" Shahid Smirithi Biddapit", a unique school established by Humayun Ahmed, legendary Bengali fiction writer and film maker

Popular Bengali fiction writer and film maker Humayun Ahmed, died on July 19, 2012 at a New York hospital after a nine-month battle against colon cancer, bringing the curtains down on a nearly four-decade long illustrious career. I along with my friend Naoki Nishimura (then Assistant country representative of JICA in Bangladesh) visited " Shahid Smirithi Biddapit", a unique school established by Humayun Ahmed. It was in July, 2009, we spent the day with the teachers and the students of the school. It was really a great experience....

A Good News for Bangladesh, Nepal and Rwanda !

Photo: World Bank Bangladesh

Bangladesh, Nepal,  and Rwanda are "star performers" in reducing the number of poor in their countries compared to larger economies such as India, according to an Oxford University study published on Monday.

All three could be on track to eradicate poverty in 20 years if they keep up their current rate of progress, the data showed.

The study, based on research in 22 countries, said the three nations had the strongest decreases in poverty as recorded by its Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) which looks at various indicators including health, education and living standards.

"The success of Nepal and Bangladesh in reducing poverty despite their relatively low income highlights the effectiveness of social policy investments combined with active civil society engagement," said Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

Researchers found Nepal's poor dropped to 44.2 percent of the population in 2011 from 64.7 percent in 2006 - that is 4.1 percentage points per year. While in Bangladesh, poverty rates decreased by 3.2 percentage points per year between 2004 and 2007 and Rwanda by 3.4 annually from 2005 to 2010.

"Countries managed to reduce multidimensional poverty through tackling a range of different deprivations, with no single formula for success emerging from the study," said an OPHI statement.

"Nepal did the best in areas like nutrition, child mortality, electricity, improved flooring and assets. Rwanda showed the biggest improvement in sanitation and water, and Bangladesh did best in improving sanitation and school attendance."

Source: Bangladesh, Nepal, Rwanda are star performers.

The Liberian Experience.

I am sitting in a Bungalow type house. It is not exactly inside but on an extended rooftop of a warehouse. The warehouse is built just adjacent to the bungalow and the rooftop is accessible from the second floor of the house. The person who designed it must be a very good architect. I try to move one of the benches around a square shaped table so that I can sit more comfortably. The person who welcomed me a few minutes ago smile at me because of my fruitless attempt to move the bench.  The wooden color misleads me. He says “it’s too heavy to move, made of stone.  I am waiting and enjoying the green forest around me. He has left me to inform the person for whom I am here. Everything is so quite. The place is not very far from the place where I stay but everything seems different to me. It might be for serenity and tranquility around me. It might be for the magical illustration of light and shadow in the green dense forest. It might be for the holiness and freshness of the morning. Besides the chirping of unknown birds, I can hear the dropping sounds of basketball somewhere near. My house in on the lower valley of this mount, in a small town and the bungalow is 2 km upper at the edge of a reserved rain forest. 

I am actually assigned to conduct a qualitative research. I heard that a qualitative researcher is a “lonely wolf”. That’s what I am experiencing now. I come here to talk with some West African graduate students. They are from Liberia. I get connected with them through one of my classmates who is also from Africa. 

Few months ago, I was watching a documentary on Liberia. The name of the documentary was “The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia”.  That was really an experience to see the cruelty of the civil war. The central person of that documentary was the “General Butt Naked”. He led his troops naked except for shoes and a gun. He believed that his nakedness was a source of protection from bullets.  In the documentary he claimed that he would regularly sacrifice a victim before battle, saying, "Usually it was a small child, someone whose fresh blood would satisfy the devil." He explained "Sometimes I would enter under the water where children were playing. I would dive under the water, grab one, carry him under and break his neck. Sometimes I'd cause accidents. Sometimes I'd just slaughter them. He confessed to taking part in human sacrifices which "included the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat.”  His rampage ended in 1996, when the civil war in Liberia was coming to a close. He converted to Christianity and credits his conversion was bolstered by a church in Liberia. He is now the President of the End Time Train Evangelistic Ministries Inc., with headquarters in Liberia.

