Drama in Bangladesh
12 January 2007, AM
My phone beeps twice at 7.30am…. 2 messages, I thought…. Who would send me smses at this hour….. After all, this is my Bangladeshi line, and everyone should still be asleep, as being a Friday, it is the start to the weekend in this Muslim country….
Groggily, I reach for the phone…. Open the messages…. Oh, its my manager from home…. With more updates….. No, I’m being told the teams are to stay where we are as the situation has now improved with the resignation of the acting President of Bangladesh…. Sigh…..
2 minutes later, my phone rings, its my EY colleague from another team located 100 km from us, asking me, now what….. a few smses to the team and the manager, followed by a phone conversation with the same manager followed….. we are now staying in Bangladesh, to continue with work for today, and we will wait till the afternoon to see how things are before we make the decision on what to do next….
All this uncertainty…. All the strain and stress has returned, two fold in fact…. I’m not happy, very much distressed, and worried for my safety, as well as that of the team….. with us breaking up into 4 teams to cover more areas also makes it more difficult to stay connected with each other…. I cant contact the 4th team, I can only hope that he has received my smses, as he has not responded to any of my attempts to get in touch with him…..
I’m so tired of this country, my morale is now non-existant….. If my last trip here in July was tough, what with the lousy weather, frequent electricity cuts and horrible living and working conditions, this audit has turned out to be a god-damned nightmare….. What on earth did we do to deserve all of this…. Why aren’t we being brought back home…..
11 January 2007, PM
We were informed that a nationwide curfew had been put in place, everyone is to be indoors from 11pm to 5am…. Not that it would affect us, we should be back in our quarters by then…. Worse come to worse, we would just bring work back with us and work in our bedrooms…. So it would be business as usual….
Or so we thought…. It was a surprise when I received a call from one of the other teams, informing us that his driver had been notified by someone at the client’s head office to bring us back to Dhaka tomorrow morning…. a lot of confusion followed, and many phonecalls later, it turns out that the situation in Dhaka had deteriorated to such an extent that the client felt that it was too risky for us to stay out performing the audit, hence the decision to bring us back to Dhaka, and even possibly sending us home…..
As we have already started the audit, the general feeling among the team members is to finish it off, so we wont have to come back up north here again…. However, in our conversation with one of the branch staff of the client here, we were informed that the northern region of Bangladesh where we are now stationed is the opposition strong area, hence the likelihood of further violence spreading from Dhaka and arriving here where we are is very real…..
Several more phonecalls home to our manager later, we were told to pack our bags and return to Dhaka tomorrow morning, and take the next available flight home….. well, so that is that then we thought, I could feel the tension within me since we arrived in the midst of all this conflict slowly subside….
Oh, and to celebrate the decision to return, the 2 teams played badminton for the rest of the night J
11 January 2007, AM
Delighted screams greeted us upon our arrival at the village households…. Our purpose of the visit is to verify the asset transfer process of cows, chickens and goats to the beneficiaries of the poverty reduction programme that we’re auditing…. Of course the screams were from the kids, who were really excited to see us…. As we left the car, they stared at our 4 wheel drive, fascinated by their own reflection, staring back at them…. With silly grins over the dirt covered faces….
Their natural curiosity also got the better of them, and they started to walk after us… everywhere we go…. The adults would try shoo-ing them away, and they would scatter in multiple directions before reassembling around us again in 3 minutes…..
As we were walking around the villages, I also observed the behaviour of the livestock…. The little chicks would follow their mother everywhere, and mimic her every move…. Every scratch on the ground followed by a peck by mummy would be imitated by all her chicks….. However, 2 ducklings adopted by a hen though behaved very differently, with the mother having to follow her lil kids…. They moved as a pair everywhere, and unlike the chicks, showed no fear, waddling in between people with little hesitation….. The chicks and ducklings were so cute….. the simple things that would make me smile if I were someone who lived in these villages…..
10 January 2007
We moved out of Dhaka with a feeling of trepidation, would the demonstrations that were so active (and violent) over the past 3 days affect us? The last thing we wanted is to be caught in the political crossfire and get into trouble….
So it was with great relief that we moved out of Dhaka without coming into contact with any demonstrations…. We were luckier than our manager, who got stuck in many demonstrations on her way to the airport….apparently, she saw people getting beaten by the police….
Once we left Dhaka, I relaxed, and tried to enjoy the sights…. As I was on my way to regions that I had gone to previously in July, hence the sights were familiar, and not so exciting…..
We stopped by in Bogra for lunch with the other 3 teams….. it was a tiring 4 hour drive, but good to still be with the rest of the EY team…. From there, it was another 4 hour drive to the northern region of Rangpur together with another team…… we will spend the night here at the Training Centre before moving onto villages 75 km from here…..
However, the announcement of travel restrictions due to the unstable political situation means that we have to readjust our working schedule and work a lot faster….. we somehow have to shave off around 4 days off our schedule in order to return to Dhaka before the next nationwide blockade on the 21 January, which is the eve of the national elections…..
