El polvo del camino. Dust on the road

Back home after a visit to the plantation of Horinchora, near Sreemangal, in the jeep of the parish, plying the dusty roads at this time of the year, we have passed by your side when you also went back home after working on the tea garden. Both of us return home: but I go by car and you walk, I wear shoes and you're going barefoot, a bed with mattress awaits me but you will only find a bare wood table, dinner-hot with rice and fish is waiting for me but you will have only rice, in my house there is electricity and in yours not. In addition, passing by your side we have covered you with dust and you had to protect your face with your gamsa. Forgive me for having so many things "from birth", having done anything to deserve it. Forgive me because you don't have anything like that having done anything to deserve it. I hope that your children can live better than you; I hope that they can go to a decent school and have a future better than your present.

Al volver a casa tras una visita a la plantación de té de Horinchora, cerca de Srimongol, en el jeep de la parroquia, surcando los caminos polvorientos en esta época del año, te hemos adelantado cuando también tú volvías a tu casa después del trabajo en la plantación. Los dos volvemos a casa: pero yo vuelvo en coche y tú andando, yo llevo zapatos y tú vas descalzo, a mí me espera una cama con colchón y a ti te espera una desnuda tabla de madera, a mí me espera una cena caliente con arroz y pescado y a ti sólo el arroz, en mi casa hay electricidad y en la tuya no. Además, al pasar a tu lado te hemos cubierto de polvo y has tenido que taparte la cara con tu gamsa. Perdóname por tener tantas cosas “de nacimiento”, sin haber hecho nada para merecerlo. Perdóname porque tú no tienes nada de eso también sin haber hecho nada para merecerlo. Ojalá que tus hijos puedan vivir mejor que tú, ojalá que puedan ir a una escuela decente y tener un futuro mejor que tu presente.

Poor among the poor. Pobres entre los pobres

Food consumption, income and poverty in the Tea Gardens of Bangladesh 

 A recent study (Assessment of the Situation of Children and Women in the Tea Gardens of Bangladesh, UNICEF, September 2010) found that about 74 per cent of households in the tea gardens fall below the absolute poverty line, compared to the national Bangladeshi average of 38.4 per cent, and about 50 per cent fall below the hardcore poverty line, compared to the national average of 19.5 per cent. The daily food intake of an average household member is 761.5 grams, which is lower than the minimum 934 grams required for balanced nutrition, and the average daily calorie intake per household member is 1,956.5 Kcal, which is close to the average level found among the hardcore poor (1,805 Kcal) and lower than the average level among the absolute poor (2,122 Kcal). The average calorie intake in the USA is 3,770 Kcal, and 3,270 Kcal in Spain.

Consumo de alimentos, ingresos y pobreza en las plantaciones de té de Bangladesh 

 Un estudio reciente (evaluación de la situación de los niños y las mujeres en los jardines de té de Bangladesh, UNICEF, septiembre de 2010) encontró que cerca de 74 por ciento de los hogares en las plantaciones de té cae por debajo de la línea de pobreza absoluta, en comparación con el promedio nacional de Bangladesh de 38.4 por ciento, y cae cerca de 50 por ciento por debajo del umbral de la pobreza crónica, comparado con el promedio nacional de 19,5 por ciento. El promedio de ingesta diaria de alimentos de una persona es de 761,5 gramos, que es inferior al mínimo de 934 gramos necesarios para una nutrición equilibrada y la ingesta de calorías diarias promedio por persona es de 1,956.5 Kcal, que está cerca del nivel promedio encontrado entre los pobres crónicos (1.805 Kcal) y más bajo que el nivel promedio de los pobres absolutos (2.122 Kcal). (El promedio de calorías ingeridas por persona en los EE.UU. es de 3.770 Kcal y 3.270 Kcal en España.)

Education is the only way out. La educacion es la unica salida

Black hole. Agujero negro

I feel like apologizing for showing Pako Bhuiya, his wife and their child in the intimacy of the one-room house where they live. Even though they allowed the camera inside, I have some reservations about displaying so much human misery. Not a single piece of furniture, a stove where they fry some rice and prepare some tea, a plastic bag serve as a carpet and is the baby’s crib as well, hens nibbling what they can on the mud floor, and a bamboo stick holding the thatch roof. That’s the way the tea garden workers live in Bangladesh; a black hole from where they can’t escape and where they have been trapped for four generations now. I think we should be ashamed for these situations in which people put other people. We have committed ourselves to take their children out of that, building a high school for them in Moulovibazar (see the project here). Please, if you can, help us here.

Casi quisiera pedir perdón a Pako Bhuiya, a su esposa y a su hijo por esta intromisión en la intimidad de la casa en la que viven. A pesar de que aceptaron que la cámara entrase en su única habitación me da un poco de reparo mostrar tanta miseria. Ni un solo mueble digno de ese nombre, un fogón en el que fríen un poco de arroz y preparan algo de té, unos sacos de plástico sirven de alfombra y de cuna al niño, las gallinas que picotean lo poco que encuentran por el suelo, y un tronco de bambú que es el pilar que sostiene el techo de paja. Así viven los trabajadores de las plantaciones de té en Bangladesh: en un agujero negro del que no pueden escapar y en el que llevan atrapados desde hace cuatro generaciones. Yo creo que debería caérsenos la cara de vergüenza por ésta y por otras situaciones en las que las personas ponemos a otras personas. Nosotros nos hemos comprometido a sacar a sus hijos de ahí construyendo para ellos una escuela secundaria en Moulovibazar (ver proyecto aquí). Por favor, si puedes, échanos una mano aquí.

Education is the only way out of poverty

“The wage is low.  It is not enough to live on,” says Ruchina Dufo lethargically.  She has probably said this many times yet nothing has changed.  With this starvation wage which the 43 year old earns as a tea picker, she has to feed her four children and her sick mother.  Her sick mother is paralyzed from her hips to her feet so she spends her monotonous days on a roughly hewn wooden flat bed.  It is the only piece of furniture in the house.  A couple of sheet metal pots, a kerosene lamp, a blanket, which she spreads across the mud floor when it’s time to sleep – they own no more.

Ruchina confesses that she sometimes reaches her limit.  “But I have to go on,” she says.  Her face shows no expression. What alternative does she have?  Her parents before her, worked as tea pickers.

“The biggest problem is the house,” Ruchina explains soberly: “If I would look for different work, I would have no roof over my head anymore.”

Most people think alike.  This is the right of the tea companies.  The rent free living, the isolated villages and the many years of refusal by the government to allow schools here all created this dependency.

For herself, claims Ruchina, she has no hope left. Maybe her children will experience better times.  She knows education is the only way out of poverty. 

This is an extract taken from the German made Kontinente Magazin, specialized in Missions.