Somewhere in the near 29 hours I spent staring out the window of a bus and van this week, I began to cultivate my first real feelings of love towards Bangladesh. Not just an interest towards the exotic or a fascination with the new, but the first stirrings of affection and appreciation beyond the initial culture shock. I can feel Bangladesh inching its way into my heart and clawing out a little corner against all reason. Driving through the countryside to the capitol city of Dhaka and then south to the oceanfront of Cox’s Bazaar allowed me to sit back and take it all in from a broader perspective than our fishbowl life in Chittagong. Bangladesh as a whole, not just our lives within it, took shape in my mind’s eye.
The incredible energy of the people, the shocking palette of colors, the look of dried fish stands lit by a single light bulb at night, the near hit and miss encounters with cows lounging in the road, the smell of fresh pineapples against the stench of mountains of garbage, the families of ten crammed into a tiny rickshaw, the taste of salted guavas on the beach, and the sound of our driver Halim’s bangin’ Hindu music combined to create a sensory understanding of the country on all five fronts. Sometimes it’s true that to begin to know something/someone is to love them. It’s a love that doesn’t equate with adoration necessarily, but has more to do with comfort; It is a closeness that begins to silently anchor you to a people and a place that you never before thought of as your own.
In this last week of traveling, I’ve begun to grasp that to love Bangladesh is to surrender to uncertainty. In America, we like to think of ourselves as masters of our own fate. We assume that for any problem there is a solution. We believe that we will be able to find it and fix it in a timely fashion and have minimal patience for those who don’t. We do our best to avoid uncertainty and disaster. We like to feel in control. Living in Bangladesh with this attitude will get you nowhere. Our lives here are defined by uncertainty. You never know when the power will cut out just as you need to send an important email, you can’t predict when you will or won’t get stuck in 7 hours of standstill traffic, and you’ll almost never have a day when absolutely everything goes your way. What you can control is your reaction to these circumstances. You are not the master of the world or even of your own fate but you are the master of your own emotions and perceptions.
Whether you choose to let the mishaps destroy you or you laugh them off and turn them into adventures is about all that is in your grasp. When you learn to live like Bengali’s do, walking the fine line between control and surrender, it’s freeing. I don’t have all the answers and I now accept that certain things are beyond my control. But coupled with this surrender to fate (circumstance?) is the knowledge that I will survive most things if I can find the good in them, that I can decide whether they turn into setbacks or simply sidesteps. I think that after this year, Bangladesh will have taught me the most important lesson of all: everything is what you make it.
The following is a post from AUA Network member and guest blogger Kyle Scott Herman who is volunteering by teaching History in Lebanon.
A few weeks ago, our headmaster invited us to join a roadtrip. We took a van up to Tripoli for breakfast. Tripoli felt like summer because it is on the sunny coast.
Tripoli's sunny coast and palm trees make it feel like summer even with snow-topped mountains towering in the distance.
But from there we could see the snowy mountaintops we would be driving up to see Lebanon’s legendary cedar reserve. A wintry wonderland after the first snowfalls in the mountains, it is a last refuge in a country that was covered with cedar forests thousands of years ago before nearly all of them were cut down. Today the cedars remain dear to the Lebanese as a symbol of their national heritage – a cedar is proudly displayed on the Lebanese flag. Along the way to the cedar forest and after, we passed through areas where leaves were changing colors, reminding us that even though the coast felt like summer and the mountains felt like winter, in some places Lebanon was having an Autumn that made me homesick for Ohio. After the cedars, we traveled up and over the Lebanese mountains to the Bekaa Valley. Here are some pictures that do not do justice to what we saw:
The year's first snows in the mountains made the cedar reserve a winter wonderland.
The sun dips behind the mountains we have traveled through.
The barren top of the last mountain before reaching the Bekaa Valley
This was the last picture I was able to take because we ran out of sunlight. It’s a shame because looking across the Bekaa Valley is an amazing sight – your vision spans half of the country to the Anti-Lebanon mountains on the other side, which are the border with Syria. We plan to return during daylight when we have more time.
The following is a message from Ambassador Osman Siddique, the Chairman of AUA’s Diplomatic Council and the first Muslim-American to serve as a US ambassador, and AUA Director Ben Orbach. The message was published in the International Business Times and Microfinance Monitor on November 1, 2011.
