Exclusive Discovery: Children Who Love School Found In Rural Lands of Bangladesh

At 9:30 in the morning fifteen children gather around the edge of the hati (temporary island), waiting for their school to arrive. Their long black hair oiled and plaited, and for the lucky ones, red ribbons adorn their heads. The children are dressed in their finest clothes, and cause outsiders to wonder whether they were ready for church rather than school. I admired the girls (and two troublesome boys) as our car pulled up to their designated loading spot. 

As I motioned to open the door, my impeccable timing and slight flair for drama ensured that my arrival was accompanied with Hollywood’s finest rain (literary analysts would claim that this was pathetic fallacy for some foreboding disaster, but beyond being ill, thankfully nothing tragic happened). Within minutes I was drenched, as we ran for the nearest cover, which so happened to be a little tea stall with metal walls and a roof. Huddled together, the girls whispered around me. Those who dared meet my smiles, abashedly lowered their heads seconds later and giggled amongst their friends. My attempts at small conversation were quickly abandoned, as the girls were too shy to even respond with their names (later I learned that their lack of response was most likely due to the fact that they did not have a clue as to what I was saying. My obvious accent and lack of local dialogue may as well have been Dory’s whale calls from finding Nemo, although I like to think my speech was a bit more eloquent). Fortunately, I was spared any further blank stares and embarrassment with the school’s arrival.

No, I have not gone mad, nor have I forgotten proper English (despite BRAC’s finest attempts to force my conversion to modern British English). I believe I just failed to mention that the school is a boat! Haor areas flood six months out of the year, therefore making school attendance irregular at best. Children are confined to their hatis when water levels rise, and their five mile walk to school becomes impossible. And this is only the case for the few children whose parents allow them to venture that far, for such a useless cause, or so they say. Working wages are too precious for such frivolous activities, such as learning how to read and write (skills not too often used in manual labour). BRAC’s solution to the region’s drastically low literacy rates was a school that travels to the kids, in other words a boat school.

 

Girls and boys load the small vessel, respectfully remove their shoes, and take a seat, patiently waiting for their teacher to walk into the room. In this country, teachers are royalty and education is priceless. When their “Madame” enters the room, all the children stand and greet her in unison. And they remain standing until she gives them permission to sit down. I even got my own debut when I waltzed in a few minutes later and all the children hopped to their feet to greet me (cousins – I now expect this of you every time we get together haha). However the formalities that ensued were a little bit like A Wrinkle in Time, with all the kids responding to my questions together, as if they are a single person rather than individuals. 

The school is a second chance at learning programme, which means everyone from eight-year-olds to sixteen-year-olds is learning the same lessons. Five years of standard primary education is finished in four at these schools. I don’t think I have met so many dedicated, grateful, and determined students in a single room, as I did that day on the boat school. There wasn’t a single child who did not love school or appreciate homework. I often wondered whether or not I was teleported to some alternate universe, but the truth is, it is really easy to take for granted that which is just handed to you. Back at home, we wouldn’t ask if someone’s kids were going to school, but rather where they were attending. Over here, education is a luxury, one that few families can afford.

There were a total of thirty students and they sat in two perfect rows of fifteen along the side walls of the boat. The best students sit the closest to the front of the classroom, and the rankings follow accordingly, so the students that struggle the most are at the back (it seems as though some concepts are universal). Each morning the teacher chooses different girls and boys to lead the Morning Prayer, national anthem, and daily exercise. A cacophony of mismatched, off-key sounds fills the already too small room; it is rather endearing and unnerving at the same time.

 

Homework is submitted on blackboards every morning, and the teacher whizzes through, checking off the correct answers and circling the wrong right in front of them. If you get a check, you can clean off the board, but a circle means the entire assignment must be redone. I was surprised there wasn’t a single “my dog ate my homework” excuse, especially since it would have been so easy to claim “the rain washed my homework away.” But like I said before, these kids love school and their passion is reflected in their efforts. The teacher calls on the students in front of everyone and relies on the class to help correct their mistakes. Personally, I would be too scared to even utter a sound. But the kids are kind, and rather than correct maliciously, they are supportive of their peers. Even the “know-it-all” of the class was not as obnoxious as those encountered in my school. 

