SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 4, 2005
Sasha (right), with Hunger Project staff member
Supriya Banavalikar and a student at a school in Dhaka.
My trip to India and Bangladesh
By Sasha S. Stomberg-Firestein
I am now on the plane to Dhaka, Bangladesh. My mom told me that people try to grab your suitcases and make you pay money to get them back. I hope that doesn’t happen.
When we got off the plane we went through customs and got our luggage. Then we got in a line to go outside. We were the only females without men there. A man came over to us and told us that we could go outside. When we got outside, there were people with bamboo sticks and machine guns everywhere. No one tried to grab my suitcase, though. The air smelled like cheap gasoline exhaust.
There was a paint chipped fence all around and there were people all along the perimeter with their hands in through the fence. One man only had one leg and they were all incredibly thin.
We walked around for a long time looking for a sign that said THE HUNGER PROJECT. We couldn’t find one. Finally a man came up to us and asked us what we were looking for. We told him the name of our hotel and he called it and walked away. A few minutes later, another man came up to us and took us to our hotel.
The journey there was not at all like Singapore. There were people standing every where on the highways and groups of children stood everywhere. People knocked on our windows and held up whatever they were selling. Every one was really thin. When we got to the hotel, I collapsed and slept until 3 in the afternoon the next day.
When I got up, we went to the office. When I walked in, I expected it to be nice and cool but instead, it was just as hot as it had been outside. We met a lot of people and then we went to a shop where they sold native decorations, cards, saris and many other things.
We also saw a movie of the typical life of a girl child in Bangladesh. In the first scene, a woman walked in with a baby that was just born. Instead of being happy, every one was really disappointed because it wasn’t a boy. In another scene, the mother had only one lump of fish. She gave it to the boy and dribbled the excess liquid on to the girl’s plate. The girl threw the plate away angrily and hung her head.
Then we drove to the school. We passed boys without any clothes at all and girls without any shirts. Everyone stared into the windows of our car. When we got out, there were a lot of people walking barefoot over the mucky streets and garbage heaps. A few people had cheap flip-flops. Then we walked into the school. It was made of corrugated metal and bamboo sticks. On the floor was a weaved floor mat and under it was only hard concrete. It was the size of a large bathroom but 40 children were sitting there despite the size of the school.
When I came in, everyone started staring at me. I didn’t mind, though. A girl that was shorter than me was thirteen. All of the children are short here because they are malnourished from birth. I was given a tin of lollipops to give out. Normally, I would have wanted one, too but now, it wasn’t even on my mind. It just made me so happy to give something to people who had so little.
One boy was coughing a lot and a girl had a big bruise on her face. Then they sang a lot of songs for us. It was really beautiful and someone told me that these are the songs that they sing to someone that is very important. I felt very honored. Then, my mom and I sang the ABC’s for them just because we were asked to and they all looked at us strangely. I didn’t blame them. It was really off-key.
At the end, we drew stuff for them on the black board. Then, when we left, everyone followed us until we got to the car and when we got inside. They stared into the windows. On the way back, we were stuck in traffic on the highway. A woman walked up to our car and knocked on the window. She had a tiny baby over her shoulder and they were both very thin. When we got back we ate dinner. Then, I made paper boats for all of them and made two books. One was of the American alphabet and one of my American life. Then I went to bed.
The next day we got up and went to the school again because the airport had gone on strike and no one from the rest of the group could get in. It was a younger group of children and they all had pieces of paper and pencils ready. Then teachers would ask the children in Bangla what they wanted me to draw, tell me, and I would draw it for them.
Then they would color it. It was so fun to do something for them, make something for them. Then, I read the books I had made to them. Then, I handed out the boats. After that, I sat down and showed them all how I made a paper crane. I left the books and the crane in the class room.
When we got back, we ate lunch and met the rest of the group. Then we went to a meeting on animators training. Animators training is a class for mostly women. Here in Bangladesh and in India, the women and girls don’t get fed enough, don’t get to make their own decisions, get married off at age twelve or thirteen, don’t get to go to school, and don’t get the government’s support if their husbands beat them.
The first day or two they get really mad because before, they are so used to being mistreated that they don’t even see that they are mistreated. But then, they start learning how they can take action and change it. So, we went to a meeting about that and lots of people who had been trained spoke. Then we went back to the hotel.
Today we got up at five in the morning. I was really tired and I didn’t want to get up. We got into a van and went to a lot of villages. Some were mobilized and some weren’t. In the immobilized villages, there were garbage heaps everywhere and the women were not present. In the mobilized villages, everything is nice and clean.
We met a girl today that was twelve. She was married and she said that she was 18. She had been told to lie about her age. Then the husband came out of the crowed. He was 25. He said that she was 25. They didn’t even have the lie straight.
Once when we were walking from a village, a man came up to me. This is how the conversation went.
