First Day at Grameen!

            This morning we walked to the bank from our hotel. The bank is pretty close and the walk only took us around 15 minutes.  Even though the walk was short, it felt like I was worlds away from the comfort and security of the hotel. The streets of Dhaka are always busy and filled with people setting up tiny booths selling fruit and small trinkets. The traffic is always heavy and the honking of horns is a constant buzz like a bee that is follows near your ear all day.

            Its easy to see why Muhammad Yunus felt called to reach out to the poor through microcredit. Poverty is commonplace in the streets right outside my hotel. Beggars line the sidewalks and its difficult to not open my purse and give them everything I have. I gave some money to a small disabled girl today and walked away praying that she wasn’t going home to a pimp tonight who would take the small amount she had collected throughout the day.

            Once we got to the bank, we were greeted by several Grameen employees and ushered into a conference room. We spent the next several hours watching power point presentations about how the bank works and various new programs. Even though I had already read everything that was discussed today, it was a great chance to hear about the bank from people who had put so much work into alleviating the pain of poverty. These people have devoted their lives to Grameen and have sacrificed a great deal to make sure that the program works for the individual needs of the borrowers. 

Grand Prince Hotel

            I am staying at the Grand Prince Hotel on a busy street in the shopping district of Dhaka. From the street, the hotel blends in with the surroundings perfectly – a bland dirt color with a vertical sign marking its presence. Once inside however, the hotel takes on a whole new attitude. The lobby is clean, well lit and fully equipped with wireless internet that is always being used by guests from all over the world. There are 2 restaurants with enormous menus boasting Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine.

            Our room is small with two twin beds and a small bathroom attached. The room has an air conditioner that works periodically and is comfortable except for the 20+ cockroaches we have killed so far.  We considered switching rooms but quickly realized that if our room has bugs, so does everyone else’s. Instead we  went downstairs to the local bazar and bought some bug spray. We used the whole can on the room so hopefully they will stay out for awhile!

            There is a mosque right outside the window of our room and we can hear the call to prayer several times a day. Today  I walked into the hall to find a hotel employee on his prayer mat in the hallway. I spoke with someone about visiting a mosque and she said that they would most likely let me in if I found a mosque that allowed women to enter. I hope to find one in the coming days and check it out. 

Heading to Bangladesh!

Hey Followers! This summer I will be spending a month in Bangladesh and completing an internship with the Grameen Bank - a microfinance institution that provides small loans to women in rural villages through the country. Here is their website if you wanna check out what they do. http://www.grameenfoundation.org/

Rainy day

This morning I was supposed to go hiking third wheel style up the closest mountain but the English lovers slept the day away. Around noon I gave up on them, geared up, and decided to go ahead and do the hike on my own.

Sidenote: I am sorry to say that I broke the vow I made at Cedar Creek in 5th grade to contribute as little DEET to the environment as possible. The bugs here are killing me and if its either me or them...well, I chose me.

Anyway, everything was going smoothly until I got to the gondola drop off point and then it started to pour. I made the decision right away to man up and hike to the top of the mountain in the rain. It was just one of those things that I felt I needed to do. Well, that lasted about 20 minutes and then I heard the thunder and saw the lightning followed by about 100 Japanese hikers running downhill towards me and shouting things at me as they passed. I can only assume that they were commenting on how stupid I was to be going up instead of down so I gave up and followed the masses back toward the gondola station. But I wasn't ready to go home yet. Instead I found a nice dry place for the camera and headed back into the rain. I was feeling all spiritual up on top of this beautiful mountain (that I couldn't see because of the fog) so I did the whole double clap and bowing routine to the earth since there was no temple and then threw up a prayer to my Christian God before laying down on my back snow angel style in the middle of the botanical gardens. I am pretty sure I wasn't supposed to actually be in the garden but not a soul was around because of the rain. Maybe I came to the top of the mountain to see a beautiful view of the Japanese Alps but what I got was so much better. Laying on my back in the pouring rain on top of a mountain in the most beautiful place I have ever been, I felt alive like never before.

Hakuba

Habuka through a zoom lens...

Kamakura

The morning after the booze cruise was rough, but 2 Tylenol (or I hope that was Tylenol anyway - I don't read Japanese) and 1 Pacari Sweat later and I was back in the game! I ended up going to this concert of this guy I had met a few days before somewhere in Shinjuku. This guy is in law school in Tokyo but is an exchange student from New Zealand. Anyway, he is in this Japanese Weezer cover band. It was awesome. I got to see all these different bands doing songs in English when half of the singers didn't even speak English. By the way, the Japanese love Avril Lavigne. Half the songs were her. Random.

After the concert, I headed down to the beach at Kamakura for the weekend. There was a big party on the beach and I somehow ended up being the only girl in our group so half the night was spent with the guys playing pick up artist on the beach. I guess its intimidating to get approached by a huge group of guys on the beach because they would always immediately introduce me - kinda like bait. "Look, we are cool we promise...we already have one girl with us!" Haha!

The girls didn't speak any English so I was hard for me to communicate with them, but the next morning I bonded with the girls in the universal language of women....Sex and The City! We woke up first the next morning, found a random Sex and the City DVD and put it on while everyone else was still asleep. People started waking up and looking into the living room like "WTF?" There were bodies all around us on the floor and we were all lined up on the couch. 3 perfectly pampered Japanese girls and me!

I say perfectly pampered because they had just spent 2 hours quietly fixing their makeup before anyone else woke up. I would be an epic fail if I lived in this girl society.

I took this picture on the train ride back to Tokyo. You have to love her tattoo. "Love, Believe, Fren." Classic.

Odaiba

The Japanese are so smart. They made an entire island by sinking tons of trash into Tokyo Bay and then pouring some dirt on top. And the icing on the cake? They named the place "F island!" Well not really....they actually named it Odiaba, but there is a themepark type place there called "F Island" which is still pretty funny to me.

Also housed on the island is a giant 59 foot "life sized" Gundam. I am not really sure what the story is here but apparently Gundam is a machine like superhero figure in Japanese culture and he is kind of a big deal. The waiting line was over an hour long just to get into the Gundam giftshop...on a weekday!

After the day on Odaiba, Tyler and I went on an all you can drink booze cruise around Tokyo Bay. I'm starting to worry about becoming an alcoholic because everywhere I go its all you can drink night. The views of Tokyo were amazing and there was great non-traditional Japanese entertainment going on.

After the cruise, we headed toward Karaoke and everyone knows how I feel about that...Bipolar. Actually Japanese Karaoke isn't as bad though. Its just your group of friends in the room so you can pretty much make it as much or as little bipolar as you like. (Lauren, I would def go to MacLeods with you every night if it was like this place!) I then attempted to take myself home. Bad idea. I ended up getting very lost and wondered around until this nice 5 ft tall Japanese man decided to take me under his wing and help me find my way home. About an hour later we arrived at the friend's house where I was staying that night. Thank you little man whose name I can't remember!