WASHINGTON, DC: Much has been written about the achievements of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs since he passed away on October 5. A part of this story not yet covered, though, is how the idea of what Jobs represented for America will be missed across the Muslim World. From the alleys of Nablus to the streets of Lahore, the American people have long served as our country’s best representatives; the loss of Steve Jobs is the loss of one of America’s foremost Unofficial Ambassadors.
For years, people across the Muslim World have drawn a distinction between their disaffection for US policies and their affinity for the American people. For many ordinary people, certain policies offended sensibilities – such as torture at Abu Ghraib – or made lives more difficult – like supporting the Mubarak regime in Egypt for decades.
It is this strong rejection of the US policy that has led to widespread “disapproval” of America in polling across the Muslim World. According to the Pew Foundation, America’s favorability in Pakistan in 2003 (the start of the war with Iraq) was 13 percent; in Jordan it was just one percent. Eight years later, it is 20 percent in Egypt and just 10 percent in Turkey.
At the same time, the American people are regarded differently – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may twist the masses in knots, but Facebook makes people smile. Our political processes and entertainment sector have long been international standard bearers, from the “rags to riches” election of the son of an African immigrant to explosive Hollywood blockbusters.
Our businesses are known for innovation and our education systems for teaching critical thinking. A degree from an American university has long been coveted while an “unlocked” iPhone is the latest and greatest American export. Steve Jobs and the company he built were a Colossus of this kind of “soft power,” a symbol of the value of the “people-to-people” component of international relations.
If this past year’s events in the Middle East and North Africa have demonstrated anything, it is that America’s relations with countries such as Egypt and Pakistan will not be determined solely by the dialogue that occurs between the leaders of our respective governments. In this age of technological connectedness and the 24-hour news cycle, governments cannot survive indefinitely if they don’t enable their people to pursue their aspirations. At the community level, people form their opinions of their national leaders and of America, too, based not upon the promises of treaties but upon the merits of deeds and the style of conduct.
In this respect, Steve Jobs was an American force for inspiration, innovation, and empowerment. Millions of iPhones and iPads bought all over the world reflect American ingenuity but significantly, the product of that ingenuity carries the promise of new possibilities.
While few Americans will have the impact of a Steve Jobs on a global level, many of us can serve as unofficial ambassadors at the grassroots level across the Muslim World and be a part of representing that same promise of a better future.
For example, Matthew Stackowicz is an English teacher who volunteered for three weeks in Sana’a, Yemen, and taught refugees from Somalia to tell their stories through photography. Brittany Richardson is an outdoors trip leader who volunteered for seven months in villages surrounding Lunsar, Sierra Leone, training young girls to ride bicycles. And Jean Kurtenbach is a senior who helped build a home with a Tajik family in Khujand.
Matthew, Brittany, and Jean represented the best of America to local leaders and citizens and formed partnerships that created a positive impact from a human development perspective. They supported the freedom of speech, the empowerment of women, and access to a healthier environment. Their deeds spoke volumes, and they improved America’s international relations at the community level.
Importantly, the partnerships they formed were not one-way endeavors. They were ambassadors to communities in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and they returned to their homes in Indiana, California, and Nebraska as representatives of the idea that our personal actions can take us beyond stereotypes. Sadly for us as Americans, a 2010 Pew Foundation poll showed that 38 percent of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Muslims.
America needs more unofficial ambassadors to the Muslim World, which is why we launched the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative this past year at Creative Learning, a Washington D.C. not-for-profit. More than 61 million Americans volunteered last year, but less than 1 percent of that number volunteered overseas and only a fraction of that one percent volunteered in a Muslim-majority country. By the end of 2012, America’s Unofficial Ambassadors will encourage 1,000 Americans to commit to volunteer for a week to a year, and we are building a community to offer them guidance and support.
Steve Jobs left an indelible mark as a great American, revered and respected worldwide for his contributions to our global community. His inventions catalyzed creativity, but one does not have to be a world-leading innovator to be a part of generating new possibilities – to build a house in Indonesia, to teach English in Jordan, and to help build peace as an unofficial ambassador.
