Daily Struggles

Daily struggles in developing countries like Bangladesh are very different from those in countries like the United States. I reported before some of the issues that make work in conservation (or in any capacity for that matter) in the countries this film covers (Nepal, India and Bangladesh), a tougher road. For example, strikes that shut down all transportation across the nation, sometimes for weeks at a time.

Every single day there are power outages.

In some locations, nearly daily there are protests and demonstrations that can and many times are violent.

Recent Student Protest at Dhaka University, Bangladesh (Photo: Focus Bangla)

Because of the extreme poverty, as in any location (including the United States), where there is poverty, people tend to look for criminal means to make a living. Sometimes through theft.

Today I was reminded of this, as I worked to follow Farhana through the streets of Dhaka to film her in another struggle (the more than month long process just to get a passport). We had just arrived after taking an all night bus from Khulna and because we each had luggage we had to take separate rickshaws. Mine was following hers. When out of no where a car appeared that targeted Farhana and attempted to steal her laptop bag from her. Her driver handled his rickshaw expertly so that the car passenger could not quite get a good enough hold and gave up.

Even just moving about the city can be risky. (jgphoto.photoshelter.com)

I then learned not long before the same thing had resulted in considerable tragedy. A woman in a riskshaw had the same thing happen, but because she had the strap of her bag wrapped around her arm she was yanked out of the rickshaw and dragged under the car which ended her life.

Obviously bad things happen everywhere across the earth every day no matter where you live. But the number of daily obstacles and the chances for hardship are a bit higher in developing nations like Bangladesh than others. Increasing stress, and shortening life spans. Life spans that could have produced considerably more for the people of the world and our planet if they had been healthy enough to do so.