Peace, tribes and ricksaws - update from Laura in Bangladesh

Things are going well here, we've all settled in, met some great people and discussed many useful things. Yesterday we were led in a session on the Theology of Just Peace from the perspective of Christianity and looked at how the people Jesus talks about most in the bible are the poor - those in Poverty. The poor in spirit and the poor in material. In the afternoon we discussed Indigenous People, and talked about the tribes and their spirituality, something I found difficult to relate to, as we don't have tribes as such in England, unless we look to the travelling communities which are rather different.

Today we had a talk from a Muslim Professor and this afternoon discussed Identity, Diversity and Stereotyping - we have many identities and we questioned what our personal identities are, and are these so strong that they stop us from relating to others? An interesting thought...

This evening was great, a group of us walked to the market, about 15minutes away. The Bengalis just stop and stare, they are amazed to see white people, they are so interested. We went because us English girls wanted to get some traditional Bengali dress - we all got a good bargain! At one point, 8 of us were in a shop and when we looked out the window there was a crowd of about 10 people staring at us, taking pictures and filming us. It is crazy to think these people have never seen a white person... We then got a Rickshaw back to base - this is a man cycling, pulling 2 people in a carriage through the busy traffic, pushing their way through tiny spaces and luckily I live to tell the tale!!!

So tomorrow we are all off on our field trips, we've been split in to groups and I have chosen to go Bogra YMCA, it seemed quite relevant to me because of the work they do in the community and I hope to be inspired by the work they carry out. Others are staying local and going to Dhaka- to the university and to visit places of worship, others are going to visit a peace school in another part of Bangladesh. Should be an interesting few days and we'll all feedback to everyone else when we come back. It's been such a culture shock so far, and I definitely think I'll come back with many different perspectives on life and on other people. I'm very grateful for this opportunity...

Laura