When You Think You’re at the Bottom, Consider This
Recently I took a trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh to visit a friend. This trip was a rich experience for me and it has changed my life forever. Life in Dhaka is so different from my lifestyle in New York. I went through this trip with a fresh new look at life, people and my beliefs.
Driving by vendors on the side of the road in Dhaka.
The contrast between the poor and the rich is very obvious in this country. As you may know, Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world. The average salary is estimated at $600 a year and more than 37% are living below the poverty line. The contrast between this city and New York was evident from the moment I stepped into the streets of Dhaka from the airport. I had a luxury car picking me up from the airport, directly driving me to a 5 star hotel. The drive was quite unique to say the least with rush-hour traffic still continuing after 11 p.m. — making traffic in NY or Los Angeles seem like nothing. The main reason for the traffic was of course too many cars on the road, but also the fact that the infrastructure has not been built to sustain the population.
The highways were only two lanes, poor quality and not being maintained. Most of the side roads are far worse than the highways there, with traffic coming from all sides; seemingly lawless. In addition to the mass of cars in the road, there are almost the same amount of people in the streets, either trying to cross over or begging for money. The poor are not limited to one or two streets or neighborhoods; they are everywhere. From what I could see from my car view, the poorest homeless person in NY is a hundred times better off than a poor family in Dhaka.
Textiles are a large part of the industry of Bangladesh.
During my two weeks in Bangladesh, one day, my friend and I took a road trip to a nearby village. We spent the day there seeing the whole town and meeting the locals. The people of this village mainly make their living by creating hand-made clay products or fabric for sari’s for local distribution. A worker makes an average of $2 a day which most of the year is under hot, humid weather conditions. There were no TV’s, Internet or malls in that town. Walking through the village, I could not fathom how anyone could live there. There was no entertainment, no distractions, no billboards or any sky-scrapers! People live in shacks made of thin Metal and wash their cloths in the river. Small kids walk around the village with no adult supervision, which just seemed so odd to me. Neighbors just walked right into each other’s homes. I asked one of the locals why he chose to live in the village and he smiled and said: “Look around, it’s peaceful here, I love the fresh air, I love knowing all my neighbors. I wouldn’t trade this for any other place in the world.”
A woman creating a sari that she'll later sell.
I began to realize the concepts of rich and poor, luxury and necessity are very relative to one’s own experiences. For example, someone who lives in the slums of Dhaka could not dream of having meat more than a couple of times a year while most of us don’t think twice about what we are eating on a daily basis. Living in New York, I know many people who have lost their jobs in the last two years. Some people who have been a bit more fortunate have had only pay freezes and bonus cuts! I know that many people in U.S. are affected by the economic downfall and that is sad.
Current U.S. unemployment is at 9.7% while in some countries in the European Union it is much worse, with Latvia at 22.8% and Spain at 19.5%. But as bad as things are in U.S. our standard of living is far better than most people in the world. People in the U.S. who live below the poverty line rarely ever have to fear about getting three meals a day. Poverty in many communities in Africa, on the other hand, often means the prospect of death.
So, next time you are worried about your current financial situation, just remember it is all relative!
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