Beauty and Horror: Two sides to Bangladesh
Wednesday 1st September 2010
It’s been hard to find a way to write about today. Over and over I’ve tried and I couldn’t find the words. Couldn’t find the meaning and the feelings I wanted to convey. I think that’s because I wasn’t really sure what yesterday meant, to be honest, or how I felt about it.
Shila, recovered from pneumonia
Our schedule involved another busy day in the hot Bangladeshi heat, hours on the road moving from village to village, health centre to health centre. Apart from the odd scant bit of food before we left each day, proper meals were hard to come by on the road. It is Ramadan which means huge proportions of the population are fasting and food is not prepared until Iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast together. We got through each day on bananas bought by the road side, the taste of which will forever cause all bananas eaten back home to feel dry and powdery compared to their moist sweetness, snacks of sugarcane covered in sesame, and on biscuits and salty crisps. And water, of course, lots and lots of bottled, clean water which we drank by the litre as sweated in our heavy clothes and scarves.
Lamia, drinking her rehydration medicine
Like the previous day, we continued to shadow Community Health Workers in the area, today as they visited children recovering from diarrhoea and pneumonia. We watched as Padma rani and Margia mixed re-hydration medicine to treat children with tummy bugs, carefully spooning medicine into large silver bowls of water that was patiently fed to each child, glass by glass. And we watched as respiratory rates were measured to check that children’s breathing levels were back in safe ranges after bouts of pneumonia – signs that the antibiotics administered had worked.
A visit to a health centre proved equally encouraging, once we had fought our way fast the crowds that inevitably gathered every time we stopped. This clinic sat in a market town and we had arrived in the middle of the cattle market day, the crowds soon thirty or forty people strong , standing and staring with a look that will stay with me forever – one of unabashed eyeballing that was equal parts bewilderment, unhidden curiosity, and surprise. The children scampered down ahead of us past the yellow flag that hung between two trees, the country-wide sign for Immunisation Clinic.
Here we had the chance to chat with more mothers and get to know their chilren as they waited to be seen by their Health Worker Rekha, there to carry out growth checks and talk mothers through the ‘promise sheets’ each woman commits to each month, focusing on key aspects of child care. Babies smiled and cried and fell asleep o their mother’s shoulders, protesting at being suspended on the hanging weighing scales, and crying with the same cries of shock and outrage I remember Kai emitting when injected with the immunisations that may save their lives. Children here looked healthy, for the most part, and the women were friendly and confident. A mother eight months pregnant with her second child arrived for her check-up while were there and proudly told us how she had breastfed her son for three years, his tall frame that he shyly hid behind her evidence of the extra nourishment he had recieved, and how much she was looking forward to her baby coming.
Each place we visited was different. From the bustle of the cattle market town, to the more sqallid shacks of one settlement, to the almost serene atmosphere of another laid out in an oriental style, with rice drying on huge mats on the floor, and brightly painted houses.
I think, if I’m honest, boyed by the positivity of the Community Health projects we had seen, I got swept up in the beauty of it a little. The bright, intense yellowy-green of the rice paddies and the blue sky, the laughing, clambouring children, the bright clothes, the patterns of the rice on their criss-cross mats and the deep crimson combs of the roosters as tiny chicks fell over themselves to follow their mothers. Right down to the calf suckling in a near-by stall. And the PEOPLE. The people are so beautiful here.
I think, to be honest, I forgot where I was. Or forgot WHEN I was, perhaps. The feeling of walking through a primitive, age old settlement from centuries past was hard to shake off. I kept having to remind myself, “this is NOW”. This place exists in the same time, in the same world, in the same political climate as my own. And suddenly your vision shifts and the charm disintergrates. You begin to see the rubbish lying in piles again. You begin to remind yourself that these shacks, of corregated iron and wood and thatch, are housing huge families. That the food laid out forms the vast majority of their scant diet. And you begin to remind yourself WHY you are here, that the children you are looking at are desperately vulnerable and horrifically deprived.
And these are the lucky ones. These are the communities that have access to Health Workers like Rekha, Padma rani and Margia. Many, many, MANY more do not.
It was confusing. And hard to reconcile. But reality would hit home in a big way as we finished with a visit to thepediatric ward of the local Government hopsital.
