To family following this, please stay tuned throughout this long post because it's probably the one time I'll fully explain the pillars of my future career ;)

 “The only place where poverty should be is in museums”—Muhammad Yunus

Coming to such a world-renowned organization such as Grameen I really wanted to try and prevent myself from being a Grameen groupie, thinking that no organization could actually be as wonderful as the media captures it. However, it’s becoming really difficult. Every single aspect I have come across during our time here, I have been amazed at the humility, brilliance and passion woven into the whole bank and its sister companies. As the first month of Grameen internships are designed as an exposure medium we have moved beyond solely their micro-credit programs, and now are focusing on their social businesses for the time being. It is actually a refreshing change of pace, because despite my love and belief in microfinance, nothing gets me more excited than the idea of blending traditional business into the search to fulfill social objectives.

Our first meeting today was at the Yunus Centre on the 16^th floor of the bank’s building. Founded in 2008 by Dr. Yunus to efficiently handle the influx of attention from the international community after his Nobel prize in 2006, the Yunus Centre is primarily a resource for potential social business practitioners. We were given a presentation by the assistant managing director, Sharif who explained that the centre exists to promote social business worldwide. He began to paint the picture of the world I have moved into, a world where 90% of the population lives below the 2USD a day poverty line, and 50% live under the 1.25USD benchmark. An environment where 41.3% of the children under the age of 5 are underweight and malnourished, while the nation grapples with naturally occurring arsenic water and disasters, a vulnerability to world food prices, and a government that achieves very little good change for the majority of the people.  

The Yunus Centre’s vision is centralized around turning Dr. Yunus’ dream of putting poverty into ‘poverty museums’ by 2050. Museums where he believes children will go to see pictures of what we allowed to happen to humanity, and ask us why and how. Its mission is to promote and assist in the development of social business to reach this ambitious goal in only 40 years time.

For those unfamiliar to the centre’s work, its key assignments are as follows:

 1. Build itself as a centre of social business through promotion, the creation of centres worldwide, and partnerships with various institutes and chairs. They also work to promote and assist in the creation of social business funds, and aid in the creation of social business partnerships.

2. Their International secretariat handles Yunus’  international scheduling, media, press releases, and the Yunus Centre website

3.  The Yunus Centre Library is a hub of resources directed towards social business, and  houses Dr. Yunus’  writings, by him, and about him. It will hold his awards, prizes etc eventually to show what he has done and has achieved throughout his career.

4. The centre also throws a number of events, including the Yunus Centre Forum, Social Business Day, and a social business plan competition.

As the Grameen Bank has received so much attention worldwide for its programs and insights into how to use business for global good, they have been approached by many massive companies worldwide who are interested in learning how they can partner with Grameen to use their own expertise for innovative solutions to social issues. Two of these examples include DANONE Foods and ADIDAS.

Many of the stories about these new partnerships are captured in Yunus’ new book Building Social Business, but the meeting at the Yunus Centre today was a great chance to learn more about those that have developed but received much less attention in the mainstream media.

Grameen partnered with a Japanese agriculture company called Yukiguni Maitake that produces mungbeans in rural parts of Bangladesh to help increase the incomes of rural farmers. They sell the beans throughout the country, and then export the surplus back to the Japanese markets.

Another interesting partnership with a Japanese company is Grameen Yuniko—a Japanese clothing company that utilizes heat-tech material to create clothes that warm body temperature by 3 degrees. It may seem like a trifle problem in comparison to the rampant child malnutrition, but Bangladesh’s winters actually get very cold, and those living on the streets die in vast numbers during this time. Grameen Yuniko derived out a spotted need to sell warm clothing at a price point these demographics can afford.  

Grameen describes the need for social business comes from the fact that current economic theory only postulates a single dimensional human being—the profit maximize. Therefore, their answer is that social business is the missing piece to combine the market with the fight against poverty and other social ills, believing fully in that human nature is to care about other people and the environment in our actions—especially for the protection of future generations.

This thinking began with Grameen Bank, with the goal of spreading financial inclusion to those who did not qualify for credit from traditional banks—labeling credit as an essential human right, next to other basic needs such as shelter and education. Their first precursors were Grameen Shakti (provides energy to those who are off of the government’s current grid for an affordable price—which disgustingly is 80% of the country) and Grameen Shikka (Grameen’s education-based sister company). Advocating for both financial sustainability and social impact they moved into partnerships with Danone and Veolia. This trend towards social business emanated out of the realization that the poor don’t only need access to capital. They need access to communication technology, healthy food, clean water, sustainable and cheap energy…etc

One key aspect of the social business model is that all companies run on a sustainable matter. The goal is to free them from having to seek donations to run their operations, which protects them against economic crises and fluctuations in donations, allowing them to continue operations as long as the social need exists.

With many companies gaining interest in moving in the social business, Dr. Yunus took create care to draft a clear cut definition of what they are, to fully separate them from traditional profit-maximization companies.

Def: A social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social problem. The profits are used to expand the company’s reach and improve the products and/or services.

He also created a set of social business principles that are given to potential partners who approach Grameen with interest.

In order to officially enter into a partnership they must agree to the following:

1.       Business objectives are to overcome poverty or related problems…not profit maximization

2.       Has to be financially and economically sustainable

3.       Investors get their initial investment amount back only…does not account for inflation. No dividend is given beyond investment money

4.       When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement

5.       Environmentally conscious

6.       Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions (benefits, healthcare, maternity leave, childcare, overtime etc)..provide more for their workers than traditional profit maximization companies do

7.       …do it with joy

Sharif gave us a diagram of the cycle of social business that looks as follows:

Identify a social needàfind investor for initial investmentàproductàsalesàprofitàrepay investor investment amountàfurther profits reinvested into the cycle of social business

There are two types of social businesses: Type 1 refers to a social business that focuses on providing a product and/or service with a specific social, ethical and/or environmental objective (Ex. Grameen Danone);Type 2  is a profit-oriented business that is either owned by the poor, or provides the poor with direct dividends or some indirect benefits (Ex. Grameen bank, or a manufacturing factory that is owned by poor or uses the profits to create services that benefit the poor, such as MOJO, Moms without Jobs).

Another great example of a flourishing partnership between a traditional company and Grameen is their partnership with BASF, a German chemical company. It is located in Chittagong, Bangladesh—a region that deals with mosquito-borne diseases such a malaria and dengue. BASF uses the same technology as their mainstream products to treat mosquito nets that will instantly kill mosquitoes upon touch, but that is safe to the human touch. They sell in the Chittagong region to the poor who suffer most from these diseases disproportionately. One key benefit of selling is that the poor’s living conditions are highly prone to bugs, and these nets are killing the bugs while simultaneously allowing them to get a better night’s sleep. Currently nets are being produced in Thailand, with plans to produce them locally in Bangladesh. Utilizing the same cross-subsidization model as many social businesses throughout the world, such as Toms Shoes, BASF is able to provide lower prices to the poor, as they sell the nets to the urban communities at a slightly higher price. By subsidizing the cost these cheaper nets are able to reach those who need them the most in communities throughout rural Bangladesh—sustainably!

(If anyone is still reading) Here are examples of existing social businesses beyond Grameen Bank

Danone: Market: Bangladesh

Goal: Fight malnutrition among children and women by offering affordable products for poor, by capturing new market segments

Product: affordable yogurt (2 a week can help a child recover from malnutrition)

Challenges: 1. the target market—how to ensure that the poor get the yogurt

Solution:  Grameen hired poor women in regions throughout the entire country, who work on commission selling the yogurt door to door.

