What initially drew me to Grameen Bank was the potential of micro-credit to challenge traditional attitudes towards gender equity. The goal of the micro-credit summit campaign was not simply to reach women but empower them. This meant developing micro- and macro-level strategies to achieve gender equality in power, rights and resources. Yet, empowerment is a culturally specific word. A young female receiving a liberal arts education in the west has a much different understanding of empowerment as compared to an uneducated woman growing up in a rural village. Therefore, until I could answe [View Full Entry]

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There is no such thing as a typical day at Grameen, which has been a source of both excitement and frustration. I quickly learned that if I wanted to make the most of this experience, I could not stand around waiting for others to make plans. Persistence has been the key and while many interns, unaccustomed to such a relaxed environment, have slipped through the cracks, I have somehow managed to find work and to make myself useful. Walking into the Head Office the first day, I was hyper-sensitive to how I was treated in relation to my male colleagues, and [View Full Entry]

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Initially, my plan for last weekend was to visit the Sundarbans and take a relaxing boat ride through the beautiful Bangladeshi jungle. But due to Cyclone Aila, which killed over 200 people and left thousands without homes or clean water, I knew I could not enjoy being a tourist amidst so much pain and destruction. Looking at the front page of the Bangladeshi newspaper, I grew frustrated that neither the government nor the private sector was doing much to help. Suffering has become such a daily reality for the people that the government no longer bothers declaring the country in a [View Full Entry]

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Biking Through the Tea Estates- 29/05/09 This morning I woke up thinking it would be a mellow day bike riding through the tea estates of Sylhet. However, I am quickly learning that nothing in Bangladesh is easy or relaxing. The bike shopkeeper was supposed to deliver fifteen bikes for the interns at 9 am to the Nirala Guesthouse. Of course, when we walked downstairs in the morning there was no one waiting. Two hours later, after much sweating and negotiation, we had fifteen shoddy bikes and a tour guide who neither spoke English nor knew the area. Heading out to Lowacherra [View Full Entry]

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Social Business: Last week I traveled with three other interns to visit some of Grameen’s sister companies. We drove five hours to the conservative town of Bogra, stopping first at Grameen Danone. Professor Yunus recently published his book Creating a World Without Poverty about the project with Danone. Basically, the French yogurt company approached Yunus looking for a way to market their company as a global institution that cares about the world’s poor. Yunus proposed the idea of a social business, or a company whose main focus is helping others rather than making a profit. [View Full Entry]

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I was talking to one of the employees of Grameen over tea about how interns always seek information about the problems with the banking system. Before recognizing the successes, they immediately want to discuss the challenges. I explained that this was part of Western culture. We are taught in school to be critical of everything brought before us and to deconstruct all arguments. I also think it partly has to do with the egocentric notion of the East needing the West’s help. However, after attending my first borrower’s meeting in a rural village today, I realized that while Gr [View Full Entry]

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I am having trouble writing about what I saw today. I love the intensity and sharp contours of the Bangladeshi lifestyle but what I witness daily is also hard to process. Entering Old Dhaka, I stepped into a world where a man’s body is abused for a small cost and where forgetting who and where you are is not an option. The narrow streets are places in which man and steel fight for dominance. Rickshaws, taxis and pedestrians push ever more forward in the hopes of gaining a few more inches, while on the sidelines, narrow waisted men move melting soil [View Full Entry]

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I really wanted a homestay experience in order to make the most of this trip, so I went to tripadvisor.com and posted a comment asking if anyone knew of how I could get in touch with a family. A man emailed me back telling me I could stay with his sister. I readily agreed but was nevertheless suspicious of this kind of offer. However, once I arrived in Dhaka and met up with the family, my doubts vanished about their authenticity. I am now staying in a little apartment on a street that ceases to exist on google maps. The father [View Full Entry]

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Day 2 I watched as a bus smashed into the side of a rickshaw today. The first thought that crossed my mind was whether or not the man was harmed and then to how the driver would survive without his source of livelihood. It is disheartening to think that all of one’s possessions could be so easily destroyed. My Indian friend Daashan asked me earlier that day if I would like to take a rickshaw to the downtown area. I hesitated, explaining my discomfort in having someone peddle me around and explained that in America, this would be seen as a [View Full Entry]

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The beginning of my trip to Bangladesh went smoothly. I first flew from Boston to London, where I sat next to a medical supplies salesman who elaborated about his adventures getting sick in India and dodging the aggressive traffic. Even so, his stories only increased my excitement and I read through the entire Lonely Planet book (a convenient 150 pages). The second leg of my journey caused some anxiety. Once the plane landed, I had 75 minutes to make my connecting flight to Delhi; however, by the time I used the bathroom, walked across the terminal and re-entered security, I [View Full Entry]

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