Sylvia's Journal

The BNP, opposition party, last Friday, threatened a non-stop shutdown, here known as a ‘hartal’ if the government failed to produce its kidnapped leader Elias Ali alive. The hartal started already and forced us to start the workshop a day later. This will only work if the strike is called off tomorrow at the end of the day. If not, we have to scramble, along with lots of other people in Bangladesh who made plans.

I had forgotten about these hartals that are so common and yet catch everyone by surprise. Here too, like in all the countries I have worked in, politicians are the great spoilers and there is great disdain and dislike for them. Yet they can’t all be bad. Bangladesh has made some great strides in raising literacy rates, increasing family planning and reducing the growth rate of its population.  But with so many people it will take awhile before that reduces actual numbers. A hug bulge of too many babies born over the last 40 years has to work itself through the life cycle.

And so tomorrow we are told to lie low. Not the kind of low as in Afghanistan, in fact I was told that being a foreigner does not put me at risk. But I am not sure what it means for me, this extra day of waiting.

Today I met the rest of the facilitation team, one batch in the morning and another in the afternoon. In the morning I met my MSH colleagues at the local office and in the afternoon only those local to the area could show up. Crossing town after 5 PM was not advised because demonstrators can get nasty to cars driving around. People are warned to get home before 5 and then stay put. And so we won’t have everyone in the same room until the workshop starts – assuming it will – the day after tomorrow.

The list of invitees is long, over 90 people, but no one expects all these people to show up. Only 22 replied positively. What started as a workshop for 20 to 30 people is now anyone’s guess.

In the meantime I learned that my trip to Kenya, replacing the cancelled trip to Afghanistan, is now also cancelled which means my travels will stop a little earlier than expected. As with so many other things, whether this is a good thing or a bad things is hard to tell at the moment. The focus of the work was right up my alley so I am a bit disappointed, but then again if the grandbaby comes early it would be a good thing.