My Trip to Bangladesh June 2011. Cont…..

The assignment is now over; managed to progress the milestones without much trouble given that I lost a total of 4 days to strikes. The draft evaluation report was well accepted by the client; now comes the tricky part getting comments on the report. There are basically 2 types of comments that a consultant is likely to get on a report. The first being, comments regarding the structure / formatting and style of the report and some times regarding the language. We have all had different educations and are used to a particular vocabulary; further at some point in our lives we have written a report and we generally stick to that structure while accommodating subject related topics. My rule of thumb is that I give in to these requests as it is just not worth the discussion regarding it. I prefer to use that time for some thing else. The second being, comments regarding the contents such as findings, recommendations etc. Here I generally play hard ball, unless I am presented with an argument backed by facts / proof. This goes to the hart of your position as an independent, unbiased professional consultant. I look forward to these comments as they challenge your thinking and help you to be a better consultant as well. I am supposed to get all the comments by next Friday as the end of the assignment / submission of the final report scheduled after 2 days of receiving all the comments.
During my last week in Dhaka my health deteriorated (food poisoning). My fault for eating some pastries (short eats) offered to me during a meeting. Momentary laps of concentration. . I have been coming to Bangladesh since 2006 and this is the first time this happened to me. My dread was the journey back to Colombo which I made with the aid of Imodium. I know this drug is banned in some countries but it is a life saver when traveling.
I do not have any other assignments lined up at this moment. Now that I am back in Colombo I need to tie up some outstanding issues. These are in fact 3 reports, 1) finalizing the report for the current Bangladesh Assignment, 2) finalize the Strategic Plan for my client in Batticaloa and 3) Submit a reflection I did for myself for the institute of consulting.

My Trip to Bangladesh June 2011. Cont…..

The journey to Sayedpur went without a hitch. It was an 8 and a half hour drive and it took us through the country side of Bangladesh. It is all green and looks wet. You can’t get behind the fact that how featureless the geography was it was miles and miles of paddy field in absolutely flat ground. The poverty is also in your face all the time. The good thing was that I saw the people doing what they can to get ahead. The more rural it got the less begging I saw on the streets. The rural folk are a really hardworking lot; you got to come to Bangladesh to see “human power” at work. It was amazing to see it. I stayed the night in Sayedpur and went to visit the partners and other stakeholder in the Dinajpur District and returned to Sayedpur for the night. The pattern was repeated in the next 2 days visiting Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat districts.



On the way I encountered a road sign that I have not come across before; which is a sign for a “local market”. I thought this was brilliant as we all know how the supermarkets can get their branding across with the power of money. Guess the rural folk got the local authorities to go one better, good for them.

As mentioned earlier the geography in the Northern area of Bangladesh was indeed featureless. However the locals in the Lalmonirhat assured me that they can see the Himalayan Mountains on a clear day and told me to look for it at the Teesta River Dam / Bridge. For my bad luck it was cloudy and rained for the best part of the day. Anyway, this is the view from the Teesta River Dam / Bridge in the direction of the Himalayan Mountains.

On my way back to Dhaka I visited the archeological site “Mahasthangarh” an ancient Buddhist city which was later inhabited / colonized by Muslims and Vasu Bihar a Buddhist university during the period.

Mahasthangarh

Vasu Bihar

I also visited the museum and saw what was left over after the customary destruction of all effigies and other objects in the face of islamization that took place. The Buddhist and Hindu statues with the head chopped off or the face chopped off as well as some with tool marks but still intact. It is great to see the Bangladesh archeology department taking an effort to preserve the history of this nation and do it in a professional manner with the little resources they have, for the future generations of Bangladeshi’s. Being a part of good old India in the past, Bangladesh is quite rich in archeology with at least a dozen major archeology sites that can be turned into major tourist destinations. I saw quite a few Hindu landmarks / tombs surviving to this day in the North outside of major archeological sites. However I did not see many Buddhist landmarks except a few Bo-trees which looked really old with some sort of earth / stone / brick arrangement around them. I did not see any churches.

As mentioned in my earlier blogs, one of the strikes that took place was because the current government amended the constitution to reflect Bangladesh as a secular society. The “religio-politicos were not happy about it. Most of my Bangladeshi friends are embarrassed when faced with stories of persecution of Buddhist, Hindus and Christians in Bangladesh. In their mind Bangladesh is and should remain a secular country with religious freedom. The assignment continues and I look forward to the next few days as the data collection period is coming to an end.

