wood and the sight of machines I had forgotten like long lost friends made me consider asking Massimo if he needed a permanent teacher’s assistant! Finally, we looked at the two classrooms that the school was offering us for our course and, although they were empty, it was exciting simply to be in the space in which our project would eventually be realized.
During that first visit I also got to watch a school football game, visit an ancient Hindu temple, see silk cocoons turned into beautiful saris and go for a sunset stroll around a nearby lake/pond (comically referred to in Bangla as "the ocean"). And most importantly, I got to spend my evenings at the PIME house with all the Brothers and Fathers, some of whom were just visiting and others who live there permanently. As an apathetic agnostic/atheist (I haven’t even put in the effort to decide exactly what I am), I felt incredibly comfortable in the company devout Catholics who are as happy (if not more) to talk about football or action movies as they are about the Church.
Last week I returned to Dinajpur briefly to finalize some details and now I am back for 10 days to oversee the start of the course. In the last two days, everything has come alive. The machines have arrived and are making real, live whirring noises. I have gotten to know the voices and faces of the teachers who will be guiding students through the jungles of Math, English, Life Skills and, of course, Sewing. But best of all, I have seen the smiles of sheer delight on the faces of the 12 girls who have been accepted into the course. Two of them even went so far as to rush over to me to kiss my hand!
Unfortunately, there were also some unhappy faces as we posted the selection list at 5:30pm today. After a morning of English and Math tests and an afternoon of interviews, some girls were inevitably disappointed. I was amazed by the determination each girl had to pursue the course. There was one girl we chose not to take partly because she was so bright that we felt it was better for her, at 15, to continue her studies and try to reach an even higher level of employment down the road. Even when Massimo mimed the act of taking her brains out and stomping on them, to emphasize the stupidity of such a smart girl dropping out of school, she continued to plead, tearfully, to be let into the course.
It was also interesting to observe the character of Bangladeshi women in the presence of myself, Massimo and two Bangladeshi male teachers. I’ve never seen such…meekness as that of women in this country. In fact the only women I’ve ever met with real attitude and strength of character were a group of prostitutes in a correctional facility I visited in Sylhet. Women are gaining influence and achieving more each day, but there is still a ubiquitous submissiveness to gendered social norms by both sexes.
There were splashes of humour when the girls were asked to write some words in English on the black board. My personal favourite was “Hap Neular” for Happy New Year. The gravity of some of the faults shed light on how absolutely inane the English language is when it comes to spelling. I could see girls courageously and sensibly trying to ‘think’ their way through how to spell a word and I just had to shake my head and concede they didn’t have a chance. Thinking through words led to ‘taknikel’ (technical) and ‘situle’ (stool). It also made me think back to all the spelling bees I went through as a child and imagine what it would have been like without them...
In addition to feeling spirited by the onset of the training course, I’m once again enjoying the company of Massimo and the rest of the Brothers and Fathers at the PIME house here. On this third visit, we have taken to spending our evenings playing Briscola, a popular Italian card game that I am slowly getting the hang of. A little whisky seems to make the game go more smoothly. It also helps fend off the invasive cold. It’s freezing here. Okay, so it’s actually about 12 C, but without any form of heat that’s as good as freezing. I’m wearing every layer I brought with me and still shivering. I’m tempted to wrap myself up in a burlap sack, like they do to the cows, and see if it helps. Or start tying a scarf around my head, granny-style, to fit in with the latest in winter fashion. For now I’ll take advantage of the fact that it’s time for bed and jump under the covers.
I left Dhaka at 5am that morning in a truck with Brother Massimo, the school’s director, at the wheel. This is no small feat. Driving the streets of Dhaka and the ‘highways’ of the rest of the country takes as much skill as it does guts. Fortunately, Massimo has learned how to do two things very well in his 7 years in Bangladesh: speak like a Bangladeshi and drive like a Bangladeshi. He managed not only to weave in and around the rickshaws, pedestrians, bicycles, cows, buses and overloaded trucks racing down the two lanes of potholes called highways, but to talk nonchalantly in Bangla on his mobile phone at the same time!
The journey took 6 hours and included one ritual break at Food Village, the roadside pit stop for anyone looking for something resembling a toilet or a restaurant, and a short walk around an incredible Banyan tree housing Hindu shrines in various stages of decay. The rest of the trip was nothing but endless rice paddies and miles of green bananas being sold on the side of the road. Literally miles.