2. How to ensure participation of local suppliers (farmers, local community)

Solution: They opened a factory in Bogra, and provided microfinancing to farmers in the district to set up small dairy farms. Grameen Danone then established collecting points all across Bogra, where farmers can come and sell their milk. Staff weigh the milk and test the quality, and then farmers get 26tk per liter—providing the farmers a steady source of income, and Grameen Danone a reliable supply of milk.

3. Lack of general infrastructure: poor road quality and unreliable power supply

4. 2007 food crisis—the increase in the price of milk forced Danone to increase the 5tk cup of yogurt to 9tk, causing sales to drop in rural villages up to 80. Once again Grameen pushed the cross-subsidization model and sells the yogurt for 12tk a cup in Dhaka, while selling it for 7tk in the villages.

Example #2—Grameen Veolia—problem: lack of access to clean drinking water

Veolia creates water treatment plants in rural Bangladesh, and organizes distribution to provide arsenic free water to poor communities. They supply the clean water through taps at fixed points, and then allow the people to buy water from these distribution points. It is typically sold at 3tk for 10 liters, but 2 key problems are challenging Veolia’s current success. 1. The poor are not habituated to paying for water, and the cost of water is too high. They are now selling bottled water in 20liter jugs to offices and homes in urban markets to subsidize the price for the poor, with the goal of bringing the price down for the poor to .5-1tk. Veolia wants it to be so cheap, that no poor person would ever have to consider whether or not they want to buy water or food. Their most daunting problem to date however, is the pressing lack of awareness about arsenic and its effects on the body. Arsenic is an ambiguous problem, especially to remote villages who have not been educated about the issue. One can’t taste, smell or see arsenic, and its effects are not instantaneous but rather take 5-10 years to set in. Therefore they will not fall sick or die immediately, leading people to not realize that they are in fact drinking poison. Sharif explained that the arsenic builds up in people’s hands and feet, causing them to turn black and eventually rot away. Veolia is trying to overcome this by running awareness campaigns, and organizing shows to teach communities about the problems of drinking arsenic water.

Example 3: GC Eye care Hospital: Provides access to affordable eye care for rural Bangladeshi to eliminate needless blindness. Sharif said that it is by far the most successful social business started so far, as it was started in 2008 and broke even in only 11 months. Started in Bogra, a second hospital has been started in the south, and the first hospital has expanded to a third and fourth floor. Following the model of Aravind Eye Hospital in India, this hospital provides affordable treatment for cataract surgery to the poorest of the poor, by charging slightly higher prices to those with the capacity to pay. Aravind has become known as one of the finest healthcare facilities in the world, with a model that ensures quality and equitable services for both groups of patients regardless of their payment. However, contrast to Aravind in India, GC Eye Care is having difficulty ensuring that doctors remain at hospitals, as the amenities are so poor throughout many regions of Bangladesh that doctors do not want to stay in a place such as Bogra, and often try to leave after their contract expires. Therefore, the hospital is constantly having to provide additional incentives to get them to stay.

After discussing different social businesses Grameen is involved in and their current states, we moved on to talk about one of my favorite subjects associate with the field: social business funds. In my opinion I think one of the key reasons many people hesitate from starting a social business is not because they would rather make money and ignore the realities of the world, but more out of a fear that the pilot project will fail or they are unable to raise enough seed money. Social business funds are the future of the sector, and one of the key priorities of Grameen’s Yunus Centre. The concept of a social business fund is very simple. It seeks to provide seed capital for potential social business start-ups in a pre-determined sector or location. Sharif explained that they see these funds as the most important tools they have right now to promote. Designed as an incubator for social businesses, social business funds allow people or companies to apply for seed money in the form of either loans or equity. They actually function as social businesses themselves, as  once the business is up and running, they repay the loans, and the interest from the loans is used to cover the fund’s costs of administrating them. It is also used to generate additional funds as well. It should be noted that prior to expansion or replication, the funds have to repay their investors that supplied the initial investment that it re-lent out to new social businesses.

Many funds are currently in operation, including the Yunus Fund Monaco (that is active in Africa), and another called Grameen Credit Agricole Microfinance Foundation (which is based in Luxemburg and serves primarily the agricultural sector in Africa). The centre is actively working to spread these funds throughout the world.

The centre’s other initiatives include promoting the need for social business regulations worldwide that currently do not exist. It presently is not legal in the US to set up a social business, so the centre is working with the US government to introduce legislation and bills to enable US citizens to set up a SB.  They currently are working with the EU government as well.

The centre is also actively trying to support Social MBA courses,  to teach about social business as an alternative to profit maximization businesses. They want to support universities that have embraced the social business model, such as Northeastern University’s Social Enterprise Institute (SEI) that currently help to support Kelly and I during our internship here in Dhaka. The Assistant Managing Director gave me his business card and genuinely urged me to have SEI contact him as they are always looking to partner with new people. This is really exciting and I hope to help make it work, as I noticed on the map provided that they currently only work with one or two universities in the states, including UPENN—and if there is any student body and staff that deserves a formal partnership with Grameen it is my dedicated and bright peers and SEI family back home.

Today in the office we also had meetings with Grameen Trust, which helps organizations replicate the Grameen micro-credit program throughout the world, and Grameen Shakti, a Grameen sister company that sells affordable technology and products to rural villages left in the dark by the neglectful national electricity grid. However, that will take an extra 6 pages of writing, so hopefully I will post up a summary in the upcoming days.

Life away from the field and in the office is a horrible Yunus stalker tease. The staff who I find myself in conversation with are constantly leaving because they have a meeting with Dr. Yunus, which makes me smile like I’m 5 and just heard Santa was on the roof. I’m excited and terrified to bump into him. One, because it would be a dream, and two because I have absolutely no idea what I would pick to talk to him about in that brief, fleeting moment.

G’night my loves! Another day in the office manana

Wedding photos!

Based off of the hours it takes us to pick one out, my hunch is that it's harder to pick a sari out than a wedding gown back home.

The absolutely wonderful women who help us try to fit in here. We each speak about 5 words of each other's language but somehow we've managed to get to know them.

Rakeeb and Shati on their wedding day

Cute little girls that came up and asked for a picture with the awkward tall people

prom pic!

Something old and something new?

It has officially been three weeks since we left Boston, and yet it feels as if it has been 6 months already. I can’t tell if that is a sign of settling in, or if it is foreshadowing of a long, onerous journey to come.

This past week Kelly and I joined in the wedding festivities of our friend Rakeeb (sp). Weddings in Bangladesh are typically 4-day affairs and polar opposites to those back home. There are familiar similarities such as family, endless food and photographs, but the rest of the days were so far removed from my memories of nuptials that it was truly a great chance to get to know the new culture.

