"...and our history starts today"

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Welcome to Bangladesh - where every occasion is reason for celebration, and every celebration is treated as if it were the social event of the year.

After a roller coaster week in which 12 volunteer teachers were quickly morphed into test creators, copiers, collaters and proctors extraordinaire (all during the time we were supposed to be lesson planning for classes, mind you...and at least 1-2 teachers were in bed sick each day...a little run down, maybe?), we were all a little bit on edge. We'd be told that classes would be postponed two days to give the students, and the teachers, two days to relax after an unforgiving orientation schedule.
The students, who almost all endured pretty tiring journeys to arrive at Access a little over a week ago, underwent 9 assessment tests (5 math, 4 english) in addition to their regular orientation sessions (academics, extracurriculars, opening ceremonies, library tutorial, computer help, etc). Not only was I, along with the other teachers, a bit stressed about getting ready for classes on time...the students had barely had time to breathe - let alone make friends and settle in. Some hadn't even been out of the building for a few days!

While there was a bit confusion/miscommunication Friday night...for about 2 hours we thought classes had yet again been moved, this time BACK to sunday...i might have shed a 'i am freaking out right now' tear or two...but in the end we sat down with our administrators and figured out that it was in everyone's best interest to start classes Tuesday. It's somewhat become our mantra since arriving in chittagong, but we chalk a lot up to the fact that this is the first year of the program - of everything really - of the AUW, the Access Academy, WorldTeach's involvement, use of the building... pioneers have to be flexible, right?

So there was that little blip in excitement/fury last week, after days upon days of monotonous schedules. And THEN, oh then, on Saturday the Asian University for Women officially welcomed it's inaugural class.

We'd been hearing about plans for the Welcoming ceremony for weeks (we'll overlook the fact that finalized details were not passed onto us volunteers until two days prior...), and had been told it would be quite the event. I've been helping to document the students' arrival and first days for the AUW Support Foundation -- some of my pictures might have been on Bloomberg news the other night, and they grace the new AUW website, btw -- and had been told by the exec director of the Support Foundation (and the guy who is literally the brains behind the idea for AUW) that a lot of people with a lot of clout/money invested in this project were coming in for the big event. When word got out that the 12 of us volunteers were going to try and wear saris, the more formal/traditional dress for Bangladesh/subcontinent, staff and students were impressed and anxious to see us.

And let me tell you - you would have thought we were the entertainment/stars of the show on Saturday the way the students took photo after photo of, and with, us (mostly with really old film cameras or their snazzy new cell phone cameras, obviously). The director of the Access Academy arrived 2 hours before we were to leave for the theatre to help us get into our saris. i was the first ... and honestly, i couldn't really tell you how to put on or wear a sari to this day ... i literally stood there and was wrapped.

The ceremony itself was ridiculous. I arrived with my group of students (who probably have a secret vendetta against me because i was the proctor for all of their tests...absolute lie probably because these girls couldn't be nicer/more polite/happy to be in the program) about 45 minutes before the program was about to start. Our instructions, as volunteers, was to stay with our group throughout the entire pre-, during, and post-ceremony...however the second we arrived i was asked by 4 people to do 4 different things, the last of which was to stay with my students. The music wasn't figured out yet for the student performances, seats hadn't been roped off for the performers, the slideshow (which another volunteer and I put together) had to be manually reset when it came to the end, at both projection systems (two), and people were running around like crazies.

The ceremony itself was endearing, amazing, and typical bangladesh - during almost every student performance the music stopped, at least once; as the opening speaker walked up to the stage the curtains closed ON him; after he finished speaking the curtains opened and the backstage crew was still setting up the long table, flowers, glasses and water pitchers for the remaining speakers; and in the end there weren't enough seats for all the students, staff and invited guests...some people ended up sitting on the steps of the center (and only) aisle. It was a slight circus, but inspiring nonetheless. While some of the logistics didn't go off exactly as planned, the speakers and performers maintained their composure and did an amazing job in welcoming esteemed visitors, students and staff, and putting the University's best face forward. We heard from board members of the University as well as the Support Foundation, Bangladeshis and foreigners, staff and supporters. Over and over again the message was ingrained into the audience's minds that even though this was the first year of the Access Academy, success was expected and they had no doubt that the girls seated in the theatre were capable of achieving very high standards. "Our history truly starts today, with you, our trailblazers" was heard from many of the speakers. We (the volunteers) have officially decided trailblazers is a much more appropriate, and fun, term to call ourselves and the students, in comparison to pioneer (like 50% of pioneers in the US died from disease, famine and warfare, right?).

My favorite speaker - Jack Meyer - who gave the students 2 pieces of advice. (1) have fun, stay up late at night talking with friends, really enjoy the experience (2) help the University make itself a better place and (3) to take any opportunity they had while at AUW, not to turn anything down. What can i say...the advice hit home a bit.

While the speakers were great, the real stars of the show were our students. There was at least one performance from each country students hailed from, most were dance but one was singing and one was poetry reading. Ah, they were just absolutely amazing. The nepalese students went out with our student affairs liaison two days before the performance and returned with gold and pink paper...they completely transformed it into replicas of their traditional jewelry/costumes and lit up the stage while dancing. I was absolutely in awe of all of them and, with the rest of the volunteers, can't wait to start learning from THEM.

speaking of learning...classes start tomorrow. which is nuts. it's weird, but it didn't REALLY hit me (or I didn't let it really hit me) until today that i have contracted myself as a teacher for the next 16 months. For the past 2-3 weeks we've been working in our teams (computers, composition or literature - I'm a literature teacher for my classes other than homeroom this semester) to write a skeleton curriculum to use...tomorrow we finally get to meet and really get to know the students we've been conjecturing about for the past month.
Should definitely be interesting.

And on that note...i should probably go to bed. my goal is to update this much more frequently now that our schedule is becoming a bit more routine. and hopefully, after about 2 weeks of being holed up in our building for everything, i'll start getting out more and might have just a few observations about bangladeshi culture...
the one thing i will say is i haven't done TOO much research on the current rice price crisis hitting the subcontinent, especially bangladesh, right now, but on the way to the theatre for our welcoming ceremony we passed a government truck doling out cups of rice to ridiculous crowds of people, waiting with their bags or preferred forms of collection (whatever they could afford/find in their neighborhood, i'm sure). I really want to do some more research on the issue before i write about it, but y'all should look into it.

keep sending me emails, please, i LOVE hearing that time isn't only continuing to pass here in Asia :)

_____
We're in the news!
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/04/05/news0645.htm


Our esteemed speakers (remember...they were able to put that setup together in about 5 minutes...pretty impressive)


the "afterparty" -- lunch!


another volunteer, Carly, and I all made up in saris!


me. and, for the record, i did NOT look that put together by the end of the day...did i mention we hit up the local baskin robbins for some celebratory ice cream after the ceremony, still clad in sari-wear? we normally turn heads as white females...but especially drew stares that afternoon. it's slowly becoming slightly entertaining to see the reactions we get.


almost the whole group of teachers (minus one)...would you entrust your students to us? :)


after watching a good deal of a mini-photoshoot, trying to get one good picture of all 11 of us, some of our students wanted in on the action. aren't they adorable/gorgeous/the most colorful bunch ever?