Blog Fail - Sorry!!!

I have proven to be a poor excuse of a blogger and have not written a new post for a month now.  I have been focusing my energy on posting my pictures to Facebook, which takes a surprising amount of time.

Here are some thoughts about what Katia & I have been doing for the past month:

-We went to a Bangla wedding (a clinician friend of mine got married) and we got to wear beatiful saris, bangles, earrings and hennaed our hands
-We ran a workshop on how to use the screening audiometers that we brought from Canada.  We taught local speech language therapists and students.
-I worked at the face paint table at CRP's Open Day (basically a big festival where the public comes to see CRP)
-We performed a traditional Bangla dance and a Western line dance (Cadillac Ranch, baby!!!) in front of a massive crowd, despite the fact that I had been puking a couple of hours before.
-We have worked with stroke patients at both the Savar and the Mirpur CRP sites, working on acquired language disorders, motor speech problems and swallowing disorders
-We went on a speech department retreat to the Chittagong area of Bangladesh where we went on an absolutely stunning boat ride, shopped, ate lunch in a restaurant hanging over the edge of a cliff (supported by bamboo stilts) and went to a Buddhist temple.
-We went on a tour of Old Dhaka - including a boat ride on the blackest/stinkiest river I have EVER seen and going to a Mother Teresa house for children where a class of children sang for us


THINGS I WILL HAVE TO RETRAIN MYSELF TO DO WHEN I'M BACK IN CANADA

-pass people on the right side (because they drive on the left side of the street they also veer to the left when passing each other on the sidewalk)
-flick the light switch up, not down
-say "SLP" not "SLT"


FINAL THOUGHTS:
I have one week left in Bangladesh and I have had a truly memorable time here.  I feel that I have made some true friends here and have had experiences that will stay with me for life.  I would love to come back here in a couple of years and teach the SLT students.

SLTs, SLT students & foreign volunteers on our trip to Chittagong area

How beautiful are they?

Bideshis at Shuvolong

Wheeeeeee!!!!!!

Things I Love About Bangladesh

1.  The Bangla people:  Everybody here is so welcoming, warm and generous.  I have learned not to say to a Bangla person "Oh, I really like that ____! Where can I buy one for myself?" because they will give you theirs.  Sometimes their interest in foreigners can be taxing, as we are stared at EVERYWHERE we go and they tend to have a different sense of privacy (ie: standing right behind you to look while you work or Skype on your computer).  But overall, people here are absolutely lovely.  And the Bangla Speech Therapists are so committed and work so hard to get this fledgling department off the ground.

2.  The foreign people:  People who come to Bangladesh to volunteer at CRP tend to be adventurous, compassionate, wildly interesting people.  Everyone is interested in learning and experiencing new things every day.  They come from all over the globe - Holland, Germany, Britain, Australia, Canada, the USA.  They have so many stories and are involved in various projects.

3.  Taking time to enjoy the little things in life:  Away from my Western life, it is much easier to enjoy little tasks throughout the day such as doing the dishes or buying toilet paper.  This leads me to my next favourite thing which is....

4.  Hot bucket showers:  This is one of the small tasks in my day that brings me immense pleasure.  It's different than at home where you just turn on the shower and you're ready.  Sure, the water back home is instantly hot... but I think that I prefer the bucket.  First of all, you fill a large pot with water and light the gas stove to heat it up.  This way, there's more anticipation about the shower you're about to have.  The water gets hotter and hotter and it's a lovely feeling.  Once it's boiling you pour the water into a bucket, mix it with a bunch of cold water from the tap until it's perfect bathing temperature.  Then you just ladle it over yourself.  This may sound strange, but it is seriously one of the highlights of my day.

5.  CRP:  Every single person who sets foot inside these gates seems to realize that this is a special, sacred place.  I haven't heard of much theft here, nobody fights, nobody causes any harm.  Everybody recognizes that we are all working together to create good for people.  I have heard people call CRP an "oasis" and I think that this is a perfect way to describe it.  And of course, CRP wouldn't be CRP without Valerie Taylor, the founder of this center.  She is one of the most lovely souls I have ever met in my life.  She is compassionate, welcoming and dedicated.

6.  Rickshaw Rides:  Although road travel is hair-raisingly terrifying, it still is very pleasant to zip around the streets of Savar or Dhaka in a rickshaw pulled by bicycle.  It costs 10 taka (about 14 cents) and these very slender yet amazingly strong men cycle you to where you want to go.