The first day we attended was dedicated to the groom, while the bride is expected to remain at home and wait for her own reception the following evening. The women in his family were all dressed in matching red and orange saris, with the bride’s family all dressed in pink.  There was  a massive yellow alter in the front of the room, with impossibly bright lights directed towards him. All night, typically from 7-11pm, Rakeeb was expected to sit on a loveseat while nearly 400 people came up individually to take a photograph with him. Days before the wedding when Kelly and I were invited we gushed with him over how excited he probably was for the upcoming weekend, but he admitted to actually dreading it because of how awkward it is to be a bride and groom in a Bengali wedding. We thought that was weird, but seeing what the poor man had to go through for four days makes me think the word dread was soft. Spread out across the table in front of him is literally an assortment of 12 different snacks and meals, and a jar of orange gunk that is supposed to make his complexion bright. Every person that goes up is supposed to feed him a piece of food, and rub the orange mixture somewhere on his face—so much so that by the end of the evening his face was bright yellow, and he had to take stomach pills to not get sick from all of the food. Watching from afar he just looked awkward, annoyed and tired of smiling at the 800^th picture. Rakeeb, if you’re reading this, please note that I did love your Aladdin-esque shoes and outfit, and everyone in the room ought to have agreed with your discomfort.

The next evening the groom is expected to stay home, while the same exact evening is replayed—nearly down to every detail—for the bride. I thought it was funny in this day in age to pay for the same banquet hall and food twice, rather than simply place the bride next to him on a chair and call it a day. BUT, as I’ve learned in Bangladesh, it is dangerous to mess with age old tradition and hospitality. Plus, I’m on a college budget so all of the deliciously free meals were on my side.

Finally around midnight the atmosphere loosened up and a DJ spoiled us with a great hybrid of English and Bollywood music. We danced until nearly 2 o’clock in the morning as one of Rakeeb’s sisters grabbed us and threw us into the middle of a ring of men and taught us how to swing our hips Bengali style. I was marveling at how easy it was to dance in a sari, until midway through a dance I noticed about 50% of it had unraveled and was spilling across the floor, exposing my entire stomach in one of the most conservative groups of people I’d ever been with. I thought I’d be slick and tuck some of it into other fabric and just let it hang, until Moe and Samit paused their laughing at me long enough to drag me off the dance floor and fix it. Apparently it is offensive to change or adjust your clothing in public, as I was told, so I have successfully added to my list of culture ‘woops’. We left the hall with Rakeeb around 2, and went back to his house which was a wedding fortress housing nearly 40 of his relatives and was draped in hundreds of white ‘chili lights’ (Christmas lights).

The third night was the day of the actual wedding ceremony,  which took place early in the morning with only close friends and family in attendance. Later in the evening, the same night from before seemed to replayed over again still! The new husband and wife sat up on yet another stage, under even brighter lights, with more cameras, and now 600 people coming up in groups to take pictures with them. We got there around 8 o’clock—we had a major issue with the saris—and they were still sitting up on the stage when we left around midnight. We have been having women from a parlor nearby come to help us with our saris, after Youtube instructions and Moe’s supervision both failed me. After my sari was finished and I obnoxiously looked like a tall Cleopatra (sari was black and gold), the women announced in broken English that Kelly’s sari was too short, and told us to follow them. They walked out into the bustle and noise of Dhaka’s nightlife and led us up a tall pedestrian bridge that helps people cross streets above the endless traffic in the city. We hit a whole new level of staring. Pulling up 5 meters of fabric and tripping over children in the dark I kept getting lost in the crowd or separated from the women by a rickshaw. Rushing around the city all dolled up to find her a sari an hour before a wedding was certainly an unexpected twist to the calm Cinderella evening I had planned. However, despite the awkward presence of the couple on the altar, and the obstinate mosquitoes that laughed at my expired anti-itch spray from 2007, the wedding was beautiful and a fun time. One tradition that Kelly and I are still talking about is the mirror that the bride and groom use to look at each other for the first time. Obviously it was not their first, but for generations these mirrors were used in more traditional arranged marriages that are still used today throughout Bangladesh. I can’t imagine being handed a mirror by an excited relative, and looking in to find an obtuse, hairy face staring back at me waggling his wedding ring. I’ll keep my handsome man back home thank you very much.  

So, I have given myself a new rule to preserve all of your interest in my trip: stop uploading 8 million pages of writing from my word doc. I initially started writing tonight to discuss my meetings at Grameen today and new knowledge about loan products, BUT instead you’re getting 2 pages about wedding fluff. Sorry! On a new assignment from one of our supervisors, Kelly and I are designing a simple web to explain the differences between varying types of products. Perhaps I will upload that.

I haven’t slept soundly in nights because of epidemic-status bug bites, so SLEEP TIGHT America—I love and miss you all.

A week without even Dhaka-standard amenities :D

Apologies for the week long hiatus from writing! Kelly and I have been extremely busy at work and I made the ill-informed decision to not bring my laptop into the field with me. It was honestly the most amazing experience I have had yet and I learned more about Grameen than I have in two years of classroom lectures.

Our 6-day field visit provided a rare opportunity to learn about the day-to-day functioning and internal operations of the bank—something which often gets overlooked in literature on microfinance. It’s exciting to learn about how Grameen serves over 8 million borrowers and won a Nobel peace prize, but I’ve always wondered how they ensure quality service and attention to each of the vulnerable women they serve. After 6 days in the field, the answer is slowly beginning to form—however so are my doubts about replication in countries that do not have the same community aspect that is so finely intertwined into Bangladesh’s culture. Having a close proximity and relationship to one’s neighbors is a key pillar to the success of Grameen’s groups, and it’s these relationships that I’ve seen that both excite and worry me.

We set out last Saturday at 8 in the morning to take a four hour drive out of the dust and absurdity of Dhaka, and arrived in a world of rice paddies and community  in a village just north of Dhaka, called Netrokona. Organized in teams, we were dropped off in groups of three into various branches of the village. These branches were far enough apart, and serve a wide range of borrowers (each branch manages 60-70 centers) so that each group had a fresh sampling pool of Grameen borrowers and staff to interview—most of which have never had a foreigner visit in their history.  With a suspicion that the Colonel truly scared the head office into treating Kelly and I well, we found ourselves placed in a village completely flooded with bright green rice paddies, dirt roads, excited children and an extremely welcoming Bangladeshi family. We only say this because the branches the previous teams were dropped in were smaller versions of Dhaka—complete with the dirt, pollution and constant yelling. Ours was heaven. In most Grameen branch offices, the first floor is designated for the bank’s activities, with the second floor being split into two small residential units—one for the branch manager and his/her family, and the other for bank staff or guest housing. We were given two small bedrooms in the guest unit, with our absolutely charming German friend, Annunciata. Somehow, this girl rips her rough German accent out of her personality, and has the cutest English accent that is straight out of The Sound of Music.

Contrast to the other teams we were welcomed in by a family: the branch manager, his young wife and their Hitler-esque son Tanzim. We also brought a translator employed by Grameen, Matin, who was both a perfect translator and resource into the inner workings of the bank.

After discussing with us our interests and hopes for the 6-day stay, he organized a program that fit our needs and the capacity of the bank. We attended morning center meetings to watch loan repayment and accounting, and then spent the rest of the day interviewing various borrowers. We asked to speak with a new borrower (fresh into the system for only 2 weeks), a struggling member in the beggar program, a microenterprise loanee, a higher education loanee, a scholarship student, and a borrower who switched to a flexible loan due to difficulty in making her installments. These interviews were all really helpful because we didn’t want to see only the success stories, but rather hear the stories of women who wouldn’t be perfect candidates for a photo-op. Matin managed to arrange all of these meetings, as well as interviews with both the Area Manager and Zonal Manager for the Netrokona district.

