Tumi Shokti Shalli

What a roller coaster ride it has been. We have been shuttling back between Dhaka and different parts of this country, collecting our materials and trying to wrap our minds around how this is all going to come together by the time we leave- at the beginning of our internship we ambitiously decided that we would not only document the stories of those who work with Human Rights and Legal Services, but also with two other departments- Social Development Program and Gender Justice and Diversity. All three constitute BRAC’s programs addressing Social and Legal Empowerment.

Outside of Dhaka I feel everything in extremes, the stories of the women we have talked to stay with me for days, countless stories of domestic abuse, which perhaps tellingly is only described as torture. I feel like I am putting together the pieces of a puzzle, always trying to understand the structural systems that permit violence against women to exist.

Perhaps when I have traveled before, I have been much more willing to come to conclusions, here I feel like ‘understanding Bengali culture’ is in no way possible in two months and definitely impossible without speaking Bangla semi-fluently (I have been studying with flashcards and can only pick out a few words of each sentence as people talk…). Understanding how people actually communicate with each other in words is such a basic element to understanding everything- how people treat each other, respect each other, communicate ideas etc. I am finding myself wishing I were here for longer, I have endless questions that I wish I could ask everyone I meet, but without Ruhul (the best translator/friend ever), I can basically have one conversation (if the person doesn’t speak any English). It goes like this- I describe what my name is, how I am doing, where I am from, that I can’t speak Bangla but I am learning (duh.), how many brothers and sisters I have (my personal favorite, always get a good response to the big 10), and that I am not married. Then I ask a few simple questions and I am lucky if I understand the answer. “Aste, Aste,” I say, speak slowly. Pretty limited to say the least, definitely not a conversation that gets to the heart of the national/individual psyche.

It is this challenge of communication that makes me so grateful that I have the opportunity to spend so much time in the houses of the women we are meeting. The way that they have opened up about the painful and intimate details of their lives has shown me that the ability to connect with someone is not limited by language. So much is communicated through the face, the voice, the body. We are almost done translating all of our videos and it has astounded me how much I could tell how the women were feeling in the moments when we were alone together.



Mussamat struck us with her beauty from the moment we saw her, greeting us with a brilliant smile, making me almost second guess if she was the woman we would be interviewing- we had been told we were going to meet a woman with a brutal story of acid throwing. Ruhul confirmed that she was the one and briefly told us that her ex-husband threw acid on her when her family was unable to pay a sufficient dowry. That is all we knew. When she hugged us both I saw that the topography of her skin confirmed that she was indeed a survivor of a viciously violent act. She eagerly led us to her home and we realized we would have to talk in her courtyard, as her daughter was sleeping in their home. After a nauseating round of crowd control (can’t expect someone to open up when 50 of their neighbors are listening in), we sat down and she began speaking. The first few moments she glanced nervously at the camera but she quickly forgot about it and for the next 45 minutes she made intense eye contact and spoke directly to us. For long moments she stared into the distance, letting a loud heaviness settle into the spaces between her words. Ruhul was waiting outside so we had no idea what she was saying. Almost immediately my breathing felt restricted and difficult.

Before long sweat covered all of our faces, as if we had just stepped out of the shower, but she continued speaking. A single stream of sweat traveled down her neck and onto her chest, traveling like a river in the valleys between her scars. Scars are evidence of survival. Only the living have scars.

Screenshots from our video:








When she decided she was finished talking, we all embraced each other tightly and collectively cried, each head on another’s shoulder. I whispered in her ear, “Tumi shokti shalli.” You Are Powerful. She spoke quietly to us, but with the cameras off, we will never know what she said. We stroked her hair, kissed her face, and all held each other tightly. She slowly and softly wiped the sweat and tears from my face with her scarf. It is that moment, with her tenderness, gentleness and kindness, which I continue to think about.

After several minutes, we all began to smile and then to laugh. Suddenly, a freedom revealed itself between us, a common unspoken understanding that something powerful had just occurred. We eventually went outside her courtyard where Ruhul instisted that we were very late for our next meeting. Within minutes we were being whisked away after a huge crowd had descended upon us. The last image of her in my mind is of her beaming, holding her daughter, sending us away with a giant wave.

From Mussamat's story

After driving away we asked Ruhul how old Mussamat is.
“Twenty two,” he said.
The same age as Patricia.

Last week we translated what she said to us and we finally learned her story.