The people-to-people connections we form, the decency we can demonstrate in the process, and the impact of the partnerships we create are all invaluable, from a development perspective and from a mutual understanding perspective, too.
M. Osman Siddique was the first Muslim-American to serve as a US Ambassador and chairs the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors Diplomatic Council. Benjamin Orbach is the Director of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative at Creative Learning. (www.unofficialambassadors.org).
Today, the first Monday of October, is World Habitat Day. According to the United Nations, the idea behind this day of recognition is to reflect on “the basic right of all to adequate shelter” and to “remind the world of its collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat.” Considering the facts that about 1.6 billion people across the world live in substandard housing, and that 100 million are homeless, it is worthwhile to consider the opportunity that each of us has to help address this global crisis.
Among the many organizations featured on the AUA Directory, AUA is proud to recognize Habitat for Humanity (HFH) as a leader in providing sustainable housing solutions to the world’s poor, including those in Muslim-majority countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Senegal, and Tajikistan. In recognition of World Habitat Day, HFH will begin construction on its 500,001st home. What an achievement! Since 1976, HFH has helped over half-a-million families worldwide obtain a decent and affordable place to live, resulting in a better quality of life for millions of people. Aside from providing shelter from the weather, safe and affordable housing serves to alleviate overcrowding, reduce health problems by improving sanitary conditions, allow children a space to do their homework, and offer a sense of empowerment through home-ownership. For more information on HFH, check out their profile in the AUA Directory.
So what can YOU do to be a part of this movement? How can YOU, in recognition of World Habitat Day, be a part of the global effort to help achieve adequate housing solutions for those in need? Join AUA and HFH in building homes with poor families in Jordan! From January 6-15, 2012, AUA will lead a team of volunteers to Jordan in the first a three -part series called Building Peace by Building Homes.
By joining this trip as a peace building volunteer, you will have a chance to support local community development initiatives, learn about Jordanian culture, and meet face-to-face with Jordanian families and university students. You will partner with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for poor families in village of Al Taybeh, in the north of the country. You will engage in discussion with civil society groups in Amman and Irbid to learn about Jordanian culture, share insight into American culture, and discuss challenges common to both societies. The trip will end with visits to Petra (one of the seven wonders of the modern world) and the Dead Sea!
World Habitat Day is a perfect opportunity for us, as global citizens; to not only consider the difficult challenges faced by many across the world, but also to consider our role in responding to them. Use this day to be a part of the solution! Contact AndrewS@creativelearning.org to learn more about how you can join the Building Peace by Building Homes initiative and support a Jordanian family have a decent place to live!
Creative Learning is excited to announce the fall schedule for the AUA Network’s monthly webinar series. AUA webinars, which are open to members of the AUA Network, offer the opportunity to engage with leaders and expert practitioners in the fields of international development, relations between America and the Muslim World, and cross-cultural dialogue. Future Ambassadors, Ambassadors, Ambassador Mentors, and the other Peace Builders committed to AUA’s mission are welcome to join the AUA Network and take part in these hour-long, lunch time sessions, starting this Tuesday, September 27, 2011, when AUA Director Ben Orbach will introduce the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative and the AUA Directory.
Ben Orbach’s presentation kicks off a dynamic series of interactive discussions with a number of expert practitioners. In October, Luby Ismail, the President of Connecting Cultures will speak on “Dialogue and Engagement with Muslim World,” and in November, Susan Raymond, Executive Vice President of Changing our World, Inc. will present, “Researching and Writing Successful Proposals: Supporting Grassroots NGOs.” These sessions will be indispensable for unofficial ambassadors seeking to volunteer with a grassroots NGO in the Muslim World. Margaret McLaughlin, Deputy Director of Stability Operations at the US State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, will lead a similarly valuable session on building community partnerships in December.
AUA Webinars will be held from 12-1 PM Eastern Time and are open to members of the AUA Network. The format is an initial presentation of 30 to 40 minutes followed by a lively discussion session. To join the AUA Network:
1) Select your appropriate membership type and click on the membership title link to fill out a short application. For descriptions of each, please click here.
Once you have submitted your information, an AUA team member will confirm your application, and then grant you full access to the AUA Network.