The first morning we had a homemade breakfast served by the branch manager’s wife, and then departed via rickshaw for our first center meeting. We always looked like a poorly orchestrated parade, as apparently many Grameen staff pick motorcycles as the transportation of choice. One or two would always be in front of us—usually the Center Manager for that day’s meeting and our translator—with the branch manager following us from behind. I think for the rest of my life I will always get a laugh and a comfort from the knowledge that Grameen delivers micro-credit to the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh via a team of White Knights dressed in business casual roaring in on motorcycles. Really, are they serious? This is great.

Each center meeting begins around 9-9:30am, and is typically in a prominent place in the middle of the community. If shelter or space isn’t available, Grameen provides the Center’s women with an interest-free loan to construct a modest tin building that they can call their own. Every time we arrived, the groups (typically 5 in each center=50 women) were always sitting in rows of five, with a neat straw mat in front designated for the Center Manager. The Center Leader (a woman in one of the 5 groups, elected by all to run the meetings and help collect installments) was always sitting in the front left corner. She would rise to her feet upon our entrance, and raise her right hand to her forehead in a less stiff salute than the West—a signal that is used in all Grameen centers to acknowledge that the meeting has begun. Counting to four in Bangla (it’s pretty hideous that I still can’t confidently type it after hearing it for a week), the center leader signals everyone present to stand, asks for permission from the center manager to begin, and then at the fourth command we all sit. Or rather squat. My abs and stamina have yet to master the Bengali squat, as most people in the country sit, quite comfortably it appears, in a position no different from the starting point of a game of leap frog—well, without their hands on the ground. I would be the only one in 50 frequently trying new yoga-like poses to gain enough comfort to listen clearly. Progress is fleeting.

Once everyone is seated, the center leader brought her respective group’s payment up to be calculated, and excitedly told us in broken English that her oldest son was studying at Dhaka University, one of the best in the country, with a higher education loan from Grameen. She was beaming and innately proud. The center manager told us that in addition to the HEL she currently has a microenterprise loan of about 100,000tk for a rickshaw business that she and her husband run together.

With Matin’s help, the center manager explained to us the borrowers’ passbooks where the bank records each installment, and tracks the amount each borrower saves weekly in their personal savings account. The passbooks are extremely clear, and track loans on the left, and savings on the right. We were told we would be mini center managers for the day, and were given the honor of counting some borrower’s installments and savings, and marking the day’s transactions in the booklets. As the booklets are given back to the borrowers at the end of the meeting everything about their membership is very clear in the booklet. The date of the installment, total loan amount, the principal balance, the interest (typically 15-20tk a week, about 20 cents), the total payment, and the borrower’s and center manager’s initial. On the other side of the booklet the bank tracks how much money borrower’s deposit weekly at the meetings into their savings. It is recommended that each borrower pick a specific amount of money to save weekly, usually between 30-50tk—and then when they wish to sporadically deposit more they visit the branch office. The new balance in the savings is always recorded, initialed by the CM, and then handed back to the borrower.

Despite having to do this for about 40-50 women, the process goes very quickly and efficiently. I think a lot of it has to do with the group structure, as the chairmen in each group (one women out of five who is responsible for collecting her group members’ payments before the meeting) comes up one by one and hands each booklet to the CM. On a rotational schedule, the branch manager—and even, we eventually learned, managers from the area and zonal offices—attends the meetings to supervise its functioning and deliver a short motivational speech to the women. He arrives, unannounced, at 2 center meetings a day. I really enjoyed these times, as our manager was very quiet spoken and shy. We had various conversations with him throughout our stay at his home, but he seemed to prefer to listen and smile rather than actively engage with us. However, these few times we got to see him participate with the women we really got to learn more about him, enjoy how he articulated his speeches, and hear the passion in his voice for his work. As Grameen’s narrowing focus is to break multi-generational poverty, the new mandate is to push education, and respectively, the higher education loan and opportunities for scholarships. Grameen offers 5 types of scholarships to the children of borrowers—not necessarily to pay for school fees as schooling is free up to grade 5 and then a small fee for boys up to 12^th grade. The Zonal manager later explained to us that the scholarships serve more as encouragement and reward to hardworking students, and help them pay for smaller, but worthy expenses such as pencils etc. Four scholarships are split up into groupings based on age and are put towards academics, and the fifth is for extracurricular activities. I think Grameen is one of the few organizations in the world that actively battles tunnel vision. Many staff I have spoken to speak not solely of business creation and loan products, but also acknowledge the importance of a well-rounded education and the development of a child. One shared stories about their favorite child of a Grameen borrower who is a beautiful singer at the age of 9—a recipient of a scholarship that enables her to travel to competitions. These stories are always great to hear, and although realistically they are not all success stories, they are certainly permeating throughout Grameen’s network of centers.

All center meetings that we attended followed suit. The repayment process was always the same and   BM always delivered his message (typically given by the center manager in the branch manager’s absence). As most encouragements are geared towards inspiring women to help their children apply for scholarships and higher education loans, it wasn’t surprising that 100% of hands were always raised when the branch manager asked how many women want to send their children to school. Of course that is just group dynamics, and typically 100% won’t happen, but the branch manager always was reiterating that Grameen has the capacity and the desire to help every student pay for higher education, and that the loans and the scholarships are there for application—truly sending the message back home that even borrowers with infants in their arms need to begin preparing and building that mindset right now. At each meeting I always sensed true and genuine excitement in the women, as they actively were nodding their heads with eyes of hope. That sounds corny, of course, but the reality is that these women are nearly 80% illiterate, and didn’t have these opportunities—let alone weekly meetings from high-up officials encouraging them to take them. Therefore, sitting in these meetings you get a feeling from the women’s and the bank’s excitement that perhaps things really will change—eventually. The branch manager often used the saying “give me an educated woman, and you will have a developed country”. He also said this at one of the meetings to all of the women: “We are a Nobel laureate organization. We are the best…so our children should be the best.”

Aside from education, the business aspect has been consuming much of my time. Borrowers’ businesses have great diversity, ranging from rickshaws and recycling, to clothing and jewelry, with many working in agriculture. The first borrower we interviewed was a woman named Tusi, one of the center leaders. She, and a group of about 15 women, traveled to the nearest branch office roughly 10 years ago and directly asked the bank to open a new branch in their village. After surveying the demand, the bank listened and serves 48 centers across the area today. She said she was hesitant to join Grameen because she had no education, but today has come to love it and her membership because of the banks “encouragement, options and flexibility”. Tusi told us how she had previously had no job before Grameen came to her village, and that now with her rickshaw business she hopes to send her 4 children to school. They are all currently studying, and in addition to the 3 basic loans she has had, has recently taken out a higher education loan for her eldest. When we asked how her family reacted to her joining Grameen, she said that her husband was actually more enthusiastic than she was, and after hearing about the bank in nearby village, came home and asked her to join. With her first basic loan she purchased a rickshaw—which her husband began to drive—and then with her second loan bought another one which she now rents out at a modest profit. Her third loan was put towards agriculture. Tusi told us that one of her favorite parts about Grameen and her role as a center leader are the center leader workshops that are held every three months at the branch office. The workshops seek to teach strong leadership, and gather all of the center leaders from each center together to discuss issues and successes within their groups. Typically, the workshops are taught by the branch manager and his staff, and are used to make center leaders strong women in their communities and groups. Before we left Tusi’s small home, after at least 25 polite refusals for snacks and tea (can’t eat local foods) she told us that her only dream now is for her children, and that she wants us to pray for her and specifically for them. I nodded in earnest as usual, but in cases like these I can’t suppress a smile because I have a feeling in my gut that with Grameen’s support and focus on education, they’ll be just fine.

