XUNICEF blog readers may have missed some photos of Jim Grant’s first visit to Bangladesh in 1980. Click here to see the article. which, for me, was like jumping from the frying pan right into the furnace. I had only joined UNICEF a few weeks before he and Liv Ullmann, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, arrived. If I looked a little overwhelmed, I had reason !
One of the activities that Liv Ullmann was taken to see was the ‘sinking of a tubewell’ as it was deemed to be a good photo-opportunity. Ms Ullmann wasn’t going to let that stop her from trying out what the Bangladeshi mistrys (name given to skilled workers or master-craftsmen in specialised sectors) were doing by hand to ‘sink’ the inlet tube to a handpump at anything up to 250 to 300 feet deep.
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In the photo, there is the WES section technical assistant – Majid - holding the chair on which Liv Uhllmann was standing, pretending to be a Bangladeshi mistry. Majid was given a copy of the photo of which he was immensely proud, but it was relegated to the back of the door after some wag had asked Majid what his right arm was doing in the photo ? Nevertheless, it remained in the WES Section for the full five years that I worked in Dhaka.
Majid was a very good worker, industrious, honest and I considered myself fortunate to have had him as a WES section colleague. He was a devout Muslim, praying as enjoined by Islam, but in such a way that it never interfered with the work.
Soon after the high level visiting team had departed from Bangladesh, the section was plunged into creating a replacement for handpumps needed for deeper applications – which later became known as the Tara Handpump. A description of meeting with Tim Journey – which started the process - may be found here: https://xunicefnewsandviews.blogspot.com/2022/07/technical-cooperation-with-difference.html
On one particular day, I was working together with Majid on a demo model of the Tara being placed in front of the UNICEF office in Dhanmondi, Dhaka, and everything was proceeding as per plan except that the pump-rod (a plastic pipe sealed at both ends, full of air so it could ‘float’) was actually not full of air because there was a leak in one joint. Try as I could, I found it impossible to seal the joint properly as we still didn’t have the right glue for the purpose so, being a specialist in glue-and-a-bit-of-string solutions, I thought that a suitably modified condom – with the end neatly snipped off – might do the trick. The question was, where to find condoms ?
Family Planning was being promoted along the lines of family spacing (later promoted strongly by Jim Grant), so that condoms were freely available. Only, I needed the language to ask for them, so I turned to Majid and asked him if he could please get some for us – for the work, that is. Majid was severely challenged by this idea, but I reassured him that God would know what they were to be used for, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Against his better judgement, Majid complied and soon I had the condoms and was able to seal the leaking joint, and demonstrate what Tim Journey had predicted, that it was easy to pump.
God happy, but Majid not entirely convinced.
Today, condoms are no longer needed as the pump-rod joints are all sealed with suitable adhesives.
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When I suggested that the condom joint story might not be suitable for the delicate sensitivities of the XUNICEF readership, I was rebuffed. After all, I was told that one of the editors had had experience seeing children carrying water in condoms very frequently, showing that they could withstand some pretty testing duties. I had fleeting visions of children being recruited to carry water to prove the duty-worthiness of the product but rejected the idea lest some busybody would point out that this was child-labour. You can’t win them all.
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They say that ‘Curiosity killed the cat’. . . . .and I wondered whether Mr Google could help us out in a search for condoms used for carrying water ? Accordingly, I sought Google images and entered a search-string: ‘condoms + carrying water’. Try it. Truly amazing. It further appears that condoms can be life savers as well: https://www.instructables.com/Ten-Unusual-Uses-for-a-Condom-That-Can-Save-Your-L/
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When I suggested that the condom joint story might not be suitable for the delicate sensitivities of the XUNICEF readership, I was rebuffed. After all, I was told that one of the editors had had experience seeing children carrying water in condoms very frequently, showing that they could withstand some pretty testing duties. I had fleeting visions of children being recruited to carry water to prove the duty-worthiness of the product but rejected the idea lest some busybody would point out that this was child-labour. You can’t win them all.
*****
They say that ‘Curiosity killed the cat’. . . . .and I wondered whether Mr Google could help us out in a search for condoms used for carrying water ? Accordingly, I sought Google images and entered a search-string: ‘condoms + carrying water’. Try it. Truly amazing. It further appears that condoms can be life savers as well: https://www.instructables.com/Ten-Unusual-Uses-for-a-Condom-That-Can-Save-Your-L/
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Ken Gibbs can be contacted via kengibbs1941@gmail.com
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