Da Government

da government

In the morning time here, a form of Seseme Street is aired on one of the Bangladeshi TV channels. Seseme Works, the parent organization, has created this incredibly entertaining show for small children.. I am not foreign to Seseme Street as I was raised on it too, but definetly the characters on this one were a bit different. As I was flipping through the channels, what caught me was the exercise in counting one through twelve, which is right where we're at in Bangla class this week. There was a jolly vegetarian Bengal tiger who does eat fish, a jackel who wears glasses, a young girl in a dress who is a bit mischivious, and and older lady in sari and bindi. At the end of the half-hour program, the credits were not what we were used to in America....to viewers like you......it was credited to US AID.

Today is Saturday, the last day of the Bangladesh weekend. I had crazy dreams of going back to the states for a visit, being in my mom's mini cooper, and stopping by the Korean grocery store on the way to the airport. In the dream before that I was at the Northwestern University sailing center where I work and in additon to the the sailboats we have, we now had jet skis and a big yellow tug boat. The awakened morning was a lazy one of chatting over tea at breakfast, and then we decided to go visist our American neighbors next door. They had agreed to sign our sponsor applications so a couple of us could join the American Club, which I'm sure will be the source of many emails in the future.......

Our next door neighbors are NGO (non governmental organization, what the rest of the world calls non-profit organizations) here in Dhaka. As it turns out Patrick is part of the US AID office out here. We had a very enjoyable conversation, much of it was me drilling questions to him about how this whole diplomatic/foreign service/ NGO thing works. US AID does not just produce Bangladeshi Seseme Street, but does and incredible amount of programs in development, health care, fair elections, and industry development, all of which are direct intrests of the US Government. US AID is part of the Democracy and Diplomacy aspect of the US Government and is starting to be absorbed by the State Department.

Oddly enough, who are our main sponsors here....The US State Department!! In our conversations I also expressed how I felt we are not being given all the information on why these language study programs are being put together. My intuition is telling me that we will be told more at the end of the program. Perhaps a fast track in foreign service, or more scholarships? It will be interesting to see what pans out, but I becoming more aware of the inter-connectedness of the whole thing. Still enjoying......

Four Winds

Yoli aka Kurukulla aka France