In order to pay a dowry (an illegal, but very common practice) for Mussamet to get married, her father, a farmer up to that point, sold all of his land. He is now a rickshaw driver. She was 17 years old. Upon marriage she moved to a new community, away from her family and into her husband’s family’s home. His family was not satisfied with the dowry amount given and both her husband and mother in law physically tortured her, pressuring her family to give more. She became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, but her husband’s family did not accept her in their home. Eventually, after continuous torture and still no more dowry money, her husband and mother-in-law threw acid on her face and body.
In that moment, her fellow members of the Polli Shomaj (a community group formed by BRAC’s Social Development Program) threw water on her and took her to the hospital. They have continued to support her and her daughter now that she has moved back in with her parents. Since her father sold his land for her dowry, her parents can barely support themselves, they cannot offer her any financial support, she struggles to provide food for both her and her now four year old daughter, she revealed that she rarely has three meals a day. She still experiences intense pain because of the acid throwing- she cannot be in the sun for long (meaning she was probably in pain while we were talking) and it is very painful for her to do manual labor. As a woman, she finds it extremely difficult to find work opportunities. As a result of the acid attack, she has no hope to remarry, meaning she will probably live the rest of her life with her parents and daughter. BRAC is fighting for her, baring all costs to run the case against her ex-husband and mother-in-law, which is still in process. Justice is on the tip of her lips, she craves for a harsh judgment and fair ruling.



Hearing her words adds a whole other dimension to our original connection and experience. It is frustrating to learn what she revealed to us and know that I did not have the opportunity to tell her how much I value her existence in the world, that I did not give her anything more than my presence, when she is unable to feed her daughter. I do not think there is sufficient language that I could have used anyways, I can only hope she felt my deep respect and admiration of everything that she is.

Here is a small excerpt of what she said:

What can I do?
What can I do, my sister?
What can I do?
I have so much pain.
I wish that no one else will be as helpless as I am.
No one.
I wish that no one else will have acid thrown on them.
I wish no one else will be tortured as I have been.
I am unable to support myself because of my troubles.
For this reason, BRAC has supported me and I have also received a lot of support from my community.
I cannot do any kind of work, I cannot work in the sunshine.
I do a lot of hard work, and experience a lot of pain.
I said, “I want to die because it is very difficult to live like this.”
In that moment, BRAC asked me, “why do you want to die?”
I said, “Now I am jobless. I would rather die than have to live without a way to support myself.”
BRAC said, “You will get fair judgment in your case and you deserve this because they destroyed your life. If you die, your daughter will die. Your daughter has a life.”
In that moment, I said, “ I am not interested to save my life, because my husband and my mother in law were not interested to receive me. They did lots of torture to me. What can I do now? I don’t have any way to live. I have only one thing I can do, and that is to die. I am not interested to save my life. What can you do for me?”
BRAC said to me, “Please do not kill yourself. We will give you some kind of support. We will help you to support yourself and your daughter. Don’t worry, we will help you. We will help you. You will work with us.”
BRAC just filed a case against my husband. BRAC is now supporting me to continue this case. I am unable to pay for my case, only because of BRAC it is continuing.
I am continuing my life with the help of BRAC and my community.

I wish no one will have to go through what I have.
This is what I wish.
I wish no body will be victimized by acid.
My husband caused me so much pain.
I wish that no one will ever have to go through what I have.
God created this world to live in but I do not have any way to support myself.
How can I support myself?
I need to eat something.
How can I support me and my daughter?
Only because of BRAC, I am here.
I can depend on BRAC that they will give some kind of support to me.
My sister, I do not have any words that can comfort you.
This is my story, I have nothing else to say.

Scenes

These are some of the scenes I have witnessed in Dhaka, Mymensingh, Faridpur and all the places we drove through in between.




Cleaning up in the rain after a truck piled high with hay crashed on a bridge.




Monsoon season




selling newspapers through the bus window


taking local buses = wild adventure




How all the shops are lit at night




kerosene light.


The father of a woman we interviewed, he supports his wife, daughter(who was left by her husband when it was discovered that she had a brain tumor) and her three children with his small cattle leaf shop.












I love how he was naturally posing like this, caught it out the window of the bus.


stunning...






Notice how few women are in public...




Ferry ride

I love this girl...

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

From Bangladesh Part 2

A Breath of Fresh Air

Today we went on a one day trip to Kishoregonj to document the work of BRAC's Gender Justice department. They are doing phenomenal work by training community members (both male and female) to be Gender Justice Educators who work to end domestic violence and gender based discrimination at the household level. We observed a courtyard meeting where a Gender Justice Educator talked about the reasons why girls education is so important. We also watched one of their films they created (which was watched on a TV by about a hundred kids) about division of labor within the household. We sat down with two Gender Justice Educators who are married and they told us about their hope that their daughter will face a society where she can be free to express choice and get a good education.

From Bangladesh

The inspirational agent of change

From Bangladesh

At the courtyard meeting, showing illustrations of why education is important

From Bangladesh

Getting out of Dhaka was very necessary. I had been in a bit of a funk after the mugging- feeling scared, uneasy and confused. Seeing the countryside again filled me with such peace and comfort. The countless soccer games against the backdrop of a purple/pink sunset reminded me of the importance of social release--- of breathing and seeing the beauty in each moment.

It is late here and I am heading to bed now, tomorrow we will be working with our incredible/hilarious interpreter Ruhul to begin translating our videos-- I can't wait to learn the real words behind the emotions. A whole new layer of meaning will emerge.

