Beating the Odds: Bengali women paying off microfinance loans.

The Story of Unkown Countries Proves that Talent is Universal

By: Ireen Ahmed

Posted: 11/23/09

It was the middle of Kindergarten when we were working on projects that described our ethnic heritage. Most of my fellow classmates were drawing Italian, French, and Portuguese flags from European countries. Sometimes pictures of meatballs or spaghetti, some ethnic food would appear on the paper next to stick figure human beings. I looked down at my paper. I didn't really know what to draw, or something I could draw that represented my Bengali culture. I started with the flag which was easy enough, a green rectangle with a big red dot in the center. I then started drawing myself with a brown crayon. I tried to draw a sari on my self-portrait but it ended up looking like a loincloth. I figured I had drawn enough; I couldn't think of anything else that came from Bangladesh besides the flag and myself.

I brought the picture to my teacher. She asked me where my family was from. It was a little while before I answered "Bung-luh-desh", having a country of origin with so many syllables is difficult. My teacher didn't respond right away. It seemed that after a moment all she seemed to be able to say was, "Excuse me?" I repeated myself again; I thought that perhaps she didn't hear me correctly, or maybe I wasn't clear enough. "Bung-luh-desh". She replied, "Oh! Where is that country exactly?" This was a tough question in my five year old mind as I had hardly figured out the size of the United States. "Um….Asia?" Again, she shook her head as if understanding. I felt nervous. Did I just make up my country of origin? "I don't know much about that country. I guess I will have to look it up. Do you know how to spell it?" I felt a sinking feeling in my heart. First, I wasn't sure if the country I was from existed anymore, and now I was asked to spell the name of it even though I could hardly say it. "I….I don't know….I think it starts with a B…." I hung my head in shame. "It's okay." she answered, "We'll just have to ask your mom to spell it for us. I'll send a note home tonight."

Little did I know, this was the first of many long conversations about my country of origin. Growing up, it seemed like no one knew where I was from. If I described the location, I would get the answer, "Oh so you're from India", and I would have to start my cycle of explanation all over again. The one time in elementary school where someone finally understood where I was from was when they found a "Made in Bangladesh" sign on one of their T-shirt labels. He quickly found out that many of his clothing items were made in Bangladesh as well. Apparently, the only thing Bangladesh was known for was its sweatshops, which made dozens of items for clothing cheaply for many American retailers.

As I got older, it seemed that more people knew about the country I was from, but only from local disasters like typhoons and floods that killed millions of people. Besides that it seemed like the only other thing Bangladesh was famous for was severe overcrowding and extreme corruption within the country. Bangladesh always seems to be ranked in the top ten for both of those categories.

What was something good that Bangladesh was famous for? Muhammad Yunus is usually the first thing that comes to people's mind. After seeing the millions of starving people in Bangladesh, he thought of the revolutionary new system of micro-financing which let the poorest of the poor borrow enough money to employ themselves without any security. It also -- in a bit of a radical twist -- focused on women borrowers rather than men which was traditionally done. The system relies heavily on mutual trust and success and accountability on the borrower's behalf. It's an idea that started in Bangladesh and has spread to many other developing nations impacting the lives of many at the lowest rungs of society.

Because Bangladesh is such a new country, it's hard to find other achievements because the actual country itself only started existing in the 1970s. If it expand out more capitalizing on education perhaps we may see many more famous poets, writers, and food. For instance, Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, novelist, and play writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Rasmalai is a desert of Bengali fame in South Asia.

Growing older, I realized that there was a lot about my country I did not know about, especially the positive things. Going to school in the US, we only learn about the Western world; namely, the achievements of Europe and the US. But these countries are not the only ones to shape the world as it is today. Learning about my own country and its achievements has shown me that. I'm sure when my children go to school their teachers will definitely know how to spell Bangladesh.