It is hard to find the words here. I didn’t take pictures. Just staying upright and breathing and not falling apart in the face of so much… so much horror, and horror it was, was the best I could manage. Sian shared a few photos today which will perhaps help to set the scene and I did take some brief video footage but that will have to wait for better internet connection.
How to describe it. Perhaps fix in your mind an image of the hospitals we have here back home. Imagine the sterility, the fierce control and monitoring. And then begin to replace the walls with horribly stained, delapertated structures. Instead of small wards imagine huge rooms, filled with metal beds crowded in rows. Filthy mattresses lay on the floor on the beds. And then fill with people. HUNDREDS of people. Mother’s huddled with babies, two to a bed sometimes, trying to feed. Babies and children hooked up to drips and blood bags. Often the entire family is there, camped out alongside and in corridoors,. Nursing staff are in short supply and the doctors here rely on them to care for their own children as they recieve treatment. There is noise and there is heat and there is crying and there is pain. How children ever recover seems extraordinary, the risk of infection seemingly so great that no sooner had they started to recover from one thing they woudl surely pick up something else.
I can’t talk about the neo-natal unit. That is Sian and Eva’s story to tell, of the babies we met there and the extraordinary work that the doctor we interviewed is doing. It is hard to keep sight of the bigger picture but it is important to register that the children receiveing care here, again, are the LUCKY ones. It is considered a good hopsital and there is no doubt that the staff there are skilled and committed.
But the shock, the shock was unexpected, and coupled with the sense of huge injustice, it was hard to bear.
These people aren’t living in the dark ages, they’re living NOW. While our children get the best medical care ever known, these children lie sick in squalid, cramped facilities. And although so many of the children we’ve seen do have access to good community health care, so many more do not. And even with good care, are stil upagainst sometimes insummountable odds in terms of santitation problems, infection risks, adequate food…
So let’s not get swept up in beauty. Let’s remember exactly what we’re looking at, see what’s right in front of eyes and what is hidden away. Let’s be thankful for the projects that our working but not forget what still needs to be done.
Because I don’t think I can live anymore knowing we’re not doing any where near enough about it.
I found this brick lying in the mud in one of the villages. Bricks are stamped with family names but this seemed so significant. It represents the health workers we have seen this week, doing extraordinary jobs in impossible environments. It will have to stand in place of all the pictures I didn’t take in the hopsital, and that I’m not sure you would have wanted to see anyway.
And it represents you. You who have the power to change things here.
Keep up to date with our Blogladesh trip by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
And MOST IMPORTANTLY make sure you come and sign our petition and Press for Change.
What hope feels like
Tuesday 31st August 2010
It was time to leave the city behind and head out into the more rural region of Barisal in South Bangladesh. MAF sea planes (Medical Alliance Foundation) provide vital support to communities by ferrying relief and aid workers to remote regions and this was to be our method of transport for the morning. Taking off in our tiny plane we were quickly above the clouds and able to get a sense of the huge diversity of this country: the vast, sprawling city, one of the most densely populated in the world, stretching out to the horizon making way to a patchwork of lush green and brown countryside. The overwhelming sense was one of richness and of water, many areas partially or fully submerged with snaking rivers winding their way through the rice paddies and great expanses of water hyacinths. From above it looked like one enormous, organic circuit board, the shadow of the plane on the clouds below with a ring of rainbow light something I will never, ever forget.
We landed in the pouring rain to be greeted by hoards of children splashing their way through the water to meet us, helping to secure the plane as we took speedboats to the shore. On land we quickly drew crowds, something we would quickly become used to here, the staring faces of the adults tempered by the children, excited and smiling to see us.
Here we met Dr Ayan Shankar Seal, a Save the Children doctor coordinating child health and nutrition projects in the area, the results of which we would see over the next few days. Although only operational in a handful of Bangladesh’s regions and districts, the ELL (Enhancing Life and Livelihood) initiatives carried out in this area are a benchmark for the kind of sustainable support that can be given to rural communities and the huge difference it makes. Dr Ayan is passionate and articulate about the work his team are doing and it was a honour to have him accompany us and share his experiences and knowledge, talking with us as we drove along the bumpy roads around the area as we travelled from village to village.
Projects are all run through a network of volunteer female Health Workers, trained by Save the Children to monitor and assess growth, support vaccination programmes, provide antenatal care, promote good nutrition and breastfeeding awareness, and to diagnose and treat childhood illnesses. It only costs 150 dollars to train a Health Worker to carry out this role, usually a member of the villages own community. The real message here was one of sustainable community-led health care – enabling communities to care for themselves.