My Trip to Bangladesh Cont.....

The assignment is proceeding well, the evaluation questions have been designed and the questionnaire and show cards are prepared and translated in to Bangla. I will be using an “In Depth” interviewing technique. The evaluation itself has 2 aspects to it. Firstly; to looking at the internal mechanisms which either makes them effective or not as the case may be (As an internal service provider) and; secondly, getting conformation from outside the Unit (As an external service provider) to establish if they were effective. The main internal interviews have been conducted and now I have to conduct the external interviews. The external interviews are going to be held in the districts of Dinajpur, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat. I will have to undertake an 8 hour journey over road to get to Sayedpur where I will be based. Hope to get back to Dhaka on the 15^th.

My Trip to Bangladesh June 2011

The assignment in Bangladesh is to evaluate the performance of a department within an organization. The interesting aspect is that the objective / mission of the department is, Organization Development of its other departments as well as partners of the organization. It’s going to be an interesting assignment. This will be a long assignment where I will be staying for 4 weeks in Bangladesh and travel to the north of the country.
The journey here was uneventful and arrived at my hotel tired but happy to be here. I am staying at the Asia Pacific Blossom Hotel; http://www.blossomhotel.net/ this will be my second stay at this hotel. I stayed at this hotel in 2006 during my first assignment in Bangladesh.
The assignment itself got off to a tuff start as the day of the launch of the assignment was a “Strike Day” in Bangladesh and apparently there are more strike days planned in the coming weeks. I am no stranger to Strikes / Harthal in Bangladesh and was in the thick of them when I was here on assignments in 2006 and 2008. At least this time it’s in support of oil and gas committee on the ConocoPhillips deal. The once planed during the week is for political issues; these tend to get violent and can be dangerous.

My Trip to Batticaloa cont….

My trip to Batticaloa was one year in the making. In March and April of 2010 I was requested to do an Organization Capacity Assessment of a project which ran across 4 districts and to come up with scenarios for independent / sustainable operation. The Scenario that was selected was to restructure the project in to a single operating office in Batticaloa and to have a satellite operation in Trincomalee. It took nearly one year for the project to be restructured and to get a not for profit limited company registered. This is a rare occasion when the funders of the project seeing that the need is still there and that the services delivered through the project are still relevant wanting to develop a sustainable organization to continue to serve the public / target group. My experience in the past has been that most funders / donors say that they want sustainability but don’t put enough money and effort. “Hats off” to the funders of this project; they seem to have got it right.

This trip was to develop a 3 year Strategic Plan for the newly formed not for profit limited company. On my way to Batticaloa I took the routr through Habarana as the A 5 and the A 26 was under repair. On the way I encountered a wild elephant on the main road at around 2 PM. (See my earlier post for a photo of the Elephant) It is rare to see the elephants on the road during the day. However during the night I have come across them more frequently.

The assignment went as planned and now I have to develop the documentation (Strategic Plan and the Process Document). On my way back I took the A 5 and the A26. The authorities are developing these roads really well. These roads will be fantastic to drive on once completed. It is a scenic route.

The view from the A 26 Road

My Trip to Baticaloa

On my way to Baticaloa, This was taken on the Polonnaruwa Habarana Road today (12/06/2011) @ 2.00 PM. Wow what a Jumbo!

My Trip to Thailand

When traveling east from Sri Lanka I generally travel through Thailand and transit in Bangkok. However I rarely get an opportunity to meet the people on the road as I am in a rush of checking in and out of hotels and flights. In April I was in Bangkok for a training assignment and had the opportunity to interact with people in Bangkok. I enjoyed the interaction with shop keepers and street vendors. However, I saw a significant difference in the pulse of the ordinary people. There was a more tense feeling with quite a high degree of uncertainty given the political situation in Thailand. Even though the current Prime Minister has promised to hold elections the majority of the Thais feel that the Army has started a war along the Cambodian boarder to postpone or effectively suspend the constitution again.

The fight between the “old traditional Thai power base” and the “modern Thai power base” led by Thaksim. Some of the expatriates I met seem to think that Thailand is getting into a situation or a case of “Thailand having an Army that owns the country”; something similar to Pakistan. The Army seems to have a great say in the lives of the Thai people and the politicians.

Thailand still remains a polite and friendly place to visit, however it seems to have shot itself in the foot regarding the tremendous progress it had made in the economic and democratic frontiers. As I come from a country that has seen decades of civil war I hope that sanity will prevail and the Thai people can sort out their differences and get ahead.