My understanding of Liberia is constructed based on that documentary. Though I know that the documentary was about the war that has ended a decade ago, when I think about Liberia it’s just the war, brutality, drug, hunger and so on.  One or two weeks after watching that documentary, I was sitting in front of the graduate school. I saw some of the African students passed by me.  After few minutes, I went to them and asked where they came from. I was surprised to know that they were from Liberia. Then my second question was “Do you know General Butt Naked”?

Hello my friend!  Welcome to our mansion! (Later, I come to know that they call the house mansion for making fun) I turn my head and see him.  His words have brought me to the present. After shaking hands, he says to me “you are from Puerto Rico, right?” I laugh and say, no my friend, I am from Bangladesh.  Bangladesh! “Bangladeshi people are very easy going”, He says. How do you know that? I ask him. I meet Bangladeshis in Liberia, he says.  Then I understand that many Bangladeshi soldiers are in UN peace keeping mission in Liberia. He also adds, Bangladeshi people do not like Pakistani people. That’s his reality on Bangladesh. His reality is based on the interaction with the Bangladeshi soldiers working there in Liberia. 

"My reality is not your reality”, people often say like that. Reality often varies from person to person even in the context of same phenomenon. It is always a question how people come to understand their reality. In the case of my participant from Liberia, he interacted with some people from Bangladesh and internalizes his experience and conversation. As sociologists say, it’s through socialization we understand our reality. Reality is not constant; it changes as we gain new experiences. I think our understanding of Bangladesh and Liberia will change again after the conversation, as we are gaining new experience. In our technological society, media is also playing a very important role. It is providing us images of experience continuously from where we understand the world. 

Few days ago, I was reading a related article. The author described that the experiences of others and their retelling can also be important in shaping a person's view of reality, and in some cases the reality shared by any entire community. He showed example - while not all black males have had a "bad experience" during a police stop, enough have that the accounts of such experiences are ubiquitous in the black community and a pervasive fear/dislike of the police may exist as a result. When black celebrities like baseball announcer Joe Morgan discussed for the US national media how he was stopped while driving expensive cars in upper middle class neighborhoods, a logical conclusion was that minorities continue to harassed by the police needlessly. Understanding of what the real is really puzzling….

….Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? (The Essays by Francis Bacon. Of Truth, 1601)

Way to Los Banos

I was in a dizzy mode when the air hostess offered me a glass of juice. It was MH 704 from Kuala lumpur International Airport heading towards the Aquino International Airport, Manila. Around me everything was blue. It was hard to recognize the difference between sea and sky. I understood that I was flying over an ocean of blue. It was a 3 hours 50 minutes journey.

I fastened my seat belt as the aircraft preparing to land on the ground. But where the ground was I didn’t understand because it’s still blue sea and white clouds everywhere. At last, small structures started appearing before my eyes and the wheels of the big bird touch the land or I may say island. Yes! It’s the 7107 islands’ country.

The lady in the immigration was working very fast so that it needed couple of minutes to stand before her. She asked me whether I am a diplomat. I answered negative and explained my reasons to come here. She satisfied and welcomed me to the Islands.     

The street just outside the airport was a kind of Dhaka. We were inside the car and were taking Pizza. After crossing few kilometers, it seemed different and it’s getting more and more dissimilar than Dhaka. Its different in every aspects-the traffics, the landscapes, coz of the mountains around me. After navigating two hours on plain and mountain, we finally managed to reach our destination " Los Banos". The original Spanish spelling was Los Baños, meaning "the baths" in reference to the adjacent water source. The town lies on the northern slopes of the long dormant volcano Mount Makiling and is known among tourists for its hot spring resorts that dot the area.