Members of the AUA Network can RSVP, and receive instructions on how to access each webinar by sending an email to CharlotteH@creativelearning.org. RSVPs will be accepted up to the morning of each event.
The schedule for this fall’s AUA Network is listed below. Click on speakers’ names for their full bio.
September 27, 2011 – Introduction to the AUA initiative and the AUA Directory, Ben Orbach, Director, AUA, Creative Learning
October 26, 2011 – Dialogue and engagement with the Muslim World, for volunteers and practitioners, Luby Ismail,President, Connecting Cultures and intercultural trainer
November 9, 2011 – Researching and writing successful proposals: supporting grassroots NGOs, Susan Raymond,Executive Vice President, Changing Our World, Inc
December 9, 2011 – Community Partnerships: Building personal and productive partnerships that reach across cultures, Margaret McLaughlin,Deputy Director, Stability Operations, Foreign Service Institute, US Dept of State
In America, how many times do we toss around the ideas of “service” and “volunteering” as just one of those things you do when you have enough material goods that they start to make you feel vaguely guilty? I know that for many of us, volunteering means taking an hour or two to take some clothes to a donation point, some food to a food pantry, maybe even spending some time with local kids or elderly neighbors. Don’t get me wrong, these are all important things that we should be proud to do as part of a community. But that’s not the only concept of service that exists in the world. This summer, I experienced a pretty different way of looking at things as I spent some time being a member of our global community.
If you’ve never tried volunteering with an international organization, you’re definitely missing out. Now I don’t mean going with a U.S. project to a foreign country. You need to work with a group organized by people who actually live in the country you’re in. While I was in Palestine, I had the good fortune to work with one such organization called Holy Land Trust. Founders and employees all live in either Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, or Beit Jala and are for the most part native Palestinians. As such, they are in a unique position to place volunteers because they are personally aware of the needs of the community. Their awareness and constant contact with civil society partners provide anincredibly rich volunteer experience because they are able to place volunteers with particular skills in the places they are most needed. The result is that the people you work with are always thrilled to have you there. Often it feels more like you are a temporary employee because your tasks may be essential to the function of the organization – there’s simply not enough time or money for someone else to do them. The ensuing sense of fulfillment is immense. Knowing that you made a real difference somewhere outside your own head is a feeling that these days can be fairly hard to come by. At the same time, you discover that the people you thought you had been serving have possibly been giving more back to you in return.
While I worked at al-Malath Charitable Society in Beit Sahour, I was given gifts that turned out to be something quite spectacular. The Center was a pre-vocational school for teens and young adults with developmental and mental disabilities. Founded by a driven mother, every day spent there was full of patience, excitement, and discovery for all present. The goal in founding the organization came out of a lack in the community that was felt by a frustrated mother. Although she was the wife of a well-off restaurant owner, this woman struggled daily with her son. In his twenties, Hassan needed constant care and supervision, but is family wanted something better for him than an adult daycare or a sitter at home. Despite having the money to place him in a program where he could make as many developmental gains as possible, no such place existed in the Bethlehem area. And so with typical Palestinian determination, a group of women got together and started one themselves. At work I met Saana, a female Muslim occupational therapist and social worker, and Wa’el, a male Christian special education teacher. Our summer team was completed with another volunteer, Kelly from Colorado, who did a lot of work on the website, and myself. My greatest contribution, I think, was helping to edit and compose progress and donor reports for the organization that provided their funding. Since the audience of the reports would be other Americans, I wanted the writing to be as perfect as possible for my temporary colleagues. Their hard work kept the organization up and running – it was the least I could do to make sure that the description of all that effort said exactly all the great things they were doing.
In comparison to all the things I was given, that short statement of my contribution, no matter how important it may have been, seems kind of small. Lunch and tea each day became an awesome part of my week as Saana and Wa’el taught me more words than I ever learned in Arabic class and Kelly and I traded stories of the kinds of adventures that come when you try and live somewhere like the Middle East. I learned how to count to ten while I was helping Rami, a young man with Downs Syndrome, make finger rosaries to sell and help raise money. Dance time and household teaching tasks were always an adventure and the passion that everyone working there brought to their jobs was inspiring. I loved watching their patience and gentleness and the amount of time they spent at the Center had to have been far more extensive than what their salaries covered. Essentially, I miss my time there every day and I think everyone should have the same kind of wonderful experience!