I spent some time talking to the different children, listening as they shared their goals and life aspirations with me. Village children or not, they all dream the same.  With high hopes of becoming teachers or doctors, they confided their motivation to make a difference in their homes. The reason these professions were the most popular is because they directly help others around them.  These students could really teach a lot to others back at home. It is so easy to get caught up in such trivial problems, but if we just take a look at the world beyond ourselves and our immediate needs, we would be able to see just how silly it all is. I guess when you are wondering where your next meal will come from, it doesn’t really matter what your best friend said about you behind your back, or whether you were invited to the party. The things that we so easily take for granted, like having clean water or even new pencils, these children are wishing for. Life has thrown every obstacle in their way, and yet they still strive for something more, something better. I hope they are able to continue their education beyond the boat school and wish them all the best in their futures.

 

Lifeline to a World in Need

“We have for centuries, lived in ignorance and indifference to much of the suffering around us – this is no longer possible. Thanks to you the media the world can no longer ignore its poor nor its political prisoners, its starving and dying, its wars, violence and injustice. The media has become a lifeline to a world in need.” – Audrey Hepburn, Brussels 1991

I have spent the past four days in the haor regions of Bangladesh. While this area is no casualty of war nor the most poor, six months out of the year the area is flooded and all cultivation is rendered useless. It is rural, impoverished, and were it not for the field workers of NGO organizations, a natural disaster. I thought I was prepared for what I was to experience.

For years, I have been coming to the villages of Bangladesh and have seen hundreds of deformed beggars on the streets. Thanks to the media mentioned above, I have seen my fair share of swollen bellied babies staring up at me with wide eyes from the glossy covers of magazines and brochures. I have also read about the poor girl who received an education that forever changed her life, the boy who was saved from jail thanks to the work of human rights activists, the wife who escaped her abusive partner, etc. The very first week of my communications internship, we fabricated developing nation stories as exercises for the case studies we were to eventually record. I was able to easily fabricate a three paged story, not because of my imagination, but rather the onslaught of information I’ve been fed through the media’s sensationalized stories. Everyone loves a good hero, and that’s what poverty is to any communication’s department.

Audrey Hepburn was right; the media has been sharing the world’s suffering. I mean, who has ever heard of such a thing as a good news report? But she was also wrong in her belief that technology would make poverty, war, and disease impossible to ignore. We are continuing with the same air of ignorance and indifference, because we have been desensitized. The overwhelming flux of bad news isn’t mobilizing nations to change global injustice, but rather to press the off button on their televisions and proceed with their day as if it was just another war in the Middle East or just another million of people dying from starvation in Sub-Saharan Africa. So, you see, it is with this arrogance that I proceeded to Baniachang, thinking the world had prepared me and this field trip would be nothing new.

I was wrong.

Poverty cannot be seen, it must be felt. When I went to the villages, this was not just another starving baby wearing an orange rag, looking up at me from a picture, but one standing in front of me, in real life. Together we melted under the unforgiving sun as we stood and stared, as if we were cast in some old western standoff. Together, we were attacked by the restless mosquitoes feasting on our blood. Together we faced the pangs of hunger and thirst while fasting in Ramadan. And together we hesitantly smiled.

I am apprehensive to even share my sentiments and experiences for fear that they become just another story of some privileged girl’s experience with impoverished children on some field mission to some third world country. To say so would be doing myself and these children a severe disservice, one that I absolutely will not stand for. So please understand, these are my feelings that I am sharing with you.

It took every ounce of my willpower not to pull each child into my arms and protect them from reality; though if I were to be honest, it would be the children protecting me from their reality. While the time I spent in each of the villages was brief, I grew terribly attached to the kids and was near tears every time the van drove away. My job was to make a video, however I failed. I was too distracted by the twenty or so curious eyes peering at me. I was aware of their crowding presence and the instant connection between us. My priority was not to film the designated beneficiary, but to make the kids laugh, if only for a fleeting second. I raced the boys who were ten times faster than me, despite being half my age and height. I made silly faces every few minutes or so. I even tried learning how to whistle, dramatizing my failed efforts, just to witness their smug smiles. Each time they followed me back to the van and raced after the car as we drove away.

These children do not know my name, nor do I know theirs. I will probably never see them again, and chances are only half of them will even make it to adulthood. But this was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I want to laugh and cry. I feel so powerful and helpless. I am selfish and selfless. My heart was elated and broken. Poverty cannot be portrayed in the perfect picture, witnessed through the glass windows of a car, or passed in the jostling of a busy street. The lifeline to a world in need is not, nor will it ever be the media, but rather the power of human connection. Only when we take a moment to acknowledge one another’s presence and accept the reality of our surroundings, do we really feel. Only then does it become impossible to be ignorant and indifferent to our world of suffering. Only then are we finally compelled to take action.