Mrs. Salam and one of her helpers came into our bedroom in the middle of the night and set up a massive bed net for us—the problem is the fact that we were already sleeping means we weren’t able to check for prisoners, and ended up sharing the protection of the net with three mosquito friends. They like kissing me—a lot. Oy.
Mr. Salam woke us up with a big laminated map that he taped various business cards on to help us in our desperation—he was quite proud of it. One card from our hotel so that we can point to it (I think he thinks our bangla is bad), and one card of his so that people know we have at least one local friend and protector. We got a kick out of it when we saw his project, but it has already come into use. One of the Salam clan’s drivers took us to our hotel today, and we couldn’t explain where it was so in came the pointing.
We spent the majority of the day with Samit, which was great because we got to know him a lot better and he now feels less like an intimidating businessman and more like a friend. He, and one of his friends from college took us out to do our errands today: buy a mosquito net, get a phone and a ton of taka. 1 out of 3 worked. Apparently Mahmoud used to own a mosquito net factory and wouldn’t allow us to pay 600 taka (about 7 dollars) for a net and called an old colleague to get us one from the factory for much cheaper. He has fortunately allowed our habit of meeting fabulously kind Bangladeshis to continue. At GrameenPhone (one of the largest network providers in BD) Mahmoud and Samit decided they didn’t want us to spend the money on a new phone for only 5 months, so Mahmoud is going to give us one of the 20 or so phones his company apparently keeps stored for recruiting employees. I’m not sure why they give new recruits phones, but I’m very thankful that I have apparently been recruited.
After running around the streets checking off our list they took us to an amazing coffee shop called Bittersweet, that makes Finale in Boston look boring. The interior of the building is such a secret. The outside made dive bars look like a palace, but inside it was chic and colorful, way too modern for my taste, and made me feel like I was back home. We sipped mochas while listening to American R&B and learned about Mahmoud’s history. After hearing him reference 4 or 5 different companies he runs I asked him for his own personal elevator pitch because he seemed to be so sporadic and unconventional. Apparently he moved from Bangladesh to Canada for his studies, and moved home after hearing that his father was ill. He offered to help with his family’s businesses, when all of a sudden months had passed and he had become so involved that he has not left since.
Mahmoud has dipped into all sorts of industries, from mosquito net manufacturing, to pens, to real estate…and continues to uphold these interests. It seems that the Salams and their friends are very diversified, which is understandable in such an economy. Both men were extremely relatable and we ended up staying at the café for what seemed hours, talking about 80 different topics in a minute.
Despite my obsession with writing about the people here in BD, I have, believe it or not, been looking around. It’s hard to capture the city in writing, so after tomorrow hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share. Tomorrow is our first independent adventure day—minus my 40 minute forced wandering around the Salam’s neighborhood. The Colonel said we should go to Grameen Check—which apparently is a cheap clothing store that Grameen owns and operates…Samit was explaining how they’re really involved in the textile industry here, and interestingly enough, also energy. He said that in the past five or six years they have been capitalizing on the popularity of Yunus, post-Nobel Peace prize, as major companies such as Google, Danone, and top pharmaceutical companies have willingly entered into partnerships with them. Samit was explaining that they have a heavy hand in the development of Bangladesh’s infrastructure and only work with the best companies in each respective field. I’m excited to learn more about the internal management of these enterprises, because I had kind of thought various companies had to be using the Grameen name as a marketing tool—largely underestimating Grameen’s capacity to manage over 20 different sister companies. Samit wasn’t quite sure how it works, but assured me that despite the various boards of each enterprise, there is one at the top which Dr. Yunus heads to oversee them all. He also brought up Ashraful Hassan—the managing director of at least 7 different Grameen enterprises, who we had met yesterday at the main office. Samit also said the managing director of BRAC sits on the board of the new NRB Village project that he and the Colonel have been developing—the project which we are going to go see on Friday. It would be really great to meet him so hopefully that will happen perchance while we’re here.
It is starting to surface not only how many people Grameen employs here in BD, but also how heavily they influence almost every sector and person within the country. I had known this somewhat before I left, learning about their partnerships with Danone and the development of the GrameenPhone, but I’m starting to realize that it’s perhaps these companies that the majority of the world doesn’t talk about that makes them the amazing company that they have become. Their unpublished work is amazing, and if known widely by the States I think there would be less criticism coming from more conservative development experts who tend to argue that their company and micro-credit programs do not largely impact the poor or the growth of the country. The truth is that that is impossible with a company that is so heavily integrated into sectors that even the government is invested in to try and reverse the convoluted infrastructure that presently exists. Grameen seems to work for the benefit of the individual Bangladeshi, as well as for systemic change at the community level. This aspect of their model is not new to me, but is definitely one of the new ways I perceive them as a whole. Rather than seeing them as an expert in microfinance I’m beginning to understand them as a country-wide effort for development.
The evening prayers have just begun. We could slightly hear the morning ones today from the Salam’s house, but now that we have moved further into the city into the hotel it is much clearer. I wonder where in the city the exact voice is coming from—it feels really close but I know that it’s simply the loudspeakers.
I’m going to sneak away from writing this evening to try and catch loved ones back home before they head off to work**cough, Henry**. But stay tuned to hear about trying to buy clothes tomorrow. They’ll probably be 3 inches too short and 3x overpriced. Whoo!
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