Afia, aged 26, was one such Health Worker and we travelled with her as she visited families on her patch, checking children being treated for diarrhoea and pneumonia, and her quiet grace as she worked with the mothers and their children was both moving and inspirational. Younger than me and yet so obviously a huge pillar of her community, responsible for over two hundred households. Her story is shared here and is really worth a read if you get time.
Afia mixes up rehydration medicine to treat children with diarrhoea
The nutrition education session we visited at a local clinic was especially inspiring: here women came to learn about the best way to feed their babies. Breastfeeding is on the increase in the area and that alone is having a significant effect on the child health: a twenty percent increase in breastfeeding resulting in an equal drop in malnutrition rates. But although breastfeeding is encouraged for as long as possible, it is often once the child is weaned on to solid food at around six months of age that drops in children’s weight and health can occur. Low growth puts them at increased risk of illness and all too often children can spiral down into malnutrition. What was surprising was that it’s not just lack of food that is an issue, but lack of education.
We watched as groups of women sat on the floor around their health worker listening as she used a simple visual aid of different foods in a bowl supported by three bricks to illustrate the importance of covering all the food groups when preparing food for your baby. Take one brick away and the whole system is destabilised. It was delightful to watch, mother’s being encouraged to share their own experiences with each other as their babies wriggled and protested at being made to sit still. Such a stark contrast to the scenes in Allin hospital and so lovely to see healthy children of good weight and height.
What was slightly more of a culture-shock were the villages themselves, each quite different but very, very basic and primitive. Set off the road down lanes of thick mud, houses were built mostly of wood and corrugated iron with little or no electricity and no proper sanitation facilities. Rubbish lay piled high, with chickens running around and cattle living close by, their waste underfoot and near to where the children played. We walked precariously balancing on bricks and branches to try and keep from sinking. Everywhere there was water, thick and obviously dirty and often green, where the villages bathed and washed clothes and cooking utensils. It was not hard to see why the children were so often sick, and although the villages were beautiful in its own way, with bright clothes on washing lines, and green palm fronds against blue sky, it was impossible not to be shocked at the conditions these families were living in.
The village children gleefully blow bubbles given to them by Eva, soon getting the hang of how to blow the really BIG ones!
Rashida and little Israt
What was so wonderful about the day was the chance to talk to the mothers themselves through our translators, finding out their stories and cooing over their children. Many were Kai’s age and I showed off photos of my strong, blond boy to many admiring and appreciate crowds. There was a real sense of kinship with the women we met, such a perfect demonstration of the unifying experience that motherhood can be. One mother I interviewed for camera, Rashida, told me her favourite thing about being a mother was when her children called her “mama” and it made me ache for Kai back home.
It was good to come away from the day feeling such a sense of hope. I tweeted live from one of the village settlements that “I think I learnt today what hope feels like. And it is joyous and exciting. We need more and more of it”.
One hundred and fifty dollars to train a woman like Afia. That’s all. We need so little to change these people’s lives.
We can do this! We CAN actually changed things here.
And I was going to need to hold on to that hope the next day because it was going to be a tough.
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Keep up to date with our Blogladesh trip by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
And MOST IMPORTANTLY make sure you come and sign our petition and Press for Change.
Why #Blogladesh?
We are out here telling our story to you for one simple reason. We want our words and our pictures to move you to action, to mobilise you to want to help us push for change.
How? At the end of September Nick Clegg is representing the UK at the UN Summit in New York. Here he has an unprecidated chance, along with other world leaders, to make increased International Aid a political and financial priority. The amounts of money we are talking are minimal. What we need are a will and a commitment for rich nations to start ACTING. Ten years ago the richest nations, along with the UK, committed to reaching the Millenium Development goals, to help eradicate global poverty, disease, and hunger. Our campaign focused on two areas – to improve maternal health and reduce child mortality. UN leaders are massively behind in meeting the targets set for 2015 and NOW is the time to act.
We want to send Nick Clegg to the Summit with a clear message: that nine million children under five still dying from preventable diseasesevery year is NOT RIGHT and that we want to see our country committed to helping making this a thing of the past.
We want you to Press for Change.