Ten years ago, I walked up the steps to my Arabic class as Nadav, a short guy from Brooklyn, bounded from the building, yelling “Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center!” We were both graduate students at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.
I joined Nadav and a handful of students around the TV in the building’s lounge. When the second tower fell, I stood up and walked home. It was such a beautiful, clear day, yet it seemed as though the world was ending.
The previous semester, I had written my masters’ thesis on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Still, I had questions. In particular, what had led individuals to do this and how did people in the Arab world feel about these attacks? Within a year, I moved to Jordan to learn more Arabic and to search for answers.
Not knowing anyone in Amman, I wandered the city and spoke to anyone who would speak back about 9/11 and U.S. foreign policy, but also about everyday life and our hopes for the future. Over the course of a year, I backpacked through Syria and Morocco, then moved to Cairo at the start of the Iraq war.
Along the way, I continued to speak and listen — to the Egyptian falafel cook making $5 a day, to my Jordanian barber who wanted to move to Detroit, to a young Syrian woman working in an art gallery in Hama, to so many others. I became intimately familiar with the problems of securing a life of dignity in the Arab world — whether that’s affording marriage, finding a job after graduation or carving out personal space in authoritarian states.
On a fall day in 2002, I had an epiphany about how private American citizens might help our Arab counterparts with these problems while improving our own security. As I taught Sundos, a headscarf-covered 18-year-old University of Jordan
student, to use a computer, I realized that no matter what befell Jordan as a result of the war in Iraq, there would remain a role for Americans to play in building partnerships.
For Sundos, the Internet wasn’t just entertainment but a tool of professional and personal empowerment. She was grateful for my help in opening a world of possibilities and was happy to be my friend.
Like people I met throughout that year in the Middle East, she differentiated between the American people and the U.S. government, seeing the American people as our country’s greatest asset and U.S. foreign policy as our greatest liability. For her and many others, Americans created Hollywood and Harvard, while the U.S. government backed dictators and launched wars.
When I returned home in late 2003, I went to work at the State Department managing programs that support democratic reforms and women’s empowerment in the Middle East and North Africa. I saw success in projects that paired American experts with Arab activists and leaders.
Whether it was legislative assistants from Colorado and Vermont training Algerian parliamentary staffers to draft bills or a documentary maker from Mississippi teaching activists in Bahrain to make short videos, I witnessed the American people serving as unofficial ambassadors. They supported local leaders seeking to address the educational, economic, human rights and other development challenges within their communities. In the process, they represented the diversity and strength of America.
I decided that I, too, wanted to become an unofficial ambassador and play a direct role in creating opportunities. I returned to the ranks of the American people and worked for an international development company in the Palestinian territories from 2007 to 2009. I designed and implemented a small grant program that built educational facilities, installed computer labs and provided recreational equipment to women’s centers and youth clubs in isolated villages and woebegone refugee camps.
We completed projects in more than 75 communities that benefited more than 10,000 people striving to improve their lives. Along the way, I continued to represent America while learning about the daily problems that manifest themselves in global issues.
This past year, we launched the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative at Creative Learning, a Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit organization. Our goal is to increase the number of American volunteers in the Muslim world, and we are building a community to offer them guidance and support. By the end of 2012, we hope to have encouraged 1,000 Americans to commit to volunteering for one week to one year.
In March, we released the AUA Directory, the premiere resource for researching short-term volunteer opportunities in Muslim-majority countries. You don’t have to be a professional development worker to teach English in Indonesia, to build a house in Jordan, to promote public health in Senegal or to help build peace.
Frequently, I think about my walk home on that terrible, clear day 10 years ago when everything changed. I’m grateful to have found a path to making a difference and to have met so many other unofficial ambassadors who are doing the same.
Guediawaye water basin. This area floods when it rains and poses huge health/safety hazards.