Later in that first day we went with some staff to visit a few of the borrowers’ businesses. We came across two microenterprise loanees who had flourishing tailoring businesses, but could always only spend a maximum 10 minutes at any one business because the Grameen staff always gets antsy if the crowds that gather to look at us become any larger than 50 people. Keeping us on the move however allowed us to literally stumble onto the doorstep of an orphanage called the Government Children’s Center, a house for 100 boys that is funded by, well, the government. Accompanied by Grameen staff, and at least 20 children from the streets, we went inside the compound to be greeted by 200 beady eyes and subsequent stares.  The yard was refreshingly large and open—with more space for the home’s children than I’ve seen at orphanages that struggle to house twice the number. Miraculously escaping the inevitable swallowing of all of the children, we were entertained in the manager’s office after watching my Grameen counterparts play some children in a game of cricket—which despite being in a country that is currently overcome with excitement with the world cup down the street, I still think it’s a weird game, and don’t get it. The staff at the orphanage were happy and eager to answer all of our questions. With 100 kids they operate with 16 supervisors and run primarily on donations from USAID, Save the Children and the Bangladesh government. It was comforting and oddly amusing to stumble across this orphanage in a remote village in northern Bangladesh—a nation who has little relations with the US, and yet see where some of our funds go to. It’s an interesting perspective to gain that some of USAID’s money goes to support 100 Bangladeshi children in a town few have ever even heard of. In recent years I have become increasingly skeptical of traditional donation-based organizations (hence the trend towards social business) but the day’s unexpected adventure reminded me of the important place some nonprofits do fill.

The remainder of the week followed these similar themes. Each center meeting provided an opportunity to have a real sample pool of the percentage of borrowers utilizing the different products offered by Grameen. I have noticed so far that 100% have personal savings account (however this is a nearly useless statistic because it was mandatory before last month), about 75% have at least one GPS (Grameen Pension Savings), and nearly 100% have loan insurance (also a silly fact because that also used to be mandatory…however when asked if they are continuing to pay for insurance despite the amendment to the rule, nearly all still choose to pay). There also seems to balance in how many borrowers choose the different types of GPS accounts—red and green. A red GPS requires a 50tk transfer from their personal savings account each month, or 300tk every 6 months, and a green GPS is paid in cash to the center manager.

The interviews this past week also filled in some of the remaining questions surrounding the higher education loan and its process. Our interview with one of the loanees explained that the application requires a letter of proof from their destined university (essentially a letter of acceptance), a letter from the university explaining the loan amount required, and a budget of expenses from the student. Both the mother and the student must sign the contract, and neither may receive the funds separately, but rather must come to the branch office together every 3 months for disbursement. This particular student was studying accounting and was in year 2 in his 4-year university.

Certainly the most trying of interviews so far was with the two borrowers who are in Grameen’s Struggling Member Program for beggars. We had asked a few of the center managers in the branch office if they had any beggars under their management, and were able to speak with two on our last day and visit their homes. Both stories were vaguely similar in that both have been widows for nearly 2 decades, with one of the women being  a mother of two, now grown children. With 500tk one woman bought sugar cane and sold various products as much as she could, but admitted that she continued to beg when she ran into difficulty in sales. The other woman bought beetle leaf, which is a cunningly innocent looking green leaf that many here in Bangladesh chew, similarly to chewing tobacco, that turns mouths and teeth bright red. Every week each woman tried to attend center meetings—that actually is not mandatory of those in the beggar program—and give 30 to 40tk in installments. Every week, one borrower saved 10tk, and yet the other did not save any—so the branch manager suggested that rather than paying 40tk a week she could pay 30 and save the additional 10. Both woman appeared to be in their mid-sixties; however, they were realistically only in their fifties, but life had thrown every last thing in Pandora’s box at them. With a hunched over frame and blurry eyes, one of the women explained that one key factor pushing her to try and make her business a success was that she no longer had the physical capacity to carry herself around various towns and villages every day to beg—therefore making a successful business one of her last viable options for survival. We learned that they were recruited to join Grameen by one of the center leaders, and continued to have the businesses they started with their initial loan. It was upsetting to hear that after 2 years of being in the program they were now on their second loan, after repaying their first, but hadn’t managed to increase their capacity to take out more than 1,500tk (about 20 dollars) and move up into more structured basic loan. Without a husband, nor children financially supporting them, and without a home larger than a chicken den, how on Earth did they survive for 2 years selling leaves and sugar cane with a $20 loan?

When asked if they felt they were ready to move into a traditional lending group, they said they felt they were on the right path, but the neighbors nearby told us that their health was poor. When we were brought by the women to each of their houses, it quickly added factors to the story that made me think the beggar program was not working as hoped. Walking behind her, we came upon a typical home in the village—typically the size of a shed thrown without half an after-thought behind a colonial-type home in Massachusetts. Small entrance way, tin roof (which is a strong sign of progress in rural villages) straw walls. I thought nothing peculiar walking up to the home, until slowly it registered that she walked beside the hut to an impossibly smaller hut struggling to stand alongside of it. Standing around four feet tall the straw hut was not fit for even mistreated chickens. That may sound a bit harsh, but it is the most accurate description of how unsuitable of a home her house was—especially for a 60-ish year-old woman. After crouching behind her to peek my head in the hole in the straw wall that served as a door, I heard the translator next to me quietly gasp as if life had just left him. Before us was an excruciatingly stark picture of what nearly 3 billion people living on less than $1 a day call home. Literal dirt floors, spans of light filtering in through breaks in the straw walls and roof, and a heap of hay in the corner. The absence of bedding or even fabric for that matter made my scarf begin to tighten around my neck until I backed my head out of the hole and my eyes began to spin. Living right in the middle of a community of neighbors, who simply by their presence were guilty and complacent, this woman didn’t even have 5 inches of cloth to lay her aging head on every night...who explained to Matin that she slept on the floor each night. This to me is a Grameen failure. Sure, she says she has quit begging. But after 2 years of being a Grameen member she has not been able to move up to a basic loan, or earn enough to breakeven in her business without intermittent begging. Her situation was such a stalemate, that the branch manager—who is dedicated to Grameen’s philosophy that under no circumstance should donations be given—took 100tk out of his wallet and gave it to her, explaining to us later that at least she would have a decent meal that day.

After hearing a great deal about her personal story and business, Kelly, Annunciata and I began to look at each other with the subtle agreement we have mastered in our facial expressions to let each other know that we have no further questions. Most of my questions that rose out of that conversation are now directed back at the bank, because beyond learning about the 0% interest rate that accompanies beggars’ loans we haven’t learned the full story regarding the role the center manager and leader plays in interaction with beggars, and what type of technical support they receive in addition to capital. Surely there isn’t a clear cut answer as to what step should be taken or what the exact problem is that is restricting this woman’s potential. Was it her confidence level after 14 years of begging, was it laziness, a need for more capital, advice, encouragement, one-on-one support? Probably all of it, but after hearing directly from many staff about their most cherished moment working with Grameen, and hearing them explain the day when they watched beggars rise from the ashes it makes you wonder what separates these success stories from the failures. After back and forth conversation about the facts that day we left the field quiet. The rickshaw ride back to the branch office was a comfort despite the second by second pothole, as the noise provided an opportunity to just sit and finally be as speechless as I had wanted to be for the previous hour.