7.  The Colours:  Although it is winter in Bangladesh right now and the greenery isn't as lush as it usually is, the streets are still bursting with colour due to the beautiful fabrics that they wear and the intricately painted trucks and rickshaws.

8.  The new SLT (speech-language therapy) department: I know I already kind of mentioned them above, but you have to understand that the people running the speech department here are the FIRST speech-language graduates EVER in Bangladesh.  These people are starting this health field from the ground up, which takes massive amounts of courage, dedication and vision.  They still don't have all the resources that they need to do their job, but they make do with what they have and they advocate to get the resources they need.  I am so, so proud of the work that they are doing here.

9.  Pearls:  Ok, this is a less serious one.  I just went pearl shopping the other day and they are beautiful and cheap.  And I love them. :)

10.  Learning the Language:  When I went to Ghana everybody spoke English to me, so there was no real need to learn Ewe (although I wish that I did).  In B-desh, a bunch of people speak English but many do not, or don't speak it well.  As I mentioned before, I'm also doing language therapy here, so it is very important that I know some of their language!!  I now know the words for many everyday objects, many everyday phrases and we're even learning verb conjugation.  Katia & I have a great time being language/linguistics nerds during our language classes with Mizan, who is also a Linguistics nerd. :)  

Girls' Day Off In The City!!!!

This past Friday was our day off, so our roommates Joy (from Holland) and Najma (from Germany) took us into Dhaka.

It was a fabulous day.  We shopped (I bought a new shalwar kameez to wear, a shawl, various bags and pillow covers), ate KFC (can you believe it?) for lunch, brownies & milkshakes for dessert and we went to the Western grocery store to buy some supplies for home.  I bought pasta & sauce, yogurt, hand soap, chips, apples and more!!

I still can't get my bearings in Dhaka and I can't remember the directions to any of the places that we went (I can barely make it around Savar, which is smaller!!) but I bought a map for the next time Katia & I go back if we don't have our lovely tour guides with us.

All in all a great day off!!!  Instead of catching the bus home (which costs about 50 cents for an hour ride) we took a cab (which costs 400 taka or  $5.75 for an hour ride - although even this was overcharging because he left the meter on and it came to 300 taka or $4.25.  You may ask yourself - why does it matter?  It only $1.25! But you quickly learn when you're traveling that it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing. :)   Joy, our seasoned barterer, tried talking him down, but to no avail.)

                On the bus to the Golshan area of Dhaka: left to right = half of Joy, Najma, me, Katia

                                                                Shopping for bangles!!!!!!!

ShiShu Polli Plus

Yesterday we went to a very inspiring place called ShiShu Polli Plus.

It is a home for women and children when the husband is no longer in the picture (dead, abandoned them, etc...).  It gives these people a second chance to get back on their feet instead of ending up poor and on the streets.

They also have about 30 orphans there and some special needs children.

They support these women and children for 5 years.  In this time they feed and educate the children and they teach the women a vocational skill (shop keeping, embroidery, etc...)  The women receive pocket money, half of which they can use for themselves and their children, half of which goes into a bank account for them so that they have some money to kickstart their new life once they leave SSPP.

They currently have about 120 women and 300 children living on the campus.

Our guide, a highly articulate bright young man named Prodip, revealed that he grew up at ShiShu Polli Plus and now he works there!  It was so nice to see how a place like this can allow children to grow up into extremely intelligent, compassionate people.

They have sleeping rooms for the various age groups, school rooms, dining halls, gardens where they grow the vegetables they eat (we even saw a black pepper tree!  And a papaya tree!) as well as a pond where they raise the fish they eat!

At ShiShu Polli Plus, they also make homemade paper which they turn into beautiful greeting cards.  These cards are decorated with embroidery, bamboo.... they are really lovely.  They even had a writeup in a UK newspaper calling them the best Christmas cards!

If you would like to check out this place (and order some cards for next Christmas!) you can check out their website at http://www.sreepurvillage.org/

Everyone there was so lovely and friendly.  It was worth 2 and a half hours each way on CRAZY bumpy roads and dusty dusty air. :)

Some of the beautiful kids at ShiShu Polli Plus

Prodip showing us around their gardens.  He is a perfect example of how a child growing up at SSPP can grow up to be very bright and articulate!