In addition to education on human rights, health and hygiene, literacy, math, and project management, part of the CEP is the formation of local organizations called CMCs. CMCs are made up of local leaders and are responsible for carrying out projects to better the community even after the completion of the Tostan program. Some examples of CMC projects include constructing a well, fundraising for a millet grinder, selling millet, creating an irrigation system for a community garden, making and selling soap, etc. CMCs focus much of their effort on “income-generating activities” (IGAs), but they are also responsible for maintaining the health and safety of their community. Each CMC is made up of several commissions (health, child protection, education, the environment, etc.) which raise money and lobby for new projects. For example, the Health Commission may lobby for a newposte de santéor small health clinic. The Education Commission may raise money and purchase school supplies. Guediaweye’s Environment Commission is lobbying for a new fence around the water basin to keep children and animals from falling into the water.
Micro-garden and sewing machines used by CMC members for income-generating activities.
At the social mobilization event, Guediawaye’s CMC, which is made up primarily of women (way cool!), showcased its recent projects, which include cereal preservation, soap making, and fabric dying among other income-generating activities. But before attending the main event, Elaine, Lucy (Tostan volunteers), and I interviewed the CMC Coordinator, Nogoye, and another key member, Marième, for the article Eliane was writing for Tostan’s blog. Marième is blind, and her success has made her a local celebrity. She attended all of Tostan’s CEP sessions and participated in every activity except those concerning literacy. She and other CMC members in Guediawaye are urging Tostan to translate materials into Braille so that people who are visually impaired can fully participate.
From left to right: CMC member, Marième, Nogoye, and Oumou, a CEP facilitator.
Even though Marième cannot see, she sells vegetables and braids hair for a small profit. At the end of our interview, I asked Marième how she could count money if she could not see it. I knew that she would be able to but thought she might enjoy showing off her skills. We role played me buying a handkerchief from her. Instead of giving her 100 CFA, the price she stated, I handed her 50 CFA, a smaller coin. She immediately called me out. To make things more difficult, I handed her a 2,000 CFA bill. She took less than 10 seconds to name the bill. Then she pulled out a handful of change from her purse and counted it out rapid fire. The seven or so women in the room cheered her on. The exercise was a lot of fun and made every one laugh.
Beaded sandals and bagged cereal made by CMC members.
Eliane, Lucy, and I headed to the main event after the interviews. First we looked at the table of products made by the CMC (bags of millet, soap, beaded sandals, and dyed fabric). Then we took our places in plastic chairs under the big tent. The MC introduced the event, and then Nogoye, Marième, and other community leaders gave small speeches. After the opening words, there was a small competition where the MC asked audience members (mostly girls and women who participated in the CEP) questions relating to the Tostan program. Those who responded correctly chose from a table of prizes, which included soap, hair gel, and sanitary napkins. For the quiz questions, the MC had the audience members read sentences in Wolof, answer simple math problems, and answer questions about human rights.
Audience members and a CEP participant wearing her classroom tunic.
After the competition, a handful of girls acted out a skit in which a woman, Aminata, learns that she has HIV. During the play, the girls acting giggled after their lines and audience members often laughed in the way you would when someone you know really well is acting in an informal skit. I imagine that the situation addressed in the play does not often result in such a happy ending. The stigma surrounding HIV/AIDs in rural/suburban Senegalese communities is significant largely because of misinformation and lack of education. In addition, any illness of a family member is a hush-hush topic not talked about openly. The fact that these girls acted out such a taboo issue in front of a large audience is huge and signifies a milestone in health education and reducing the stigma of HIV/AIDs in Guediawaye.
I asked Nogoye, the CMC coordinator, why all of the Tostan participants in this town were women. She told me that the men and boys were usually at work or at school. Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program gives people without access to formal education, who are usually female, the opportunity to learn and better their. One could argue that instead of providing informal education, Tostan should be working at the systemic level to make sure that women and girls do have access to formal education. I’m not sure which approach is best, but from what I’ve seen and read, working at the grassroots level is more sustainable. If decisions and social movements come from the bottom up, then systemic/policy change is more likely to be long lasting than if some outside party pushes reform from the top down. Though this process may take a long time, the results are long term benefits instead of temporary successes.
The highlight of the afternoon may have been when word got out that I could dance Uusa (pronounced “yooza”), the current popular dance in Senegal. The MC called me up to dance in front of the audience. I told him I couldn’t dance without music, so he quickly had the DJ put on some tunes. So I danced. People clapped, cheered, and laughed hysterically. There’s nothing funnier than a toubab chick trying to dance to Senegalese music. I really have no idea how to dance Uusa; I just mimic what I see other people doing. Apparently, I do alright because people always ask me, “How did you learn to dance so well?” Either I actually look like I know what I’m doing or they’re just humoring me – probably the latter. I don’t mind, however, because my dancing seems to make people very happy, which makes me happy.