The First Exposure (written in many parts)

For those new to microfinance who are reading the blog, Grameen Bank was created in the 1970s with the goal of achieving widespread financial inclusion for those who do not qualify for services from commercial banks. The story of its inspiration, inception and growth over the years is best captured by its founder himself, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, in his book Banker to the Poor. I’m going to humbly slide away from summarizing the basic operations of the bank, rather than steal his thunder, because he puts it much more poetically and accurately. It’s a quick read—but if not, hopefully this blasting of random information won’t chase you away from my blog.

The bank’s structure is split into 4 zones: the head office, 40 zonal offices, 268 area offices and 2565 branch offices. The head office is where we arrive for work every day, where Dr. Yunus is most often present, and where the bank locates its accounting and services departments, monitoring and evaluation, and about 20 other departments that range from Grameen Telecom, to Grameen Kalyan—operating with about 200 employees daily. As the majority of the Grameen’s work takes place in the villages, they also have 144,619 centers where bank meetings are held, and where the bank interacts most with their borrowers.

The structure of Grameen Bank is important as it highlights that the majority of its activity takes place within the villages. The most central to their operations are their branch offices and centers, as this where money is lent and installments are collected. The structure also helps to explain how Grameen can serve the growing number of women that they do today. With 5-10 women making up a solidarity group (on average 6-7), 8-10 groups make up a center. I want to double check that number though, because even though I have heard it explained at least 7 times, the center meetings we have attended are much more logical as there have been only 25-50 women present. Anyways, to organize themselves from the bottom up, each solidarity group of at least 5 women are made up of 1 chairman (who is nominated by their group members to be in charge of collecting repayments from the other women and ensuring attendance at meetings), one secretary, and the rest are considered general members. All positions are re-elected each year.

60-70 centers then make up a branch office, which must be located within 2 km of the village. Despite the majority of paperwork, preparation and training taking place in the centers, the women collect their loans at the branch offices, and then pay their weekly installments during their center meetings. Each center has 6-7 center managers which are responsible for monitoring and supporting the groups, and sending messages and paperwork back to the branch office. Each center manager works with roughly 600 borrowers, as they must attend 2 center meetings daily/5 days a week, which typically have 60 women in each. This 600 number seemed large at first, but then watching the meetings unfold while in the villages, it is actually quite manageable. 8-10 branch offices then make up an area office, and then 6-8 area offices comprise a zonal office.

Each of these departments are organized to support and control Grameen’s current 1,284,606 solidarity groups that are sprinkled throughout the country.  They also serve as checks and balances, and allow for the bank’s structure to resemble that of a widespread, constantly interacting network rather than a top down pyramid with an ugly disconnect.

This structure and the roles of different officials has become one of my favorite things about Grameen, as I have come to see that even those in some of the highest ranks, are mandated to attend at least one center meeting and visit one branch office daily. One, this serves as supervision and enforces accountability as each branch can expect to have a visitor from their superiors at least once a week; and two, it keeps the upper management in touch with the needs of its clients.

Despite wearing many different hats in their jobs, Grameen staff have very well defined roles and duties. Center Managers arrive at the branch office around 7am to speak with the second officer, who is responsible to account for all financial activity and handle the cash. If a borrower completes a proposal for a new loan,( which is an easy but long process to describe as new loans are dependent upon cross-referencing past performance), then the center manager notifies the second officer on the day of disbursement if the loan proposal has been accepted. The center manager must also forward requests for withdrawals greater than 20,000tk. These requests are calculated, and if the amount is greater than the 70,000tk that is anticipated to arrive in the office in the form of borrowers’ installments, the second officer goes to the local commercial bank and withdraws the amount needed from the branch’s specific fund—designated and overseen by the zonal office. This doesn’t always have to happen, as the second officer usually keeps 20-50,000tk to buffer moments when the demand for the day was miscalculated. After coming to the branch office, the center managers travel to the locations of each of their two center meetings they attend each day. They hold a session with the borrowers, collect installments and savings deposits, and then travel back to the office to re-calculate and input the numbers onto a collection sheet. Around 1 o’clock the branch office is very busy, as borrowers come in to collect new loan disbursements or make greater deposits and withdrawals from their accounts. The branch manager is responsible for signing off on each transaction, and sits at a desk waiting for borrowers to approach with their central manager—finished paperwork in hand. He/she counts out the money, verifies the borrower’s government-issued ID, speaks with the borrower, initials the paperwork after review, and the borrower is free to leave after counting the money themselves before leaving the office. The branch managers are typically ex-center managers, and have simply moved into more of an administrative role that serves primarily as supervision. Area managers are vaguely similar. Each area office has three employees: the area manager and second officer—whose duties do not differ, except the manager has administrative power—and a messenger. Both the area manager and the second officer attend two center meetings a day and typically one branch office. They attend to new loan proposals, and most importantly oversee the transfer of branch paperwork into their electronic database. Each area office has a separate office employed by Grameen Communication, that inputs all of the branches information. Zonal offices are also similar in that the manager attends one center meeting and visits one branch office a day, but deals more directly with correspondences from the area and head office. We were fortunate to have interviews with both one zonal manager and one area manager—that filled in many of the gaps in the poor descriptions I am providing you with a 2 o’clock in the morning.

One key difference between Grameen and commercial banks is that it is a non-loss, non-dividend bank that is owned by its borrowers. Currently 95% of Grameen is owned by the borrowers, with 5% owned by the government of Bangladesh.

In order to ensure that their voices are heard within the management of the bank, 9 out of 13 seats on the board are elected by Grameen borrowers, while 3 are elected by the government (including the chairman of the board), and one is held by Dr. Yunus—an ex-officio member, who has no voting power.

The voting begins within the groups. Each solidarity groups elects a chairman within their own group annually, who then is able to vote for a center leader. Each of the groups’ chairmen elect one of themselves to become a center leader every 3 years. The meetings are held at the branch to elect new members of the board, and each regional member then becomes a board member. Representing the 9 regions of Bangladesh, there are 9 election regions—providing the board with great diversity and representatives from villages throughout the country.

Mr. Humuan explained that Grameen sees 4 key reasons why they lend primarily to women:

1.       It is harder for men to attend the center meetings because they tend to work outside of the villages

2.       Females in village have better time management, and are more concerned about their agreements and attending center meetings.

3.       Culturally, males are head of the households, and own the only income-generating activities…therefore it increases household production to help a woman start a business.

4.       Women invest more in their families.

As is emphasized time and time again, Grameen Bank is specifically a bank for the poor, to such an extent that prospective borrowers have to meet a list of criteria that ensures that the bank is truly serving the poorest of the poor within Bangladesh. Borrowers must be landless and asset-less, and be willing to form a group with 4 other women who live in their village. As Grameen’s model is dependent upon solidarity lending, these group formations are one of the most important stages within the process, as the responsibility for loan repayment is diluted throughout the group. Some of the non-negotiable agreements within group formation, is that all members must be landless and asset-less, must live within the specified village, are neighbors of their chosen group members, and yet are not related to them…making it impossible to have more than one household within a group.

