The ABC School

There's an old saying, usually attributed to Confucius, that goes something like "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime."

I would translate it conceptually into something like "Education is the most important thing you can give someone to increase his opportunities."

Eglal’s ABC School is an extension of the work begun by a teacher of the American International School, Dhaka (AIS/D). Eglal gave lunch to a wandering ‘street boy’ one day at her home and asked him to come every noon. The boy started bringing his friends with him. Very soon, Eglal was feeding about one 100 children every day. She also provided them with their emergency medical needs. Nowadays, over 120 slum kids eat and get an education every day. How is that for a ray of hope?

What my children are taking for granted, here in the slums of Dhaka is perceived as a privilege. These kids are the lucky ones that, once they get admitted, will receive a bilingual education. And there is more to support that: free health care, free lunch, daily showers, uniforms, and mentoring.

I have never been too big on charity. Part of it was maybe because as a number guys I would have a good understanding on how much out a dollar goes to cover overhead cost. But here, all money goes to the school. There are volunteer board members and volunteer teachers. The donations go directly to the education and welfare of the kids. And visiting the school allows you to see how little money it takes to provide for a healthy child.

One kid I spoke to told me that he WILL go on to university. That was probably unimaginable for anybody in his family, not that long time ago. How awesome is that?

We left wishing we could give all of the kids everything they wanted and promising ourselves to find a way to make a difference while in Bangladesh. The need is so great here!

A humbling experience

We had promised Sunny, our dog walker a visit to his house for a while now. Both Cristina and I love the kid, his attitude, his smile, his gratitude when he receives the money he works so hard for.

We finally got around to it and we're glad we have. It gave us another chance to reflect on how fortunate we have been and have much we have to be grateful for. A stone throw from the biggest mall in South Asia (brandishing lavish luxury stores, an amusement park like rivaling the best we have seen and many others), Sunny's "home" is a small room where the parents and  three children sleep, do homework and all the other day to day activities. The bed was large enough just for the kids, while the parents slept on a mattress stored during the day under the "desk".

Needless to say, everybody rushed in to meet and greet us. Uncles, cousins, aunties, nephews, grandmothers, neighbors, brothers in law, all came out of the woodwork to see the Americans who had promised they WILL COME (no similarity to my blog title). There was no room for everybody inside, but that did not prevent them from showing up.

What was surprising for us was to find out that it was actually an "upper lower class" family we were visiting. These guys actually had broken free from the slum and are living now at least in a "permanent" structure. As bad as it looked to us, this was actually the Deshi equivalent of living the dream.

My bed never felt so comfortable the night we returned from our visit. Or the home so warm!