After Uusa-ing off the dance floor, Eliane, Lucy, and I said good bye to our hosts and hopped back into the Tostan car for the 30 minute bumpy ride back to Dakar. The afternoon was very pleasant and a great way to take a break from the office. I would love to go back and visit the CMC women again. I’m sure they would all recognize me as the dancing toubab. There are worse things to be remembered for!
Here’s a nice article from today’s New York Times by David Brooks. It is good to see stories that remind us that part of the beauty of service is the sacrifice and humility involved. Part of the volunteer experience, particularly in the developing world, is being knocked from your comfort level, forced to re-evaluate positions or perhaps realities that you believed to be true, and challenged to respond and contribute something of value. Success on this front is why I think so many of us choose to volunteer again and again.
I liked that Brooks’ column also acknowledged that one American (or any other national for that matter) can’t swoop in like superman and save things. Local leaders and citizens hold the key to their long-term development solutions. If we as volunteers in development are successful, then we support those leaders with our resources, technical expertise, and other intangibles as they craft community level solutions. At America’s Unofficial Ambassadors, we think there is a lot we can do to be supportive in this way and to dispel stereotypes in the process.
Last thing, the volunteer that Brooks mentions didn’t have to google “Teach Abroad.” She could have just searched the AUA Directory to find some terrific opportunities to teach English in schools, orphanages, and youth centers across the Muslim World.
Habitat for Humanity has practically become a household name in the United States over the past few decades. High profile politicians and celebrities have endorsed the organization for their efforts in rebuilding homes all over the world. In the wake of recent disasters, the organization has worked tireless to recreate communities and restore lives. This familiar organization also works all over the world and has a number of programs in Muslim majority countries.
Habitat for Humanity operating in Tajikistan.
The Global Village program is geared towards those interested in short term opportunities. They have four upcoming projects in Indonesia. Not only do these projects allow for volunteers to make a considerable difference in the local communities, but the cultural immersion aspect allows for meaningful exchange. Volunteers can learn about customs and beliefs firsthand. There is no better way to break down the misconceptions that each respective culture holds about the other than by living side by side and doing construction in communities.
The well organized programs feature cultural activity days, where volunteers travel in the local towns and get educated about what life is like through unique experiences. You can see how people eat, live, even use websites like Facebook. Putting faces and personalities to perceptions of life in Muslim majority nations is just one step to improving relations and showing Americans and Muslims that we’re not so different from one another. At the program’s end, there is an appreciation dinner where volunteers can see how the locals have come to enjoy their guests and how thankful they are for the work that has been done.
It is truly an invaluable experience and we encourage everyone, college students, families, adults and retirees, to apply for this program and for AUA’s Mosiac Scholarship to finance this wonderful chance to change the world around you, while also learning yourself.
an interest towards the exotic or a fascination with the new, but the first stirrings of affection and appreciation beyond the initial culture shock. I can feel Bangladesh inching its way into my heart and clawing out a little corner against all reason. Driving through the countryside to the capitol city of Dhaka and then south to the oceanfront of Cox’s Bazaar allowed me to sit back and take it all in from a broader perspective than our fishbowl life in Chittagong. Bangladesh as a whole, not just our lives within it, took shape in my mind’s eye.
surrender to uncertainty. In America, we like to think of ourselves as masters of our own fate. We assume that for any problem there is a solution. We believe that we will be able to find it and fix it in a timely fashion and have minimal patience for those who don’t. We do our best to avoid uncertainty and disaster. We like to feel in control. Living in Bangladesh with this attitude will get you nowhere. Our lives here are defined by uncertainty. You never know when the power will cut out just as you need to send an important email, you can’t predict when you will or won’t get stuck in 7 hours of standstill traffic, and you’ll almost never have a day when absolutely everything goes your way. What you can control is your reaction to these circumstances. You are not the master of the world or even of your own fate but you are the master of your own emotions and perceptions.