Loan Products:

1.       Basic Loan: Firstly, Grameen does not lend money to create businesses that are negative for society (such as liquor stores). A basic loan can be given to any group member, and can be for any amount up to 12,000 taka (about $170 USD). As the costs of delivering and managing these micro-loans are often very high, Grameen charges 20% interest on a declining balance, or 10% flat rate. Therefore if a member borrows 1000 taka, their weekly installment is 25 tk over a period of 44 weeks—paying overall 1,100 tk. For those of you reading who have not studied microfinance or heard of these rates, a 20% interest rate is one of the best in the sector.

All borrowers begin with a basic loan, and take out another up to 12,000 taka after their first is repaid.

2.        Microenterprise Loan: These loans are given to borrowers who wish to expand their current business, or need a larger amount of capital to start a new business. In order to receive a microenterprise loan, the borrower must have repaid their primary basic loan. These loans start at 700,000tk ($10,000), are paid back in weekly-installments, and have a 2-3 year repayment schedule, with no limit at the amount of money that can justifiably be taken out. They too, have a 20% interest rate, and borrowers can also opt for the 10% flat rate. These enterprise loans come with training if the business the borrower is starting is new to them, but if they already had the business prior to the loan there is no training requirement.

One key detail to MELs is that the borrower must have been with Grameen for at least 2 years.

3.       In order to help borrowers repair their housing and reach dignified levels of accommodation, Grameen offers their borrowers housing loans after 4 years of membership with the bank. Grameen typically lends 18,000-20,000tk, with an 8% interest rate—lower as this loan is not for an income-generating activity. These loans can be paid back over 4-6 years, and installments are paid back weekly at the center meetings. If the borrower is able to pay within 1 year, Grameen offers a 4% flat rate.

4.       My favorite loan, and one of the newest additions to Grameen’s loan products, is the higher education loan for children of Grameen borrowers. In order to help borrowers’ children surpass higher secondary schooling (12thgrade) and cover all expenses of schooling, Grameen offers up to 200,000tk to each child who qualifies so that they can attend university. For 6 years the loan requires no installments, and accrues no interest—5 years for the child to go to school, and 1 year for them to search for a job. (Blew my mind as I sat in the office considering SIMPLY the interest I already have on my own student loans). After 6 years, they charge 5% interest, and the students pay monthly installments for up to 5 years—so if a student took out 100,000tk they would pay around 1,500tk a month (about $20). Both the child and the borrower sign the documents.  Working for equality within the educational system, Grameen treats both males and females the same and willingly lends both the money they need for schooling.

5.       Acknowledging the difficulty of finding employment within the job market after graduation, Grameen encourages students to not become an employee, but rather an employer. They offer graduates a New Entrepreneur Loan for self-employment,  with a 5% interest rate. Not much data is currently available on the success of these loans as of yet, as the product is only 6 months old.

6.       Understanding the innumerable risks associated with a life of poverty, Grameen offers flexible loans to help protect borrowers against these risks. Bangladesh is a center of natural disasters, and often faces flooding and cyclones, in addition to their problems of infrastructure and malnutrition. After a death or a disaster falls upon a family, a loan officer visits the borrower to renegotiate the terms of the loan. For example, if a family member passes away or a business is destroyed, the borrower can tell the loan officer what their ability to pay is, and that becomes the new weekly installment for up to a year. They sign a new contract, and do not pay interest during that time. Grameen offers flexible loans as an opportunity to reduce installments if the officer verifies the problem, and to ensure that their borrowers do not become over-indebted.

7.       Their final product, is the Beggar Loan, for struggling members –the poorest of the poor within the society. 1,000-2,000tk is offered at 0 interest to women who subsist on begging door to door or in the streets—a profession, which sadly, is a common trade here in Bangladesh (or at least, in Dhaka). Grameen’s perspective, is that if women are already going door to door, they should be going with a product, so that they have an opportunity to earn a little more, and restore their dignity. They hope to teach them that business is better than begging, and therefore offer them up to 4,000tk with no bindings attached. If they are able to repay, they are given the choice to take out a basic loan, and become full members of Grameen Bank.

That first day  at Grameen we also learned more about their savings products in greater detail, but as I have already thrown a lot of information out there I’ll let it sit, and come back to savings and insurance on a later day.

At our first village trip to Dhakuli, each woman typically had 1-2 outstanding loans. The majority were seasoned borrowers (had already surpassed basic loans) and had microenterprise loans, housing loans and higher education loans.

The morning of the village trip we set out at 8am in a microbus, and watched the clutter and confusion of Dhaka gradually fade away.  Despite the emptier roads, the absence of horns and yelling, the smog and overcast sky pursued us. It was amusing how quickly we left Dhaka behind. When you’re in the city, you almost feel as if that is all there is. The city’s skyline always seems to drift and blend into the dirt. But in our van, we were over a bridge and finally into the landscape that I came here for. There were rice paddies—some green, and yet some flooded with water—and brick factories set up alongside various shorelines. Yes, I came here for the brick factories. Seeing them however added some light to the 30 or more smoke stacks we had seen from the airplane, pumping insanity into the air every mile or so. Bricks were everywhere. Stacked alongside the roads, rushing past us unstably in 4 or more pickup trucks, atop of men’s heads balanced upon baskets…it’s ironic because I don’t know where they are all headed. Most of the buildings I have been in are made out of cement or metal.

 -->Okay, so I wrote 1/2 of this entry before my 6 day village trip, and since the day's agenda was a center meeting, and that's what my next entry is about, I'm going to assume everyone has stopped reading after I got technical andddd quit this particular entry. All of this information is snowballing...sorry!

“I don’t want to buy any”…”You buy two?”

Rickshaws are my new favorite form of transportation. I am constructing one the minute I get back to Boston. In IAF we always learn about acculturation and how parts of the world adapt aspects of another’s culture. I think there’s too much coming from the West. We NEED rickshaws.

Our first ride on one today happened solely out of a desire for local friends. Kelly and I ventured out of the hotel this morning with two goals: 1. To buy some Bengali clothes (fail), and 2. To cross a street alone without hugging the shadow of Samit and Moe (fail).

New goals:

1.       Find out my dress size in BD

2.       Find out how to cross a street.

3.       Learn bangla

I think we were overly ambitious in believing that we would walk out today western style, and walk back in looking like Jasmine from Aladdin. Every other woman here pulls it off with grace, but Kelly and I butchered even the remote possibility, by alienating relationships with shopkeepers via nonsensical gestures and long torsos.  AND we had a new friend allied with us to translate. Still failed.

Let me skim back. On the drive into town yesterday the Colonel had pointed to a shop called Grameen Check, which is the textile arm of Grameen that sells very cheap cloth items. Its sign is on the second or third story of a big building about 20 minutes from our hotel, near embarrassingly-easy to remember landmarks such as a gigantic stadium (keeps reminding me of quidditch..but shh) and a rotary. Figures a place with no traffic rules would have a rotary. We still lost it. We weaved in and out of traffic, sidewalks, excavations, and cement pavings for over an hour on one simple straightforward street, until we ended up sitting down to people watch before round 2. The temperature here as moments of calm where there’s a breeze and it feels like spring. We relished in one of those and sat down on the side of a wide sidewalk in the shade. All day we had kind of been like a moving lantern in terms of catching every single person’s eye, but sitting down and planting that in one location drew in 10 bystanders in less than 30 seconds. Immediately people cautiously stepped closer, not with any poor motive on their face, but simply curiosity. That’s how the majority of the faces have been. One woman, wearing a BRAC ID badge (yay BRAC!) came forward and talked to us in bangla for 5 minutes. Honestly, the whys and how comes escape me, she knew immediately we did not speak any. Maybe it humored her. I just kept shaking my head and smiling, but still I could hear in her tone she was asking questions, and I’m pretty sure the breadth of my response was pointing to her id badge, saying “brac” and smiling. Thank you social entrepreneurship for making me a geek even in Bangladesh.

