http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Bangladesh en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:23:33 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:23:33 +0000 First and foremost. Drumroll pleasehellip..Kiva Fellowship You are reading the blog of a member of Kiva Fellow class number 13. Please visit my site kivacharlie.wordpress.com if you havenrsquot already done so to read about why I have decided to take an unpaid position working with Kiva a microfinance nonprofit for a year. Along those lines I am actively soliciting donations to make this http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Khulna/blog-453849.html Began to find that you and I agree that the king of costeffective nike dunk high I am searching through the large and small shops but also not willing to even Ikea has also gone. Repeatedly collecting is not the result melted away in fact each person has a mind of its own costking in my eyes is the value of what might be dismissive of someone else's. Again escape the people's pursuit an http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-440439.html The concept of Community portal and the Social Networking portal is quite difference.. A community portal where Members privacy do not keep Secure as a Social Networking site. That's why the Social Networking site is going to be more popular day by day... bdspot is a complete social networking portal where members privacy keep Secure. Some of the Applications of bdspot areNow you can listen live http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/Dhaka/blog-429657.html Be carefull I think thats illegal.make sure it's a blank dvd. put the disk in and click something similar to open folders then get your youtube video files and just copy and past via drag and drop.Good luckltpgtlta hrefhttpwww.pavtube.commkvconvertermacgtMac MKV Converterltagt a professional conversion tool running on mac os x can convert mkv with excellent output qua http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/blog-429328.html Welcome to Bangladesh Cowboy Country for BackpackersBangladesh is the real deal. If you want to know what you are made of you come here. I have found myself describing India to the other interns here at the Grameen Bank as 'too touristy'. Once you get into it I think that most would agree but from your desk chair in the Western World I can see how that might raise an eyebrow or two. One great http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/Dhaka/blog-427859.html What initially drew me to Grameen Bank was the potential of microcredit to challenge traditional attitudes towards gender equity. The goal of the microcredit summit campaign was not simply to reach women but empower them. This meant developing micro and macrolevel strategies to achieve gender equality in power rights and resources. Yet empowerment is a culturally specific word. A young f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/blog-413342.html Saying goodbye to a place is always a surprising revelation in the way that you feel about your experiences there. As the days leading up to my last trips to Barisal passed and as my final days in Bangladesh slip through my hands now I found myself wondering how I would react to the end of my time here. I arrived in Bangladesh just over a year ago. I stepped off the plane into Dhaka on the morn http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-411407.html It is almost impossible in these parts to not take up a number of causes and issues outside of your official realm of obligation. In a beautiful country full of sweet and welcoming people many of whom live in very challenging circumstances it is inevitable that we end up investing energy in ldquoside projects.rdquo Ashley for example has a relationship with a community in the lake region o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-407824.html 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 n http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/blog-407446.html Brought to you by my once lost and now returned camera chargerFinally the video of our sea plane landing. It's a decent view of the landscape but hold out for the end of the video when you can see children from the nearest village running along the banks to see what has just landed in their river.The second video is a new favorite of mine and gives a sense of that enchantedforest type feeli http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-405124.html Biking Through the Tea Estates 290509 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Sylhet/blog-403796.html In a coincidental and tragic followup to two of the blogs I published recently Cyclone AILA hit the southern coast of Bangladesh last week washing out dozens of villages like the ones I wrote about two weeks ago and producing more climate refugees. I was actually due to go to Barisal on a launch boat the night that Aila hit but the country has a good tracking system and I was told that ther http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-403456.html Social BusinessLast week I traveled with three other interns to visit some of Grameenrsquos 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/blog-402610.html I'm still waiting for the arrival of my digital camera charger so in the meantime I've been digging through the archives of things I never shared. Here is a video I took on a boat crossing the Meghna river. The scene is full of fairly typical Bangladeshi things women with varying degrees of head coverings a beggar crying babies staring children and adults. You can also see Hena sitting in http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/blog-401839.html Today I caught a special on Al Jazeera's 101 East programa feature dedicated to investigating the issue of climate refugees and whether more developed nations have a responsibility to those who are displaced by the effects of climate change. The narrative follows a man from the southern coast of Bangladesha man who like the people we met last week in Bhola has lost everything he owned afte http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-400210.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/blog-400034.html 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 manrsquos 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 dominan http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/blog-399485.html 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 doubt http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/blog-399426.html Day 2I 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 onersquos possessions could be so easily destroyed. My Indian friend Daashan asked me earlier that day if I would like to take a ricksh http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Dhaka/blog-399239.html Parendi and I typically travel in middle class style to Barisalwe take an overnight launch from Dhaka's main port Sadar Ghat sleeping in a hired double cabin that usually comes with AC sometimes has functional fans and always has curtains to shut out the peering passengers and curious boys who work on the boat. The older of the boats have suspiciously stained sheets and families of cockroac http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Bangladesh/Barisal/blog-399134.html