You can do this by signing our petition, either via facebook or on the Save the Children website. Share it with your friends and family. We already have 10,000 signatures. If each one of you got ten friends to sign we would already have reached our goal of 100,000 signatures.
And keep reading.
Later I have a story to tell you of what I am seeing out here in rural Barisal. Save the Children projects are WORKING. The cost is minimal yet the impact is astounding – I am going to SHOW you this. Projects like this are still in a minority in countries like Bangladesh. We need to give more people the hope and the chance for transformation I have been seeing out here. We need the UN countries to commit to the aid needed to make this happen.
The Press for Change campaign is a global campaign. All over the world people are adding signatures and thumb prints to their own petition. In down-town Dhaka we visited a shopping centre where people qued to make their mark and make their voices heard that they want change too.
Add you voice to their voice.
Because together we CAN make things happen. Enough voices shouting loud enough cannot be ignored.
Thank you.
Pressing for change in Dhaka
Smiling Through Tears – Addin Hospital
Monday 30th August 2010
Climbing the stairs to the ward at Addin Children’s hospital in Dhaka, it was hard to prepare myself for what I might see. Sick children I guessed, but already this was like no hospital I had ever been to.
We had wound our way here through the heaving Dhaka rush-hour. Brightly painted rickshaws and green tuk-tuks winding their way through the endless cars and battered, overcrowded buses, solemn faces gazing down at us as they passed. Horns blared almost constantly as we stopped and started our way through the city streets, with our vehicle surrounded as soon as it slowed, by the waiting beggars – from tiny white-teethed and bright-eyed children waving flowers and pointing to their mouths, to old crippled men, proffering a withered arm or gesturing to their club feet, many with something to sell which they persistently displayed through the windows till the traffic moved us on.
It was hard to ignore. The children were beautiful and charming (and knew it of course), and it was impossible to resist smiling and making faces at them. The gesture of the hand to mouth to indicate wanting money for food was one I was to become familiar with, but you quickly realised that giving money to beggars was in an unsustainable solution to poverty in the city. We were on our way to see a project making a difference to this city’s children’s lives in a much more sustainable way.
Aldin hospital was set up by Save the Children, providing free health care to the local area and with a reputation for high quality care and medical practise. Arriving at the hospital we were met by one of the doctors and taken straight to the ward where children were being treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM), pneumonia and diarrhoea. The nurses with their long white saris and head scarves hung back shyly as we entered, the healthier children and their families quickly forming a crowd behind them as they strained to get a good luck at us and our entourage.
Within seconds I could feel my stomach twist and my head start to pound, met with the sight of children the like of which I have seen countless times on the news and documentaries but never with my own eyes. Their tiny frames and big eyes looking up from the metal beds as they lay or sat with their mothers, arms thin and legs stick thin and eyes large as they sat, so quietly. At first it seemed so intrusive to be there, we were reluctant to take pictures, but Anika, our Save the Children guide busied herself gaining consent from all the mothers there and we began to realise we had a story to tell and it was right to be there, documenting this. Some were too ill to photograph, it didn’t seem right. The mother protectively covering her unbelievably tiny, still, severely malnourished baby was one we kept a respectful distance from, and the sight of which I will never forget.
Eva and Sian and I, Liz from Save the Children UK, Anika and Kiran, our photographer, wove our way from bed to bed, learning names and stories…
Rahima and Wasiba
Like Rahima, 3 years old and lying limp in her mother’s arms. Her mother Wasima had originally given birth to triplets but only Rahima had survived, even then coming down with pneumonia and typhoid at only a month old. The resulting developmental problems had taken Wasima to seven hospitals looking for proper help and care for her daughter, until eventually she had been referred to Aldin. She said that finally Wasima seemed to be picking up and that this was the first time she felt like her daughter was being properly attended to.
Two and a half year old Shama was sat eating rice from a bowl as I approached, her mother Rupa smiling as the translator told her I had a son Shama’s age. Shama had
Shama
been admitted 8 days ago with pneumonia and although still struggling to breathe was responding well to antibiotics. The little girl in the next bed was a stark contrast, unaware of our presence and her chest heaving as she tried to take breath. Left too long before treatment the infection had taken a firm hold on her and her heart was failing. Her father had begun to cry as he talked. Her prognosis wasn’t good.