Here are some shots from today taken through the car window (again, I apologize for the terrible quality-- larger versions will be updated with faster internet)

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

Fisherman

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

Trauma & Warriors

It already appears in my memory as a strobe infused scene, like stop motion animation. Hallie's scream was the first thing I heard. I immediately stopped walking on the dark road, turned around and saw a man in a car, holding onto Hallie's bag while she still held on. She ran until the car became too fast at which point she was dragged along the ground until she finally let go of her bag and landed forcefully in a deep puddle which was produced by this afternoon's strong, heavy rains. Patricia and I both ran to her, desperate to see if she was hurt. Covered in muddy rainwater Hallie held herself high, told us everything was ok, she was fine. Her arm was bloody and wet. A huge group of passersby (all men) immediately gathered around us. Patricia, Hallie and I looked at each other in shock, how in the course of a few seconds we had traveled from almost pure happiness (having just eaten the most heavenly gelato), to crisis/survival mode, where the world felt like a dangerous and threatening place. We asked the essential questions. She was not seriously injured, just a few deep cuts. She did not lose anything important. Only her wallet with 2100 Taka (30 dollars), her atm card, her local cell phone and a new pair of tweezers she had just purchased.

I felt my body shaking, my breathing felt painful, my chest felt like it was being sandwich pressed from both the front and the back. We quickly motioned to the passing motorcycle rickshaw, or CNG (for Compressed Natural Gas), and asked if the driver could take us back to the BRAC center where we are living. The driver didn't understand what was going on, why so many people were yelling, or where we wanted to go. Soon we were holding up traffic and the cacophony of the honking horns only added to the chaos I felt. We made it into the CNG and for the next ten minutes we sat almost completely in silence, unable to find any words that could meaningfully describe how we were feeling.

Earlier tonight, just a few blocks away from where everything would happen, we enjoyed a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant in celebration of seeing Hallie for the first time in a few weeks (Hallie is a fellow intern at BRAC and we were both doing field work in separate regions of the country). At dinner Hallie told us a story which upon completion we confirmed was the Best Story We Had Ever Heard. She described how while traveling with friends in India she had missed a train that all of her travel companions were on, she chased the train for a kilometer before finally stopping and watching the train continue into the distance. She only had a few rupees and no cell phone and after 24 hours and three cabs, three plane rides and a rickshaw ride, she finally arrived in the same city as her friends, only to find out that one of her friends had been in a motorcycle accident and was in the local hospital. The story went on to include a gunned goon, a crazed Dutch lawyer, three hospitals, and a member of the Indian army named Samson. After telling the story, Hallie described how her mother constantly felt high levels of worry/stress every moment that she is in Bangladesh. Twenty minutes later she was attacked.

On the way home, I looked out the window to stare at the passing city. At a long stop at an intersection I saw two women sitting on the center divide with their four small children, all whom appeared to be homeless.Their faces looked tired and worn. After three weeks, the presence of beggars, the taps asking for money, the children pulling on my arm, have almost become routine. In the vulnerability of my emotional state, the scene opened a space within myself that (as a coping mechanism) I had been covering up. I couldn't deny our common connectness and the injustice of our separate places in this world.

Sometimes it all adds up and I need to release. I think of the stories of the women we have met, who allowed us into their homes and shared their stories with us. Stories of physical torture, of rape, acid attacks, and poisoning. Stories with unfinished endings. We recorded the stories of 11 women and 2 men, all who have benefited from the work of BRAC. Many have received free legal aid services, allowing those whose rights have been violated to claim justice. Many of the women that we talked to had used the legal services of BRAC to prosecute abusive husbands who physically punished them when her parents were unable to pay the dowry they promised. These women had the courage to leave even when their only option was to move back in with their parents or a brother, often with several children.

The experience of documenting these stories feels like such a profound privilege, the connections we have been able to create have been humbling and profound. For each recording session, often at the woman’s home, we have insisted that our interpreter, Ruhul, leave the room so the women could feel free to speak openly. He explained our project to them, how we want them to tell their story with emotion and detail and that they can feel free to talk as long as they would like.

What happened was shocking. We would close the windows, spend ten minutes shooing around 50 people away who were intently staring at Patricia and me, and would then encourage them to begin speaking. Within a few seconds/minutes of speaking, many began to cry. We held their hands and nodded our heads and stared in their eyes and although we basically could not understand a word they were saying, we felt them. Many spoke for at least half an hour. Several times we stopped shooting and just all cried together and held each other and eventually, comforted each other. It became very clear, very early, that there is not enough psychosocial support for the women here. The traumas that many have experienced, mostly gender based violence, have caused deep wounds. Women do have not sufficient spaces where memories can be processed in order to begin healing. Time after time, the act of describing their memories out loud unleashed a torrent of emotions, and layers of unresolved pain. BRAC has had an incredible impact on all of these women- BRAC’s legal aid support helps women express individual choice in their lives, a basic right which the shallish system denies (in traditional dispute resolution, village elites decide outcomes with out consultation of the women involved). The women we met were strong, courageous and beautiful. Just like Hallie tonight.