Rolling Back Home - Peter Donnelly

There a young man from Britain here was is in a wheelchair due to a motor bike accident he had 4 years ago.
He is organizing a fundraiser called "Rolling Back Home" where he will travel from Bangladesh back to Britain all by himself.  He will take trains, buses and his own manpower.  Needless to say, things here aren't as wheelchair accessible as they are in North America, so it will be a challenge.

I've seen this guy hold onto the back of a rickshaw and go barrelling down the streets - he's fearless!!!

All of the money raised goes to supporting the work done here at CRP - which is in itself amazing and inspiring.  They give care to spinal cord patients, children with cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, Autism, stroke patients, head trauma patients and much more.  They give medical care, life skills training, vocational training and education to special needs children.

Check out Peter's webpage and donate to this extremely worthy cause if the spirit moves you!

http://www.justgiving.com/rollingbackhome

Learning the Language

So you may be thinking to yourself "How do these Canadian SLP students plan on doing language therapy with clients who speak a different language??"
Good question.  If you know the answer, I'd love to hear it! :)

Basically, we're going to get things done with a mixture of learning some functional Bengali (we have actually learned quite a lot in the first week we've been here) and using Bangla people as translators.

At other placements of mine, orientation involved learning the policies and procedures of the institution/clinician, not learning an entirely different language!!  Needless to say, this is a challenging but amazing experience.

We have language lessons with the volunteer coordinator, Mizan, three times a week.  As well, we are constantly asking our clinicians and ayah (person who takes care of us at the guesthouse) about how to say various words and phrases.

I know that you're itching to join me in learning Bengali, so here it is - Shannon's Bengali 101!!!

My name is _____                       Amar nam Shannon
I'm from Canada                          Amar desh Canada
Greeting (Muslim)                       Assalam aleikum
Greeting (Hindu)                         Nohmohshkahr

There's another phrase in my book about something like "The monkey stole it from me", which is my favourite, but I forgot to copy it down so that I could share it with everyone in blog world.  I will give you the translation at a later date!

Peds & Adult Neuro

Katia & I have begun to settle in to our work here - she's starting in Adult Neuro and I'm starting in Pediatrics.  Halfway through we're going to switch.

The people who run the SLT (Speech Language Therapy) department here are amazing.  They are, in fact, the FIRST SLTs in all of Bangladesh.  They are the first graduating class from the program here at CRP and have only been on the job for 7 months now.  So up to this point CRP has only had speech services from visiting foreign clinicians.  These clinicians are young but very very inspiring.  They are working so hard to get this program on its feet.

The clinician I'm working with in Peds is named Monami (yes, as in "my friend" in French).  She's very sweet and bubbly and I love her to death.  

The clinician Katia's working with in Adult Neuro is named Mitu and she is extremely bright, competent and friendly.

I've been able to participate in some sessions, but sometimes I don't even know what I'm saying!! I just listen to the little rhyme or words that Monami is teaching the child, then I take a turn and repeat it (and ask LATER what exactly it was that I was saying).

That being said, we are working very hard to pick up Bengali and I don't doubt that by the end I'll have a fair bit of language to help me get by.

At one point, a client had just arrived and I was sitting in the room with them for a good 8 minutes before Monami came in to start the session.  Not knowing what to do, I dug through the box of picture cards, frantically looking for ANY word that I know in Bengali.  Mahss! (Fish)  Bhat!! (Rice) Cahtah!! (Fork)

This is definitely a much different placement than the ones I've had before and it takes a lot of creativity and problem solving.

A Few Pics of Our Guesthouse Apartment

 This is our bedroom.  Katia's bed is on the left and mine is the orange blanketed one on the right.

 Doc likes it here too!!

 This is the communal area for our 3 bedrom apartement.  Off to the left (unseen) is a TV.  We watch movies, Friends, How I Met Your Mother and (ugh) the Bachelor.

 Our bathroom.  To shower you can turn on the overhead tap or the waist high tap and bend over to wash your hair.  OR you can fill that bucket up with boiling water and add cold water to fill it up and ladle it over yourself with the small red pitcher.  HEAVEN.

 Our kitchen.  Gas stove in the left of the picture, fridge (unseen) beside it, the white thing in the bottom right is a clothes washer that looks like a giant bread maker.