My instinct was to cry too of course. Tears coming quickly and hard to fight back. But Anika had said as we stood, helpless, “Don’t cry else you give them no hope”, a sharp wake-up call and one I needed, and I spent the rest of the visit smiling through tears.
For there WAS hope here. And life and vibrancy, and joy, even, in amongst the sadness.
Little Sangida represented all of that. 16 months old and everything you would expect of a mischievous toddler, full of fun and curiosity. Although severely underweight, admitted with weight loss and loose stools, life and spirit shone from her eyes and her attitude as she tottered around the ward after us, peeping out from behind the bed frames as she munched hungrily on an egg, getting in as much mess and under people’s feet as you would expect any other toddler to do. She held the entire ward captivated and entertained. These children were still CHILDREN, and despite the heart-ache you couldn’t help but smile and laugh, grateful that projects like this existed to put the spring back in her little steps.
Sangida
Jasmine, too, 11 years old and riddled with a skin infection caused by a reaction to the antibiotics used to treat her, couldn’t help but inspire a sense of hope and courage. Surrounded by her maternal family, her mother having died, she came to life at our presense, the distraction taking her away from illness for a while, sitting up and drawing in the colouring books Sian had bought, and chatting to Anika, playing pat-a-cake and singing rhymes.
Anika and Jasmine
These children were receiving good care. The majority were going to be ok. This was a good place, however hard the images were, these were children, for the most part that were getting better thanks to this facility.
You just wanted MORE for these children. Good work was being done here but you wanted more than the very few scant toys, more medicine, more trained staff, for these children to have been identified and treated quicker.
Making our way back to the car, just as the heaven’s opened and we got our real first taste of monsoon weather, water leaking through the entrance hall and the dilapidated building, it was hard not to feel shaken and raw. But we had gained a sense of the reality of the health problems facing children here and how crucial good medical care is.
Tomorrow we would be moving out the city and into rural district of Barisal to look at how Save the Children are addressing these problems on a larger scale.
Time for food, and reflection and sleep.
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Keep up to date with our Blogladesh trip by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
And MOST IMPORTANTLY make sure you come and sign our petition and Press for Change, either via facebook or on the Save the Children website.
Above
Sunday 29th August 2010 – London Heathrow, UK, to Dhaka, Bangladesh (via Doha, Qatar)
WE’RE HERE!
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Keep up to date with our Blogladesh trip by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
And MOST IMPORTANTLY make sure you come and sign our petition and Press for Change.
Click. I Dare You.
It’s so easy not to click isn’t it? Or just to look away. Look at something else, something easier. I do it so much.
I’m suddenly realising that I’m not going to be able to look away in a week. And I’m also realising that for once I don’t want to.
You know why? Because yes, there is pain and suffering, almost too much to bear but there is also HOPE! There is HOPE.
So watch this. Even if it’s hard. Because sometimes tragedy doesn’t need to be depressing. Sometimes it can inspiring, and motivating and challenging. Sometimes it can make you proud to be a human being, because we carry so much power, we do. Yes, power to hurt, but more importantly power to heal and to love and to implement amazing change.
YOU can be a part of that. We all can.
Click. I dare you.
Sign our petition. That’s a start, isn’t it?
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Keep up to date with all the Blogladesh developments by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
If you represent Press or PR and would like more information about or trip or to find out ways you can get involved, please contact me here.
One Week
I am sat looking at a pile of stuff and to be honest? I’m a little bit scared. I have every kind of mosquito repelling product under the sun, a hat that Indiana Jones would be proud of and some boots to cope with the muck and rubbish of the Bangladeshi slums and mud. My arms are still a bit sore from all the disease-preventing injections and I have a big visa stamp in my passport.
One week today I shall be sat on a plane, along with Sian and Eva, half way across the other side of the world, flying to Bangladesh for a week viewing Save the Children’s work with mothers and children in one of the most poverty-stricken places on the planet.
This is really, really happening.
People keep asking me if I’m ready, if I’m prepared for my trip. And yes, I’ve been busy preparing, borrowing backpacks and clothes to let me comfortably sweat out the Bangladeshi heat, thinking about modesty in a strictly Muslim country, reading through my schedule and trying not to squeak as I read the words “sea plane”, “speedboat”, or let my breath catch in my throat as I read about the health care workers we will be shadowing as we visit children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. I’ve never travelled before so all the things I need to think about are new to me. I’m desperately trying to pick up lots of tips and get my head round all the things I need to think about (and if you’ve travelled in far-flung parts and have any words of advice to share I would really, really appreciate any top tips you can share.)
