A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words, But A Trip Is Worth A Thousand Movies
Dhaka, Bangladesh
The 2nd most densely populated city in the world, the 3rd poorest country in the world. The greater Dhaka area has an estimated 20 million people. To try and paint a picture of what that looks like, central Dhaka has nearly 9.5 million people in an area 2/3 the size of the city of Kingston, Ontario. You would have to take the population of Kingston on any given day and turn every individual into 80 people in order to match the density in this city. Just think about that for a minute. What would your lecture hall look like? The shopping mall? Houses, work spaces, buses, the streets in general? If you ever thought that rush hour traffic in Toronto was bad, I urge you to try and take a casual drive through Dhaka. What you would likely consider to be a two-lane road in Canada, here they can fit across 3 cars, a bus, a truck, 2 bike carriages and man selling cigarettes while weaving his way through traffic. As far as I can tell, the turn signals on every car in Dhaka must have been disabled, forcing them to use their horns as a substitute. This makes for a relatively different experience on your Sunday afternoon drives. Don’t even bother asking me if they drive on the right or the left side of the road, because truth be told, I don’t even think the locals know the answer. Today was a good day of driving, our car only got hit twice on our 5km journey across town. At times, I forget if I’m driving in a car or playing bumper cars for my friend’s 7th birthday party at NEB’s fun world.
Although this country is extremely poor, you likely wouldn’t know it by looking at each individual. Being one of the world’s leading exporters for fabric and textiles, clothes are very cheap here. There are people peddling bike carriages and sweating profusely in the extreme heat, and even they are wearing nice dress shirts that would sell in high end stores in North America. It isn’t until you shift your focus from foreground to background that you see the tragedy unfold. It is everything that you would expect to see in a movie about the slums of South Asia. Shacks made out of bamboo and old tin sheets, a hole in the ground for a bathroom, sick people sitting on the side of the road and children literally playing on mounts of garbage. Only this isn’t a movie, it’s happening right in front of me. When I planned to take a job in Bangladesh I knew about these conditions, I knew what I was getting myself into. In theory. I mean, how could you ever really prepare yourself to come into a world like this for the first time?
Today, was a hard day. I had a business meeting with some doctors at one of the hospitals in Dhaka, there we spent some time touring the wards. Going into some of those rooms and seeing so many cots lined up, filled with injured patients looking so helpless, my stomach dropped a mile. I suddenly remembered why my fourteen-year-old self had to break the news to mom that I didn’t want to be a doctor like she had hoped. It can take a lot out of someone having to work in such chaos and tragedy day-in and day-out.
Despite the intense conditions of Dhaka, Bangladesh, I am very optimistic about this internship and the rest of my summer here. I am working with a local company to develop a low cost medical device made from sustainable resources. I am learning a lot from visiting patients and speaking to them, in hopes of improving their quality of life. My accommodations have been great and the food has been amazing (other than today’s dinner, fish head with eye balls included, which threw me for a spin). The people I have met so far have been very kind and hospitable, doing their best to help me feel at home in a place where it would be a gross understatement to say that I don’t exactly blend in. Everyday I spend an hour or two learning Bengali, the official language of Bangladesh. Although I was initially concerned about annoying people with my broken sentences and mispronounced words, I was shocked to see the positive reactions of those with whom I was attempting to communicate. When I try speaking Bengali everyone laughs and smiles, they praise me for trying and urge me to keep learning. Moving forward I know that there are going to be some very long days ahead, but I’m excited for the unique opportunity I have and to see what comes next.
Name: Ashton J. Stoop
Company: Libra Group
Position: Project Manager and Design Lead — Department for Medical Devices
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh
Date of Arrival/Work Start Date: July 4th, 2017
