Party, party!
Saturday, 12 April 2008
With less than a week left, Project Rayenda is officially in closedown mode. Inexplicably, our numbers have swelled and now we're at 18 people.
Part of HODR tradition is to end each project with a goodbye/thank you party and a giveaway of all our tools and household goods to the community. Tonight was the goodbye party! In typical Bengali fashion, the event included a decorative gate, elevated stage, and monotone Bengali speechmaking. Slightly less conventional was the entertainment provided by the volunteers and a slideshow of photos, complete with a medley of Bengali pop tunes from the finalists of Bengali Idol. I kid you not.
We invited all of the HODR Half families, the families in our immediate neighborhood, and friends/work colleagues from the surrounding areas. Rajib had the fun idea to distribute "kid tickets," cards stamped with the HODR logo which gain the recipient kid entry into the special front seating area of the party. In the days leading up to the event, Saddam, a neighborhood staple who looks like a human incarnation of a Simpsons character, had taken to lurking around the front yard and falling into step with me as I entered or exited the property. He charmingly rattled off the usual questions (what is your name, what is your country), before popping out his hand like a cash register slot. "Ticket? Aamar ticket?" ("My ticket?")
TC volunteered to help me hand out the kid tickets the night before the event, since he knows the names of most of the kids in our neighborhood. We thought that it would be least conspicuous to go out at night and distribute the tickets door to door. We were mistaken. As soon as the first ticket was handed over, a crowd swarmed about us, clamoring for tickets. The kids formed one of those magical Bengali lines, where it doesn't look so long and almost seems orderly, except that it never actually gets any shorter because people keep slipping in the sides. One lady felt no qualms about karate chopping TC in the back to get his attention; turns out this woman was our immediate next door neighbor!
Anyway, the party was a great success. Agrodut Foundation, the local NGO we've done a little work with, was our host. It was so fun to see everyone, community members and volunteers alike, dressed up and treating themselves with more care and attention. The little girls especially were amazingly cute, wearing their finest salwar kameez with as much glittery thread possible woven into the fabric, and with their hair fastened in numerous pigtails. It also seems to be a fashion to dangle what looks like a keychain fob from a pigtail over the middle of your forehead. At any rate, it was really fun.
Highlights from the party included Alan performing a song with John's guitar, finishing off by jumping off the 3 foot high stage onto the lumpy, even lawn below while wearing sunglasses and brandishing the guitar over his head, an amazing Hindi song performed by our downstairs neighbor, and the slideshow. The 15 minutes of photos flew by; people were completely transfixed at seeing themselves, their children, and their community on a 6'x6' screen. (Keep in mind that in this community, a 6"x6" black and white TV screen in a tea shop is high entertainment, and attracts a crowd of about 50 men who cram in to watch.)
At the end of the evening, we served each of our 250 guests a biryani box dinner. In the past, we've been told to keep our expectations low, to manage any sort of distribution tightly, to be careful of stampeding and general disorder. The people here are very used to receiving relief goods, and perhaps have a mechanized impersonal approach to the whole thing. Instead, we asked everyone to please sit and let the volunteers serve them, emphasizing that we had enough for everyone and we wanted to serve them since they have taken such good care of us. It went off without a hitch. Volunteers with tall stacks of boxes fanned out like ants, and within two minutes, everyone had their food. Amazing! Again, it was nice to see people treating themselves in a gentler, more respectful way.
So, with the party done, we have the lottery to look forward to tomorrow. Here's hoping it goes as well as the party!
With less than a week left, Project Rayenda is officially in closedown mode. Inexplicably, our numbers have swelled and now we're at 18 people.
Part of HODR tradition is to end each project with a goodbye/thank you party and a giveaway of all our tools and household goods to the community. Tonight was the goodbye party! In typical Bengali fashion, the event included a decorative gate, elevated stage, and monotone Bengali speechmaking. Slightly less conventional was the entertainment provided by the volunteers and a slideshow of photos, complete with a medley of Bengali pop tunes from the finalists of Bengali Idol. I kid you not.
We invited all of the HODR Half families, the families in our immediate neighborhood, and friends/work colleagues from the surrounding areas. Rajib had the fun idea to distribute "kid tickets," cards stamped with the HODR logo which gain the recipient kid entry into the special front seating area of the party. In the days leading up to the event, Saddam, a neighborhood staple who looks like a human incarnation of a Simpsons character, had taken to lurking around the front yard and falling into step with me as I entered or exited the property. He charmingly rattled off the usual questions (what is your name, what is your country), before popping out his hand like a cash register slot. "Ticket? Aamar ticket?" ("My ticket?")
TC volunteered to help me hand out the kid tickets the night before the event, since he knows the names of most of the kids in our neighborhood. We thought that it would be least conspicuous to go out at night and distribute the tickets door to door. We were mistaken. As soon as the first ticket was handed over, a crowd swarmed about us, clamoring for tickets. The kids formed one of those magical Bengali lines, where it doesn't look so long and almost seems orderly, except that it never actually gets any shorter because people keep slipping in the sides. One lady felt no qualms about karate chopping TC in the back to get his attention; turns out this woman was our immediate next door neighbor!
Anyway, the party was a great success. Agrodut Foundation, the local NGO we've done a little work with, was our host. It was so fun to see everyone, community members and volunteers alike, dressed up and treating themselves with more care and attention. The little girls especially were amazingly cute, wearing their finest salwar kameez with as much glittery thread possible woven into the fabric, and with their hair fastened in numerous pigtails. It also seems to be a fashion to dangle what looks like a keychain fob from a pigtail over the middle of your forehead. At any rate, it was really fun.
Highlights from the party included Alan performing a song with John's guitar, finishing off by jumping off the 3 foot high stage onto the lumpy, even lawn below while wearing sunglasses and brandishing the guitar over his head, an amazing Hindi song performed by our downstairs neighbor, and the slideshow. The 15 minutes of photos flew by; people were completely transfixed at seeing themselves, their children, and their community on a 6'x6' screen. (Keep in mind that in this community, a 6"x6" black and white TV screen in a tea shop is high entertainment, and attracts a crowd of about 50 men who cram in to watch.)
At the end of the evening, we served each of our 250 guests a biryani box dinner. In the past, we've been told to keep our expectations low, to manage any sort of distribution tightly, to be careful of stampeding and general disorder. The people here are very used to receiving relief goods, and perhaps have a mechanized impersonal approach to the whole thing. Instead, we asked everyone to please sit and let the volunteers serve them, emphasizing that we had enough for everyone and we wanted to serve them since they have taken such good care of us. It went off without a hitch. Volunteers with tall stacks of boxes fanned out like ants, and within two minutes, everyone had their food. Amazing! Again, it was nice to see people treating themselves in a gentler, more respectful way.
So, with the party done, we have the lottery to look forward to tomorrow. Here's hoping it goes as well as the party!
posted by Stefanie at 5:18 PM
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