But am I prepared? For what I’ll see? For what this experience is going to FEEL like?
No, how can I be.
My world has always been so small up until now. I have lived in the same small town for over 20 years. For over a quarter of that time I could barely move a few feet, my world as small as one or two rooms, a sofa, a bed, as I struggled with illness and pain and restricted mobility. I didn’t get to stretch my wings and go across the country to University, or travel on a gap year with my friends, or go on exotic holidays.
I didn’t get to do anything really, except sit, and dream, and wait.
And yet, even though my world was small, it was a privileged world. Enough food, clean water, good health care. Stuck in, tired and hurting, it was hard to see sometimes, but I was so lucky. And when I got better and pregnant I got access to excellent maternity care. My baby was given the vaccinations he needed to stay well and, fed well, he grew big and strong. God, it actually hurts a bit to think of it already, just how lucky I have been, how lucky Kai has been.
And here I sit. COMPLETELY unprepared for what the next two weeks is going to do to my thinking, my emotions, my internal map of how I see the world and what I understand about it. All I know is that it is going to be big. My world is about to get so BIG.
Soon I am going to get to see the other side of the coin, see the reality for the vast majority of women trying to raise children in other countries. It is going to shake me and awe me and horrify me and delight me in equal measure.
I am not ready. But GOD am I going to do them proud. I am going to use my voice and my words and my heart to tell their story and lots and lots of people are ready and waiting to listen, more people than we ever could have imagined. Not just Twitter, not just bloggers, but the media too, in a big, big way.
My head may not be ready but my heart is. I have never wanted to do anything as much as I want to do this.
But I need you all with me ok? This isn’t about squabbles or competition or censorship or anything else that seems to concern so many bloggers right now, this is about real life. It’s about trying to make a difference, about ALL of us trying to make a difference. And we’re not going to know if we can till we try, right?
Something you can do RIGHT NOW is go sign our Facebook petition. It will take two minutes. Nearly 9,000 of you have already but we want lots, lots more. Tell Nick Clegg that nine million children a year dying unnecessary deaths is not right, and that we have the power to change it. There are other ways to help here, too, please have a read if you haven’t already.
And then stay tuned. Because I have an amazing story to tell you.
It starts here.
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Keep up to date with all the Blogladesh developments by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
If you represent Press or PR and would like more information about or trip or to find out ways you can get involved, please contact me here.
Writing Workshop – Bright Eyes
Welcome back to your Writing Workshop!
At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to link up your posts. It’s open till Sunday so don’t worry if you haven’t had chance to join in just yet – there’s lots more time.
I’ve chosen prompt number three – Pay attention to a stranger you meet this week or observe, and write about them.
This is actually a piece of writing I did a little while ago. I actually spent a month earlier in the year sitting on benches every Friday doing nothing but writing about the people I observed there. It was a great project, before a busy schedule got in the way. I should add some more to it really. I posted a few of them on secret out-of-the-way blog that was only read by a couple of people. This piece was my favourite. I think it deserves a second airing…
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The man stands with feet planted firmly, swaying slightly as he sings. His unfocused, strangely wandering eyes, looking unseeingly at a spot in front of him, give away his blindness before the white stick does. Strangely not the long, thin cane you would expect, but a standard, wooden walking stick with the shaft painted white with house paint. The tip rests protectively in the large Tupperware box at his feet in which lie his collections for the day, to prevent, I guess, some unscrupulous person disappearing with his spoils. He is busking. Without soundtrack; without accompaniment; without explanation: just a lone, quiet voice in the winter afternoon.
He is, I estimate, in his early seventies: average build, average height, looking slightly huddled in his winter coat. His face is lined, his eyes dark and expressionless. He looks slightly lost, and very, very alone. His posture never changes: one hand on his walking stick, the other held stiffly at his side. He does not look unkempt or neglected, a hint of a shirt and tie peeping out over the undone button of his coat. He may not be able to see but he obviously takes great pains with his appearance. His leather shoes are polished; his hair combed and trimmed short; his face clean shaven. It is obvious to me that he is a man with pride, in himself and in his voice. His voice is not strong or impressive, but he holds the tune and sings with a quiet confidence, never faltering on a note or a stumbling on a word.