NTS is easy to describe. Quite simply, it is an oasis of calm and order in the desert of chaos that is Bangladesh. It is a place impervious to noise, disorder and dishevelment. Its large compound is spotlessly clean, its teachers are hardworking and its students well behaved. It’s a fantastic place run by fantastic people. Together, Massimo and his colleagues run an incredibly successful technical boarding school offering three-year courses in carpentry, electrics, mechanics and auto mechanics, an active parish, a boarding facility for girls, and an elementary school for 800 students, 300 of whom they also offer boarding.
Massimo gave me tour of the school where I got to see the students in both their morning theory classes and their afternoon practical classes, housed in four large and well-equipped workshops. Upon entering the carpentry workshop, the familiar smell of freshly cut wood and the sight of machines I had forgotten like long lost friends made me consider asking Massimo if he needed a permanent teacher’s assistant! Finally, we looked at the two classrooms that the school was offering us for our course and, although they were empty, it was exciting simply to be in the space in which our project would eventually be realized.
During that first visit I also got to watch a school football game, visit an ancient Hindu temple, see silk cocoons turned into beautiful saris and go for a sunset stroll around a nearby lake/pond (comically referred to in Bangla as "the ocean"). And most importantly, I got to spend my evenings at the PIME house with all the Brothers and Fathers, some of whom were just visiting and others who live there permanently. As an apathetic agnostic/atheist (I haven’t even put in the effort to decide exactly what I am), I felt incredibly comfortable in the company devout Catholics who are as happy (if not more) to talk about football or action movies as they are about the Church.
Last week I returned to Dinajpur briefly to finalize some details and now I am back for 10 days to oversee the start of the course. In the last two days, everything has come alive. The machines have arrived and are making real, live whirring noises. I have gotten to know the voices and faces of the teachers who will be guiding students through the jungles of Math, English, Life Skills and, of course, Sewing. But best of all, I have seen the smiles of sheer delight on the faces of the 12 girls who have been accepted into the course. Two of them even went so far as to rush over to me to kiss my hand!
Unfortunately, there were also some unhappy faces as we posted the selection list at 5:30pm today. After a morning of English and Math tests and an afternoon of interviews, some girls were inevitably disappointed. I was amazed by the determination each girl had to pursue the course. There was one girl we chose not to take partly because she was so bright that we felt it was better for her, at 15, to continue her studies and try to reach an even higher level of employment down the road. Even when Massimo mimed the act of taking her brains out and stomping on them, to emphasize the stupidity of such a smart girl dropping out of school, she continued to plead, tearfully, to be let into the course.
It was also interesting to observe the character of Bangladeshi women in the presence of myself, Massimo and two Bangladeshi male teachers. I’ve never seen such…meekness as that of women in this country. In fact the only women I’ve ever met with real attitude and strength of character were a group of prostitutes in a correctional facility I visited in Sylhet. Women are gaining influence and achieving more each day, but there is still a ubiquitous submissiveness to gendered social norms by both sexes.
There were splashes of humour when the girls were asked to write some words in English on the black board. My personal favourite was “Hap Neular” for Happy New Year. The gravity of some of the faults shed light on how absolutely inane the English language is when it comes to spelling. I could see girls courageously and sensibly trying to ‘think’ their way through how to spell a word and I just had to shake my head and concede they didn’t have a chance. Thinking through words led to ‘taknikel’ (technical) and ‘situle’ (stool). It also made me think back to all the spelling bees I went through as a child and imagine what it would have been like without them...
In addition to feeling spirited by the onset of the training course, I’m once again enjoying the company of Massimo and the rest of the Brothers and Fathers at the PIME house here. On this third visit, we have taken to spending our evenings playing Briscola, a popular Italian card game that I am slowly getting the hang of. A little whisky seems to make the game go more smoothly. It also helps fend off the invasive cold. It’s freezing here. Okay, so it’s actually about 12 C, but without any form of heat that’s as good as freezing. I’m wearing every layer I brought with me and still shivering. I’m tempted to wrap myself up in a burlap sack, like they do to the cows, and see if it helps. Or start tying a scarf around my head, granny-style, to fit in with the latest in winter fashion. For now I’ll take advantage of the fact that it’s time for bed and jump under the covers.
posted by ash at 9:06 PM
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