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Published: June 16th 2007
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Hello - not much time for writing this time as I have been pretty busy. Here's a quick run of the week:
So, Bangladesh has been living up to its stereotype and producing gallons and gallons of rainwater, which is flooding the land, and producing those classic pictures of thathched roofs just above the water-line that once we could watch from the nice dryness of our couches.
Every day I journey either one or two hours to a camp (depending on which one), and then the same distance back to Cox's Bazar at the end of the day. We drive down the narrow penisula at the bottom of Bangla, to land that is closer to Myanmar than the rest of the country.
Consequently last week, the whole field team - all 12 of us - discovered that after our full day's work in the camps, we were trapped by floodwater submerging the road. About to try the only other road, we were warned there were rampaging wild elephants a few kilometres down it. Geez, I hate it when that happens! In the end there was nothing for it but to high tail it all the way back
down the peninsula, past the camps, to the Ne Thaung hotel - oh ye of no electricity and many many mosquitoes. Making the adventure even more difficult, Tun Nyo, Soo-Eun and I were soaked to the skin and shivering, even in the heat. We had got stuck in a rain shower in the camp that had laughed at our little umbrellas and hit us from all sides as we desperatley tried to be 'community' workers (as opposed to 'sit-in-office' ones). As if the job wasn't hard enough! Still, we were smiling even as we felt fevers hovering on the horizon. The obvious antidote was 'buy a lungi' - an ingenious piece of cotton cloth reminiscent of sarongs, that all the men in Bangladesh wear - yes, David Beckam was pipped to the post about a hundred years ago! Anyway, Soo-Eun and I got dry and challenged gender stereotypes in one evening - brilliant!
Since then though, Soo-Eun's been a bit ill with 'gastric' (that's Banglish!) and fever, so Tun Nyo and I have been flat-out in the camps trying to round up and confirm the speakers for world refugee day - no mean feat when its pouring with rain.
This means everyone's shelter's leaking - understandably a greater concern to most than speaking on Wednesday. Also, most women only have one burqua, which they don't want to get wetm and for most people, including us UNHCR workers, getting soaking wet equals getting a fever. Still, we had umbrellas and will-power ahoy! We split up and I did the things that only required english, whilst Tun Nyo sped off to do slightly more complicated wranglings, using his Burmese and Bangla to good effect. My task on Thursday was to hand out umbrellas and bags to the newly qualified refugee community awareness raisers, who had just finished their training on topics ranging from safe motherhood to AIDS from a Chittagong-based NGO. Soo-Eun was invited initially, and then they asked Lo, the Thai senior protection officer of UNHCR. When he couldn't make it they desperately asked for a UNHCR representative, and got me. uIn a country obsessed with hierarchy, this probably wasn't met with much approval, but they treated me with 'appropriate' decorum, and I attempted to act the part. In a farcical scenario, with all the rain in the world beating on the corrugated iron roof, and no transalator, I was
asked to give an impromptu speech.After double checking that this was what I was supposed to do, I set off talking about how it takes a few committed individuals to start change etc, in a room that, with eyes closed, could've passed for the engine room of an oil tanker. Noone heard me, which was probably no bad thing. I like to think they took something from my manic smile and animated gestures. ach well, they got pretty umbrellas at least.
Enjoy the pis. World Refugee Day is on Wednesday and we are B U S Y! I was in my element today, working with a group of refugee my-agers on a play for the day that they'd written about a man who marries too many times (down with polygamy!). The all-male drama group have actually managed to recruit two women (no 'recruitment' needed actually, they were dying to be involved) which is an exciting first. I put my acting shoes on again today when I was asked to show them all how to act like someone dying from swallowing poison! Brilliant! It went down well (not the poison -although i did get a mouthful of savlon. There's always
a little drip left!), so well that someone recorded me on their cell-phone. I hope that;s not round the camps in a week. How embarassing!
Ok, over and out. My french flatmate Carine (lovely, 25, interested in v similar things, speaks Burmese and Nepali and runs an NGO in Nepal - jealous, moi?! lol) is awaiting for us to go eat little fried fish. Its been a long day...
loads of the love stuff
Iona xxx
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Vicky
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Fishy girl
Ok so I found your blog again. My brain is totally fried but not as fried as that fishy looks! Are you actually eating fish now? Ha ha! You're not a late person or a fussy eater out of the UK then? So good to see photos of your day. And I thought Scotland sucked re: weather! Have a good day chick. x