He is singing ‘Bright Eyes’ by Simon and Garfunkel, and the irony of this makes me want to weep. I wonder how he lost his sight: he strikes me as someone who was once a seeing man.
Passers-by largely ignore him; some risking a more lingering look and a puzzled, or in some cases, more scornful, glance. One elderly lady pauses in front of him, only to remove a soggy tissue from her sleeve and blow loudly and unceremoniously into it before moving off again. The occasional coin is thrown without comment into his collection box, the ‘clink’ causing him to stop and thank the empty air in front of him, before he picks up the thread of the song from right where he left off.
Verse flows seamlessly into verse, song into song, barely pausing between the finish of one and the start of the next. I faintly recognise some, but, for the most part, they come from a time long before my own. A time of 50’s glamour and music hall, of Las Vegas swing and rat packer’s croon. He is word perfect and sings, of course, from memory, without prompt or reminder: a seemingly endless repertoire.
Periodically, between songs, he pauses and breaks his pose to gentle tap his cane in the pot of coins, testing their number, before finding, it seems, their total lacking, and embarking on another song.
Why is he there? For the extra money? I wonder perhaps whether it is for an audience after an age of isolation, singing into unreciprocating emptiness of home. I wonder at his story, what brought him to this place and this time, to be begging for coins outside a gaudy department store window display. I wonder if there is anyone out there, thinking of him, worrying about him.
He seems immune to the cold wind biting at my fingers and finding its way under my clothes to chill my skin, his stamina far greater than mine as I pack up my notebook to find warmth and caffeine. His hands are bare and white and I am suddenly struck by the urge to go and buy the man a pair of woollen gloves and press them into his hands before rushing away. But I remember he is a man of pride, and a man of intelligence given his capability for memory, and I have no wish to offend, so settle with a dropped pound coin and quiet ‘take care’ as I move past, the sound of his song echoing after me in the fading light:
“There’s a high wind in the trees,
A cold sound in the air,
And nobody ever knows when you go,
And where do you start,
Oh, into the dark.
Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.”
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So now it’s your turn. What prompt did you choose?
1. Tell the story of a first kiss
- suggested by Snaffles Mummy and her post about little Snaffle’s first kiss this week
2. “Between the cracks”
- Suggested by Chris at Thinly Spread
3. Pay attention to a stranger you meet this week or observe, and write about them.
- suggested by Kate of the Five F’s blog who’s been guest posting over at The Blog Up North about a little girl she met.
4. Write about something you struggled to let go of.
- Inspired by Mummy Limited who did something for the last time this week.
5. Lucky
- Inspired by my friend Heather at Young and Younger and her awful scare this week.
Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) and leave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here.
If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got till Sunday to enter your link! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.
This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.
Writing Workshop #34 – Kissing, strangers, and letting go
Welcome back to your weekly Writing Workshop!
For any newbies (and it’s never to late to join in), here’s how it works: I’m going to give you 5 writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to enjoy writing your post and get something out of the process.
Prompts each week take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever everyone happened to be talking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt for a future workshop then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.
And remember! We’re not looking for perfection here! Just have a go! The best way to get better at writing is PRACTISE. All the best writers aren’t afraid to write badly. So turn your inner-critic off for a while and just see what words come out.
Time has been a bit short this week with all the Blogladesh buzz so prompt inspiration has come with help from my lovely followers on Twitter. They’ve come up with some BRILLIANT ones!
1. Tell the story of a first kiss
- suggested by Snaffles Mummy and her post about little Snaffle’s first kiss this week
2. “Between the cracks”
- Suggested by Chris at Thinly Spread
3. Pay attention to a stranger you meet this week or observe, and write about them.
- suggested by Kate of the Five F’s blog who’s been guest posting over at The Blog Up North about a little girl she met.
4. Write about something you struggled to let go of.
- Inspired by Mummy Limited who did something for the last time this week.
5. Lucky
- Inspired by my friend Heather at Young and Younger and her awful scare this week.
Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please. Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.
Feel free to use the Workshop badge on your blog or as part of your post if you like. Code is here:
Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.
See you Thursday then!
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This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop in the U.S.
