By the way, where are you based in?

At the moment, I’m in Bangladesh. More accurately in northern Bangladesh. This land is amazing, there is no doubt about it. People are amazing; the food is amazing, everything is amazing except a few things that I’ll write some day later.

Anyway, like my own country Nepal, I saw that Bangladesh also is an NGO bazaar, which means a million non-governmental organizations working for the people, doing small and big miracles everyday and trying to reach the Millennium Development Goals very soon, and God knows what else more!

So far so good. But the problem begins when you find yourself, an undergraduate toddler, caught up into an NGO net and don’t understand the language they, the NGO people, speak. Can you imagine? It happened with me, and is still happening!

I’m working with one of the oldest and biggest and most reputed NGOs in Bangladesh which employs more than five thousand people and has hundreds of programmes in thousands of villages. My supervisor, research assistant and guides and all those people are nice and cooperative and it’s not difficult to understand what they speak and do and think, but I’m in trouble when I have to sit and talk and eat with other ‘big’ people, Bangladeshi and foreigners, in Rangpur, the NGO’s headquarters.

They never ask you where you are from. Instead, they ask, ‘where are you based in?’ NGOs are not interested in where you were born and attended primary school and had your first crush, but they want to know your present, the very moment what the hell you are doing and where. About a month ago, for the first time, one Toronto-based guy and another London-based lady asked me this question and since then more than a dozen people have asked the same question in the same manner. For the first time, it was kind of difficult to figure out what to answer. I was surrounded by the people who were ‘based in’ big cities like London, California, Toronto and Calcutta, but where I was based in? In fact, I’m based in Järvenpää. That’s the truth, but I don’t know why, I feel kind of shy to say, ‘I’m based in Järvenpää’. I know nobody knows about it, but still... Then can I say I’m based in Finland? No…cause people are mentioning the cities they are based in. I figure out instantly, one can be based in a city, not in a country. Then I think a bit and say, ‘Well, I’m based in Helsinki.’ ‘Oh, interesting!’ they say, I give a smile and my heartbeat rises for a moment.

‘Järvenpää is also a part of greater Helsinki,’ I think and console myself and move forward to the discussion.

Then exactly the opposite happens when you move down to the ground. When I’m in villages talking with ordinary, often very poor and illiterate, people and meeting small kids in schools, I encounter a completely different sets of questions. They are not interested so to say where I’m based in or what I’m studying or what’s the subject area of my dissertation. They start with where is my home. Yes, I like that sort of solid questions. They continue asking, where is my home, how many family members I have, what my parents and siblings do, why I came to Bangladesh, What is good and bad about this country, whether I’m married or not and so on. I don’t need to think twice about these questions, I answer them all in a second and think, ye huyi na baat!

Another problem with NGOs is that they are riddled with abbreviations. It takes ages to fully understand what those abbreviations really stand for. When I interview serious NGO workers, let’s say about their recent work (they call it intervention, by the way) it’s very likely that they would answer me something like this.

“RSRS is implementing the VGEPNB project which is an RBA funded by DCA.”

Can you make a sense out of this? I can’t.

Then you ask for an explanation and finally know the following things.

RSRS: Rangpur Saidpur Rural Service

VGEPNB: Vulnerable Group Empowerment Project in Northern Bangladesh

RBA: Rights based approach

DCA: Danish Church Aid

NGOs you are awesome!