I was hired as an “Advisor.” (Oh, in 1990, wasn’t I too young for that?? It felt good, definitely). A team of national male engineers and hydrogeologists were already recruited. I was the only Bangladeshi-woman in the band–– a public health/communication professional.
“Always wear a sharee (saree) . . . look mature. You’ve to establish authority over these ‘bygone’, corrupt engineers,” a warning from my veteran female-referee. I had just completed a qualitative investigation on female garment workers’ empowerment––an assignment from University of Sussex, UK, solicited by her daughter.
I was required to undertake extensive travels to remote towns, districts, villages. Hanging latrines and poor sanitation burdened the nation.
Those days very few women worked in WASH––there was hardly any woman in
high ranking positions to engage in “piss-shit” business. I warmed up to the idea of jostling with Dino-engineers!
My first focus was listening and learning from village women––what they thought about sanitary latrines, hygiene, how they perceived their roles as leaders of their own household-WASH approaches. Women covered their noses with the end of their sharee whenever I mentioned “paikhana” ––the common word for shit and latrine.
These women touched my heart with their honesty, innocence and laughter. We had many back yard meetings under mango or jack fruit trees, sitting on the date-leaf mats on lazy mornings, long afternoons.
We had lots of fun . . .
“Chool poira gesey? Mathai ghee diso (Hair fell off? Used butter-oil in hair)?” A kind elderly matron gently touched my (stylish) henna-highlighted short hair . . .
The women had poor access to information.
“Do you listen to radio?” I inquired. They did. They didn’t have any preferences regarding programs.
“Polar bapey Jaa shuney . . . (whatever son’s father listens to),” was the response.
We wanted the women to make two crucial decisions––identify the spots for their water pumps and sanitary latrines.
After each meeting, I took time to peep into their existing hanging latrines/toilets. They followed behind, nose covered, giggling––falling on each other in mirth. A modern woman from Dhaka talking about shit, and examining latrines were horrendously absurd.
My strategy document was widely appreciated by DPHE and the Dutch team. I was offered a 5-year contract to implement it. I agreed to a yearly contract––wasn’t ready to drop all my chances in the “shitty-business.”
(National male recruits complained about the prejudicial treatment of them by the Dutch. They treated me differently––with respect).
We used to travel in a team in the office Pajero-jeep. One time during full monsoon, we headed towards Khulna, the port town, de-routing through additional towns on the way. Two DPHE engineers and our Dutch team leader Jupp was with us. The engineers got down at their local office while Jupp and I proceeded towards the Royal hotel––the only one with considerable modern amenities and clean rooms. We braced the rain and high wind and the water-filled potholes.
“One room?” the manager repeated though we had asked for two separate rooms. It felt awkward.
On a rain drenched late night his imagination went bonkers. However, he gave us rooms on opposite ends of the corridor––far away from each other. He took it on himself to safeguard a Bengalee woman’s honor! . . . I believe he stationed a porter in the back ground to keep an eye.
Except for hotels run by Parjatan, the government tourism branch, Bangladeshi-women, alone, couldn’t check in at any hotels. Female foreign nationals when checked alone required to produce proper documentation from their agencies. International hotels in Dhaka had different regulations.
. . . A bigger national team joined us, included 2 women consultants. The Pajero took us around the country, except for Bhola district. We travelled by steamers to Bhola.
Our team organized big meetings in the townhalls in each district we visited. the civil surgeon was in charge of summoning participants. They were government officials from health, education, agriculture, DPHE––very few women, mainly school teachers. A retired, elderly DPHE engineer was the heart of our team. We called him “Nana (grand pa).” Sometimes we spread out for individual meetings with relevant officials. Nana and I usually paired up.
“Do you know how much shit we consume yearly?” This was nana’s favorite opening line. “About 2 KGS.”
The audience gasped. Nana was like a magician––weaving the messages with shocking flavor of facts. And I was an added enigma in the world of latrines and sanitation. We drew big crowds.
At the end of the day, we came back to the government-circuit (guest) house––present in almost every district. The cost of meals was shared. Sometimes DPHE engineers joined.
. . . To develop my strategy, I peeped into 300 hanging latrines––did I mention?!
Photos 1 & 2: Caption: Hanging Latrines
(Courtesy: Internet)
Thanks for this – so evocative of the sounds, sights and smells (particularly !) of Bangladesh. If I had been introduced to this short haired, henna highlighted consultant, I am sure I would have asked if you’d been standing on a chair to clean the electric punka (ceiling fan for the uninitiated) when someone turned it on ?
ReplyDeleteI had the good fortune to arrive in Bangladesh when a latrine project, using 5 different types of latrines, needed to be evaluated. DPHE was only interested in knowing whether the latrines had lasted – but nothing about what the users thought of them – so I set up a questionnaire for the purpose. Two of the latrines had collapsed while occupied, so there was little to be learned about that, but on close questioning, we saw that adult women would use any latrine that provided good privacy while very young children did quite the opposite because they needed the security of being seen by mother. This told us that future programmes would do well to try to introduce latrines inside the house, satisfying both women and small kids. This was easily possible with twin indirect pits, but required quite a lot of publicity to make them acceptable.
I spent quite a lot of time on field trips during my time in Bangladesh leaving me with some good memories of the Dak Bungalows about bed-tea (which I never got at home. . . .); bed bugs which rarely troubled me (was it the garlic I ate ?); and, surprisingly, borer beetles which made so much noise at night that I had at times to move wooden furniture outside so I could sleep. And then there was the jack-fruit. I never did discover what the attraction was for that, or for durian. Can you enlighten me ?
One of my best memories of Bangladesh was of our helper, Jahangir Hussein, who started tentatively as a part-time mali (gardener); then was promoted to full time mali; later becoming cook, bearer, mali, shopper supreme (he never charged us more than 10%), and he (with our Alsatian who thought that Jahangir was the best thing ever) would check the freshwater crabs that were sold door to door in Banani by scattering them and only choosing the ones which ran faster than the others – so must be fresh. Jahangir taught me the philosophy of Bengali democracy – “Vote early; vote often !”
It was a privilege to have been asked to work in Bangladesh - to have experienced a society rise from the disasters of war, famine and floods, and yet still prevail. Bangladesh zindabad (except when they are playing cricket against England) !
Dear Ken,
ReplyDeletemany thanks for your comments and interesting reflections (it could become a column by itself).
By the way, we threw away "zindabad" with the Pakistani regime––we now say "Joi Bangla (Invictus Bengal)!!