Sylvia's Journal

I drove to the airport with Lakshmi whose inspired talk about microfinance and health had moved me. We had one last chance to talk about her work and what she was taking back from the conference. She was in the first cohort of students produced by the James P. Grant School of Public Health and is like a calling card for the school. If that is what they produce, then it seems like a good choice if you want to learn about public health leadership – a perfect continuation of the work of the person the school is named after.

At the airport I found out that our plane was two hours late. Grameen has installed free internet kiosks in the departure area for travelers. This helped to kill time. I struck up a conversation with Thierry who sounded like an Englishman but was actually French and an owner of a garment factory that produces high end men’s slacks. I am invited to visit the factory next time I make it to Bangladesh. In return I invited him to the US to find out that Dallas and Hawaii, the only places he knows, are not that representative of the United States. By the time we left we had become good friends and I knew all about his family.

The plane was nearly empty because of Eid el Adha, the big Moslem holiday that commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God. Everyone who returned to his or her family for the festivities had already done so; it’s not like Thanksgiving with much last minute travel. In Dubai people have been holidaying since December 2, when I passed through on my way to Dhaka. Then it was the UAE’s national holiday. Work here will not resume until the 14th, which makes this a 12-day holiday; a good time to travel through here.

On the plane from Dhaka to Dubai I sat next to a family of 5 from Myanmar that was part of a group of 7 other families being resettled from a refugee camp in Bangladesh where they had lived for the last 17 years. The father’s English was good enough to make it possible to have a conversation. I had so many questions. All the fathers in the group carried a large plastic bag that had IOM (International Organization for Migration) stamped on it in three languages. Presumably it contained their migration papers and what looked like X-rays, I suppose to show they are free of TB, much like what I remember carrying with me when I entered the USA as an immigrant, exactly 27 years ago.

The father had escaped as a 13 year old boy from Myanmar with his family in a boat and landed in one of the many refugee camps in Bangladesh – maybe the one where Sayeed’s company runs soap, biogas or other factories on behalf of various agencies that serve the enormous refugee population, camps holding as many as 30.000 people. I asked him what life was like in the camp. He said it was boring as they were not allowed to work for an income, some inane rule that serves some purpose I cannot imagine. Sayeed had mentioned this too.

The families are being resettled in Manchester UK and he enthusiastically talked about Manchester United; needless to say, he was a big football (soccer) fan. Apparently that was one thing they did do in the camps. He also started learning English some 2 years ago, when his resettlement was decided. It took that long to get to this moment. He had clearly been prepared for the flight because he knew to ask for baby food, diapers, blankets, bottles, etc. He traveled with his wife and three children, a boy of 1 who looked like he was six months, a boy of 5 who looked like he was three and a girl of 8 who looked like she was five. “No more,” he said with a big grin, “family planning.” Sadly the grandparents were left behind in the camp. I have a feeling they’ll stay there until they die. I imagined the heart wrenching farewells.

Emirates takes good care of its smallest passengers. A flight attendant went around taking polaroid pictures of the children and their families. She also doled out many presents, coloring books, color pencils, adorable stuffed animal hand puppets and all sorts of goodies for the adults as well (toothpaste sets, razor sets, playing cards). The refugee family took everything with some reluctance and then wanted to return everything to the crew after we landed. In the end they left everything on their chairs when they exited the plane. I could not imagine why but maybe it is like too much food for someone who has been starving.

And then, shifting gears, I arrived back at the brand new Terminal 3 of Dubai airport that is made for the kind of traffic one expects for the Olympics. On the first day of Eid it was deserted with lots of bored people sitting at various help desks sending phone messages to, presumably, other bored people elsewhere in the terminal or city.

One is welcomed by two very odd life sized puppets of women that I cannot figure out. At first I thought they had large bandaids in front of their noses and mouths and it was some sort of advertisement. Upon closer examination these appeared to be the metal contraptions that some women wear. I remember seeing a few older women with these when I traveled through here a month ago. I wasn’t sure then and still are not sure exactly what the purpose is of those things, if not some sort of silencer of women’s voices; or is it to keep the sand from entering mouth or nose?

A short drive took me to the Meridien airport hotel in Dubai where I was upgraded to superdeluxe status with bowing people as if I was royalty: fruit platters, an enormous room and an entire espresso machine, invitations to free alcohol and finger foods later this afternoon (unless I want to have the 120 dollar late nigh bubbly dinner with unlimited drinks and fancy buffet – I declined). Instead I treated myself to a mini mezze, corona and umm ali desert while watching Al Gore updating his incovenient truth with the latest scientifc discoveries – in a constant repeating loop, I suppose to make sure I get the gloomy message and jump into action.