Working it out

It's not all trips to Dhaka to eat bacon burgers and lounging in my huge apartment for me here in Chittagong. A girls gotta work!

Although two months into work here and I still feel extremely new and muddling my way trying to figuring out the best way to complete my assignment objectives and produce something useful. Much of the time I'm sitting at my desk in an office, and I sometimes feel like i could be in an office anywhere....well, apart from the power going out 5 times a day and the being personally delivered cha and sweets to my desk by our office cha waller bit!

But then there are days when I am out in the field visiting project sites, and I feel totally humbled and like this is the coolest job ever. I get to see the on the ground results of where international World Vision sponsorship dollars are going. Meeting community members who are gushing with pride at their new tube well, or sanitary latrine! It's beyond humbling. 

Last week I was out in an urban fringe community in Chittagong, and met with a community WASH committee, established by World Vision to be the community drivers for teaching good sanitation and hygiene practices in their community. 

When I arrived with the local WV staff, the women in the WASH committee were all sitting on mats under a tree in the common area of their community waiting for us. A little different to my work site visits in Australia!

During the meeting the women proudly showed me a map (hard to see in the picture below) they had drawn of their community, which included all 538 family houses and each latrine. They then had a colour coded system and key, which marked the latrines that were hygienic, non-hygienic and open pits. It was very detailed! They are planning on using the map as a start for their hygiene education and for planning upgrades to the sanitation facilities in the community. Very inspiring to see them taking the initiative for their own community!

We then took a walk through the community and I was shown the tube wells that were installed three years ago by WV. There is always a big line up for the tube wells, as after lots of education, the community are aware that the wells are the only safe source of drinking water available.

As I arrived there was a gathering of women waiting for water, and as soon as I pulled my camera out the guy in the picture jumped in front to demonstrate the working well. But the lady pictured totally busted him! She came up  to me and the other WV staff after and showed us her blisters that she gets from pumping the well every day - and accused the man of never doing any real work and just pretending to be helpful for the camera! Ouch.

And of course, as everywhere in Bangladesh, there were plenty of kids eager to check out the bideshi! This particular gorgeous girl following me throughout the community for the two hours I was there! 

So even though I'm still working it all out, I'm pretty thankful that the sitting at the desk bit is only part of the job!