Frooto!!! (Mango juice).  The Bengali word for mango is "ahm" (because I know you were dying to find out)

Rickshaw Rides & New Clothes!

The other day we went for our very first rickshaw ride.  We were heading to Savar Baazar to pick out fabric for our new shalwar kameez.  We were accompanied by Shemoly (sp?) who is the woman who takes care of us at the guesthouse.  She cooks amazing vegetable curries, chicken, rice, flatbread.... so delish!

I'm glad she was with us for our first ride so that we could learn the ropes.  Fitting 3 people on a rickshaw is tight, but it works when you know the secret configuration.  Then you hold on tight and off you go through the streets of Savar.  A rickshaw ride here costs only about 25 cents.

Then when we disembarked, we were faced with a new first - crossing a street in Bangladesh.  Again, it was so nice to have Shemoly there.  She literally held our hands the whole time and expertly guided us across the lines of cars, rickshaws and buses.

Inside Savar Bazaar (a shopping mall), Shemoly took us to a fabric store where they invited us to sit and point at the fabric that we would like to see.  With so many vibrant colours and intricate designs to choose from, it was a little overwhelming!!  But Katia & I both found some very nice fabric for our new outfits.  I splurged a little by buying some fabric that was a little more expensive (Shemoly commented that my musician husband must be very rich!!).
I'm really looking forward to having new clothes since I've been wearing the same shalwar kameez since I got here.

I'm off to attempt my first warm shower - you boil water on the stove, put it in a bucket, combine it with cold water to fill the bucket, then ladle it over yourself.  It should be a nice treat!

Then later today my supervisor arrives from Canada!

First Days in BangBang

Well, we made it!  I met up with Katia in the Dubai airport and we arrived safe and sound at the Dhaka airport, where we had to endure a couple of excruciating hours in line at immigration but we made it through.  I was a little worried that my bags had been riding the baggage carousel for hours while I was in line and I hoped that they hadn't been nicked.  But it all worked out.

Then when we got out to the arrivals area, nobody was there to pick us up! And the phone number we had for CRP wasn't the correct one.  So after wandering around and asking people for help we were set up with a reliable cab driver who took us to CRP.  The ride in was crazy - the drivers here are RIDICULOUS.  Driving on one side of the street is optional (it seems) and there are so many cars, buses, trucks, rickshaws and pedestrians all vying for space.

We arrived at CRP where everyone is really lovely and helpful.  We met Valerie Taylor, who is a British physiotherapist who founded CRP.  She is such a interesting and welcoming person.  We also met Mizan who helped us to settle in.  It's amazing here how a good proportion of the staff here have some kind of disability.  So many staff members are on crutches or wheelchairs, and they manage very well.

After a delicious dinner of rice and curried vegetables, Katia and I unpacked and then lay down to have a nap - that turned into a long long sleep (12 hours).  I woke up at 5:30am when all of the mosques started their calls to worship.  It's a truly beautiful way to wake up.  I plan on recording some of the calls on my digital recorder.

This morning I had a very cold shower and we went to the administration building to check out the internet situation.  It actually works very well and I'll be able to communicate well with people back home.  Skype even seems to work alright!

Then we went on a tour of CRP with Mizan - what an amazing place! We saw the hospital, the PT, OT & SLT (speech and language THERAPY) departments, halfway houses for reintegration of patients into their old lives, special needs school, rehab professionals institute, vocational training (where the patients learn a new trade like tailoring, electronics, etc...) and much much more.

Today will be another day of settling in. We'll have lunch with our fellow guesthousers (there are people here from the US, Holland, England, Australia, Germany and probably more) at 1 pm, then we might go out to see if we can have some more clothes made.

Everybody here is so interested to learn where we're from and find out what we're doing.  I think I'm going to have a fabulous time here!

First Post - Off I Go!!!

My trip to Bangladesh is finally here!!
I'm uber excited to go but it's always hard to say the goodbyes at the airport.
But I'm sure that once I fly for many many hours I will be too tired to be sad.

I wore my winter clothes to the airport but then left them with my parents because I WON'T NEED THEM!  That's right.  I'm headed to 20-something weather, escaping the dismal Canadian January and February.  I must say, that is one of the huge perks of this trip.

My next stop is London, England where I land and Heathrow then have to take a shuttle bus to Gatwick.

Missing my family, missing my husband.... but this is going to be an amazing experience, so it's definitely worth it.