After the crowd got bored with the conversation, and moved away 5 feet to resume simply staring, a young Bengali woman passed us with a slight smile. I thought nothing of it—it happens now as often as breathing—but she came back. This pretty little woman walked right up to us, and in broken English asked if she could talk with us. We said of course and after a few minutes came to find out that she is studying English in school, wanted to practice, and in return offered friendship in a foreign city. Spriha asked us for our phone number, and it’s probably the most willing I’ve ever been to give my digits to a stranger.  We ended up going to get coffee, and were lucky enough to have a local accompany us in our first rickshaw ride. There was almost no choice. She got up from the sidewalk and walked right over to one, got on, and looked at us. Kelly and I looked at each other with mild, mild horror, and then kind of said, “why not”?

Now, the current record of how many people I have seen crammed onto the 3 foot wide rickshaw seat is 5. That number often includes babies. Our first ride is on their tail, with three: Spriha and I squeezed together, and Kelly—clutching like a woman giving birth—on my lap. These thin, strappy young men whisk the rickshaws directly into traffic with one push and your life is suddenly surrounded by bells, horns, shouts and well...me swearing. Sorry Allah—these vehicles of choice are insane. You surprisingly get used to the feeling very quickly, and develop a strong, religious-like respect for brakes. I would say, after day one without a private driver, that the worst part yet of rickshaws is when you tell them you need to go in the other direction. Without much hesitation, and only one or two habitual glances to their blind spot, the drivers whip the whole thing onto the other side of the street where they dodge oncoming buses, rickshaws and pedestrians. Actually, scratch that, what does pedestrian even mean to me anymore? I think people in themselves count as vehicles here. We fortunately arrived for coffee without a scratch, and had transformed into worse adrenaline junkies. We proceeded to ride them a few more times that day, until Kelly told me no more for now, when I suggested taking one just for the hell of it. That was probably a good decision for my wallet—I have a hunch that Spriha (who insisted on paying) had to argue quite a bit for the driver to drop his on-the-spot “American discount” earlier in the day.

When I’m in more of an analytical or insightful mood I’ll try and capture Spriha in all of the detail that this girl deserves. We ended up spending the whole day with her, which improved her English a lot and gave us a lot of insight into the dreams and longings of Bangladesh’s youth. At only 14 with a face and grace of most people’s twenties, Spriha is a hardworking student of science—the daughter of a government official and a beautiful mother who manages the home. A lot of what we talked about today danced around race and privilege, and the desires that are born out of living in a society where you must obey certain societal norms and suppress the longings for difference. Sadly after only maybe 6 minutes sitting down with our coffee, Spriha, in very, very fragmented English, told us that she is often very sad, and suffers greatly. Despite her innocent vocabulary, she actually used the word suffering—which itself helped me realize what must often capture her thoughts and studies.

It took us the course of the day, and many, many smaller conversations to find pieces of the puzzle that would explain these statements earlier in the day. The youngest in the household Spriha seems to be extremely influenced by all of the themes in liberal media that have become cliché in the west…the effects of predominantly white ads and models, globalization, advertising campaigns, etc….All of the things any student in the states at this time hears about and sees themselves, about how white is portrayed as beautiful and powerful, and how that has led the viewers in other countries wishing for those attributes. Now, I would never bring up any of these things simply to talk about it. They were all screaming in my face all day as conversation would move from favorite movies (Spriha loves Terminator, Titanic and Anaconda)to her sincerely asking us if we could take her with us to America, help her find a foreign husband, and leave this country behind.  I would predict someone joking about this, but sometimes her earnest seriousness would almost bring her to tears when she explained how hard she studied, and how she saw that has her only way to improve herself…and then hear her talk whimsically about America and all of its greatness. It made me sick. One, because there’s much more to my home than its stereotype, and two because I knew that my telling her that her working hard would help her, was a lie. There are hardly any jobs in this country, and the sick part is that she is one of the lucky ones. The majority of the country is not able to go get education because of an inefficient number of schools. As the daughter of an assumingly powerful man, Spriha’s very clear desperation to put herself on a successful track ripped the country’s education statistics  out of my head and slapped me across the face. After talking for almost an hour about her reasoning for wanting to go to America, it seemed that she truly connected that image with happiness. In much simpler terms, she explained that she only wanted an opportunity to make something out of her own hard work that she was happy to do. It also hurts to know, but was impossible to relay to her, that even if I were to bring her with me to stay in the states that it would be near impossible to find her a job—especially with her imperfect English—and the legality of it would delay the possibility months, if not years. What opportunity is that?

Obviously brain drain isn’t the answer. Growth within the country is. But theory aside, this one individual account of trying to cope with a bright mind and absolute dismal prospects makes you feel like selling a kidney to help her. Another disgusting part of the situation is that she said she would be able to sponsor herself financially if she could just get there.

 As she said herself, it’s all unfair.

If I were her, I would probably be slightly resentful…but this girl was beautiful. She spent the entire day with us trying to get to know us better, and helped us try and find Bengali clothing (couldn’t find anything under 2000 taka—weird—and spent literally 30 minutes trying to explain to shopkeepers that we did not know our size in BD, but he still neglected to measure us, even though he had a measuring tape around his neck). We quit, because the colors were starting to speak illogical sense to me and convince me that I didn’t mind spending 30 USD on one outfit. We’re going to beg Samit, or more likely his wife, to take us shopping this weekend.

After stopping in for a quick bite to eat, and some absolutely horrid, monstrous excuse for orange juice that tasted like I was sucking an egg yolk through a straw,  we said goodbye to Spriha and promised to call her next weekend as we’re busy at Grameen all of this coming week. She really wants us to come see her home and meet her mother—who she describes as a saint, and looks up to because she was born with very fair skin and is often mistaken as a foreigner. (I didn’t ask any questions regarding that because that sounds, well, a bit scandalous to me).

Since then, Kelly and I have been sneaking a few shots of Mirpur, Dhaka on our cameras, and stalking school buses to find Bengali babies to play with. The children here are so great—as is most of their English, because the private schools here teach lessons in English. So far at least 20 children have run up to us proudly saying “Hello, how are you?”, shake our hand, and run off embarrassed. School girls in uniform drive by in rickshaws and when we catch them staring we hear 5 high-pitched “hi’s” flowing to us in unison. I’ve become an excellent waver. It’s helping me cope with all of the staring because people know I see them and either smile back or quickly avert their eyes.

Moe and Samit wanted us to come out to a hookah bar tonight but we put it off to another night so we could get to bed early in preparation for tomorrow’s trip out of the city. But, thinking I would write a blurb about rickshaws and roll over, I have now blabbered about all sorts of nonsense and have thus defeated my reasoning for blowing off a perfectly fun evening out. So I’m shutting up—I’m going to upload a video soon of one of the rickshaw rides so stay tuned. In it you can see a glimpse of our hotel front, Spriha, a bit of a calmer road in Dhaka, and probably me swearing.