I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes…..
My phone beeps twice at 7.30am…. 2 messages, I thought…. Who would send me smses at this hour….. After all, this is my Bangladeshi line, and everyone should still be asleep, as being a Friday, it is the start to the weekend in this Muslim country….
Groggily, I reach for the phone…. Open the messages…. Oh, its my manager from home…. With more updates….. No, I’m being told the teams are to stay where we are as the situation has now improved with the resignation of the acting President of Bangladesh…. Sigh…..
2 minutes later, my phone rings, its my EY colleague from another team located 100 km from us, asking me, now what….. a few smses to the team and the manager, followed by a phone conversation with the same manager followed….. we are now staying in Bangladesh, to continue with work for today, and we will wait till the afternoon to see how things are before we make the decision on what to do next….
All this uncertainty…. All the strain and stress has returned, two fold in fact…. I’m not happy, very much distressed, and worried for my safety, as well as that of the team….. with us breaking up into 4 teams to cover more areas also makes it more difficult to stay connected with each other…. I cant contact the 4th team, I can only hope that he has received my smses, as he has not responded to any of my attempts to get in touch with him…..
I’m so tired of this country, my morale is now non-existant….. If my last trip here in July was tough, what with the lousy weather, frequent electricity cuts and horrible living and working conditions, this audit has turned out to be a god-damned nightmare….. What on earth did we do to deserve all of this…. Why aren’t we being brought back home…..
11 January 2007, PM
We were informed that a nationwide curfew had been put in place, everyone is to be indoors from 11pm to 5am…. Not that it would affect us, we should be back in our quarters by then…. Worse come to worse, we would just bring work back with us and work in our bedrooms…. So it would be business as usual….
Or so we thought…. It was a surprise when I received a call from one of the other teams, informing us that his driver had been notified by someone at the client’s head office to bring us back to Dhaka tomorrow morning…. a lot of confusion followed, and many phonecalls later, it turns out that the situation in Dhaka had deteriorated to such an extent that the client felt that it was too risky for us to stay out performing the audit, hence the decision to bring us back to Dhaka, and even possibly sending us home…..
As we have already started the audit, the general feeling among the team members is to finish it off, so we wont have to come back up north here again…. However, in our conversation with one of the branch staff of the client here, we were informed that the northern region of Bangladesh where we are now stationed is the opposition strong area, hence the likelihood of further violence spreading from Dhaka and arriving here where we are is very real…..
Several more phonecalls home to our manager later, we were told to pack our bags and return to Dhaka tomorrow morning, and take the next available flight home….. well, so that is that then we thought, I could feel the tension within me since we arrived in the midst of all this conflict slowly subside….
Oh, and to celebrate the decision to return, the 2 teams played badminton for the rest of the night J
11 January 2007, AM
Delighted screams greeted us upon our arrival at the village households…. Our purpose of the visit is to verify the asset transfer process of cows, chickens and goats to the beneficiaries of the poverty reduction programme that we’re auditing…. Of course the screams were from the kids, who were really excited to see us…. As we left the car, they stared at our 4 wheel drive, fascinated by their own reflection, staring back at them…. With silly grins over the dirt covered faces….
Their natural curiosity also got the better of them, and they started to walk after us… everywhere we go…. The adults would try shoo-ing them away, and they would scatter in multiple directions before reassembling around us again in 3 minutes…..
As we were walking around the villages, I also observed the behaviour of the livestock…. The little chicks would follow their mother everywhere, and mimic her every move…. Every scratch on the ground followed by a peck by mummy would be imitated by all her chicks….. However, 2 ducklings adopted by a hen though behaved very differently, with the mother having to follow her lil kids…. They moved as a pair everywhere, and unlike the chicks, showed no fear, waddling in between people with little hesitation….. The chicks and ducklings were so cute….. the simple things that would make me smile if I were someone who lived in these villages…..
10 January 2007
We moved out of Dhaka with a feeling of trepidation, would the demonstrations that were so active (and violent) over the past 3 days affect us? The last thing we wanted is to be caught in the political crossfire and get into trouble….
So it was with great relief that we moved out of Dhaka without coming into contact with any demonstrations…. We were luckier than our manager, who got stuck in many demonstrations on her way to the airport….apparently, she saw people getting beaten by the police….
Once we left Dhaka, I relaxed, and tried to enjoy the sights…. As I was on my way to regions that I had gone to previously in July, hence the sights were familiar, and not so exciting…..
We stopped by in Bogra for lunch with the other 3 teams….. it was a tiring 4 hour drive, but good to still be with the rest of the EY team…. From there, it was another 4 hour drive to the northern region of Rangpur together with another team…… we will spend the night here at the Training Centre before moving onto villages 75 km from here…..
However, the announcement of travel restrictions due to the unstable political situation means that we have to readjust our working schedule and work a lot faster….. we somehow have to shave off around 4 days off our schedule in order to return to Dhaka before the next nationwide blockade on the 21 January, which is the eve of the national elections…..
I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes…..
posted by zufar | 10:52 PM
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