Man: Where is your father?
Me: At home.
Man: Doesn’t he work?
My mom: Yes, and so do I. We share the household responsibilities equally.
Man: Aren’t you sad to have two daughters and no sons? {right in front of me!}
My mom: No, I am very happy to have two daughters.
The man kept on coming back and asking the same questions. This was because everyone is so used to woman and girls being worthless and men being awesome and having all the power.
Wherever we went, we just kept on getting flowers. By the end of the day, all of the flowers we had collected wouldn’t even fit in a hotel water glass. We had to cram them into the ice jug. They barely even fit there. Also, everyone was always staring at me. A lot of them asked me my name, or just shook my hand and said,” Thank you.”
In the second village, all of the children did a play against girl child young marriage. The match maker came, and they got married. The young girl got pregnant and died. The baby died, too. Then a girl came out and told us about how she had gotten beaten by her husband and when she went back to her family for help, they turned her away.
On the way back, there was a stampede of water buffalo in the street. They kept on ramming into our bus and rocking it. It was really funny.
Today is national girl child day! It is a holiday that the Hunger Project made to celebrate the living and being of the girl child and go against young marriage, not going to school, and malnourishment. I put on the sari that I had gotten at the store with native clothing and things like that. Then we went to the parade. I got to be in the front with the other Bangladeshi girls.
Even though my sari almost came off and my shoes got muddy and soaked in muddy water, it was still so much fun. After that I shook what must have been at least one hundred hands. Then, we went to a meeting about national girl child day. A mentally disabled girl sang a really beautiful song. After that, we went back to the hotel and took a nap.
When we woke up, we went to Bedial’s house. He is the head of the Hunger Project in Bangladesh. The food was really good and I loved the okra and rice. When we got back we went to bed.
Today we went down to breakfast after being awakened by a loud killer wake up call. I had rice, spinach, poori bread, and chamomile tea. It was really good. Then we went to a village and sat through a reception. There were a lot of speeches in Bangla and two songs. A girl shorter than me but probably older made a speech and won one of the debating awards.
When we got back we hung out for a little while and then went to the airport. Everything took a really long time. When we got to Delhi it was so different from Bangladesh. It was so much richer. My mom said that this richness is only in the city of Delhi. When we go to the villages it will be poorer. When we got to the hotel room we went right to sleep.
Today we woke up and went down to breakfast. Then we got on a bus and went to two huge beautiful tombs. There were tons of animals. In the first one, there were absolutely HUGE ants. I saw one that was about two centimeters long!
On the way there, we saw a lot of cows. They walk around freely in India because most of the population is Hindu and in Hindu culture, cows are sacred. Sometimes, they walk across the street when the light is red and sit in the middle of the street.
In the second tomb, there was a green parrot perched on a bend in the design in the dome. There were also bats. We went into this room and there were about fifty bats just stuck to the wall. A few flew around and I could see their faces really well.
On the way back, there was a water bug in the channel of water leading to the fountain. It was huge and it looked somewhat like a beetle with it’s head in the upper part of it’s body.
We also saw these awesome bees. One was regular and one had really pretty colors. They were both really big. They landed on the water and then they flew away. We also saw squirrels that looked like chipmunks except they had bushy tails. We also saw regular gray squirrels except they didn’t have bushy tails. There were also hawks that flew around and landed on trees.
After the tombs, we ate lunch at George Mathew’s house. Then we took a nap and went swimming. After that we went to an awards ceremony and had dinner. When we came back we went to bed.
Today we got up and went to the airport and flew to Pune. When we got there, we went to a village. We were greeted with a huge ceremony. There were people with drums and doing dances and it was really amazing. They put Bindis on our foreheads. That is what Hindus believe to be the third eye and it sees more than just physical things.
After that we went to a reception and then we saw a temple. Ganesh was there. He is a god with an elephant head. His father cut off his head not knowing it was him so he put an elephant head on him. He is the god that Hindus pray to for luck and when they start something new. They also pray to him daily.
Then, we told some people about New York and saw someone’s house. They had a bed as a couch and they slept on the floor. They had a tiny TV which is unusual. But the most amazing thing was that they had buffalos in the house! I tried to milk one. I thought it would be easy, like a cow but it was so hard that I couldn’t get a drop out!
Then I got to pet the baby buffalo. It was really cute and really soft. When we got back to the hotel I went to bed.
Today I got up and we went to a meeting in the city. In the middle of it someone took me to the local school. At break, the students and I there asked each other questions. Then I learned to write a few things in Hindu. Then we went to the airport and went to Singapore. The next three days my mom worked there and I came to the office with her.
Before people told me how lucky I was but I never really thought about it until now. Like how lucky I am to live in a home and go to school and have parents and eat enough not to be hungry and all of those everyday things that you wouldn’t think to be lucky.