How You Can Help #Blogladesh
*Updated 18.08.10*
You guys? Are brilliant. It’s official. Lots and lots and LOTS of you are asking you can help us with our Blogladesh campaign so this is just a quick post to let you know a few things you can do NOW and to answer a few questions that a lot of you are asking:
Petition
We want to collect over 100,000 signatures putting pressure on Nick Clegg to make child mortality and maternal health a priority at the UN Summit in September. The Press for Change Ap on the Save the Children Facebook page will take just two minutes of your time but collectively could make a HUGE difference. Come and add your name here.
Donate
All of this is to raise awareness about the amazing work that Save the Children are doing every single day and the huge difference your backing can make. Monetary donations are essential to help Save the Children keep doing what you’re doing and link to their donations page can be found here on our news page.
A few of you asked about donating things for us to take out with us when we go. The practicalities of this a huge so if you would like to donate goods then our suggestion is taking them to your local Save the Children shop – you can find your local one at the bottom of the page here. One bag of donated clothes is the equivalent to £30 so it really does make a difference
Power of Twitter (you strange people that don’t use Twitter can ignore this bit)
The ability to use Twitter to get our message out quickly to a large number of people is not to be underestimated.
As well as obviously re-tweeting our blog posts, news and messages and telling your followers about our campaign, using the #blogladesh hashtag on as many as your tweets about as our campaign as possible and, more importantly, encouraging your followers to do the same, will soon get people noticing and wondering what we’re talking about. Hell, we could even get it trending. We did on Sunday!
We now have a daily broadcast that you can subscribe to giving you news on all the #blogladesh tweets and buzz to help you keep up to date.
If we can get celeb power behind us all the better. Thanks to some sterling work from some very dedicated tweeters, the effort to get some well-known figures to pass on our message to their followers is going strong. Last night @nakedjen managed to get a re-tweet from my very favourite author in all the world, Neil Gaiman. Neil has one and a half MILLION followers – that’s how many people potentially viewed his tweet last night, and (updated) the lovely Stephen Fry tweeted a link today too. That’s a lot of people clicking through and reading about our campaign.
So if you follow any celebrities or well-known figures, or even just any big brands and organisations on twitter then consider tweeting them and asking to support our cause by sending their followers the link to our news page. Keep it simple and don’t harass them – no need to flood your or their time line. Everyone tweeting their fave celeb once or twice over time will have a bigger impact than a mass bombardment of tweets: here’s an example tweet for you to copy and paste if you like or you can get a bit more creative…
(insert your @celeb of choice) Please please RT to support three mummy bloggers off to Bangladesh with Save The Children http://tinyurl.com/2vnjebm #Blogladesh
We also now have Twibbon for you to add to your twitter avatars – click here to get yours!.
It’s easy to share our blog posts on Facebook and get your family and friends involved. We will also have a Facebook page up and running shortly which we will announce as soon as its ready. As soon as we do then like, like, like and suggest all of your friends do the same.
Blogging
We would love it if you could write a blog post to tell your readers what we’re doing. Add our badge to your blog by getting the code here and don’t forget to add the URL of your post to Sian’s McLinky here.
Organisations and Businesses
If you run a website or an organisation or online business and have some web space to spare, it would mean the world to us to feature our campaign on your website. Even just adding our badge to your site will encourage people to click through and find out what we’re talking about.
Press and PR
If your represent press or PR a full press release for our campaign can be found here. If you yourself have press contacts that you can utilize then please, please consider letting them know what we are doing, sending them the press release or putting them in touch with us directly.
Above all THANK YOU to all of you that have been doing all of the above already and making this campaign already such as HUGE success. It’s people power that is going to make this work and you are already proving to be a powerful, dedicated force.
**UPDATE** This campaign relies on your support. If you have any questions or suggestions we would love to hear from you directly. At the end of the day ALL OF THIS is about making noise and getting people talking about Save the Children’s work and child mortality. And I think we can all agree that is a very good thing indeed.
Image Credit: Brad Ruggles
Keep up to date with all the Blogladesh developments by following my blog’s RSS feed and by following me on Twitter. Don’t forget to read my team-mates blogs too – Sian at Mummy Tips (@mummytips), Eva at NixdMinx (@nixdminx) and Liz from Save the Children (@lizscarff and @SaveChildrenPR)
If you represent Press or PR and would like more information about or trip or to find out ways you can get involved, please contact me here.
