1.12 Mentor insights: the “where the rubber meets the road” spokes  (Page 2/3)

I don’t know what it’s like to live on less than $1 per day. I have, however, met enough people to garner some details about what such a life is like. Simply put, you consume in proportion to what you grow; when you cannot afford more, you beg.

Meet Meera. She used to live on less than $1 per day. Now, she’s a twenty-six year old business owner with two daughters, eleven and seven years old. Her husband walked out on her a few years ago, leaving her to fend for herself. In the culture of Bangladesh, she was in a very tough spot. To give birth to only daughters and no sons is unlucky. Likewise, for a husband to walkout on his wife is looked down upon even more. In spite of this, she became one of the most successful women in her village. Through microcredit, she started and built a large poultry farm, raising thousands of chickens and selling them to market. After showing us her farm, she invited us into her home, which was considered a nice home by village standards—four walls, two rooms, a cement floor, and metal roof. Her home was also financed through a Grameen Grameen Bank: Banking for the Poor, “Home Page,” (External Link) (Accessed on December 10, 2007). microcredit home loan. And, best of all, she told us how happy she was and how microcredit changed her life.

Although Meera holds the distinction as the first microcredit customer I met, that’s the only number associated with her. Jay Milbrandt’s Journal Entries from Bangladesh, Pepperdine University JD/MBA alumni, Reprinted with Permission.

Jay milbrandt’s journal entries from bangladesh: why i have hope

“I’ve got this feeling of hopelessness,” I admit to a traveling companion. I’m here to see the hope that microcredit has brought, but our taxi has not even left Dhaka yet and I’m surrounded by the most abject poverty I have ever seen.

I’m on sensory overload. There are so many people that the country seems ready to burst at the seams. More than 140 million people are packed into this country, approximately the size of Iowa. In Dhaka, garbage is everywhere—in the streets, in the ditches. Its obvious that the city does not possess the infrastructure to service its 15 million inhabitants. Judging by the integrity of the city streets, which appear to have been paved once left alone, I’m not the least bit surprised. If the heap of garbage is fresh, a few people would be rummaging through it—looking for a meal, I suspect. If the garbage was old, it served as a bed. Audibly, Dhaka pulses with the sound of non-stop horns—there need be no reason to use it. Dhaka is also a city of smells. Every street has a different smell, many of which I find both unfamiliar and unappealing.

The streets are a labyrinth—if I were lost, I could never find my way back. We round a corner and roll past a lot of wood and metal. A salvage yard maybe? “Those are the slums of Dhaka,” our guide explains. Our taxi comes to a stop, waiting for a train to pass. After a few seconds, there’s a bang on the window. It’s a young boy, maybe seven years old, begging for money. He’s yelling in Bengali and motioning to his mouth with his hand. “In Dhaka, people work together in an organized system of begging,” my guide explains. He cracks the window and tells the child to leave. We start moving again and the child runs along until he can no longer keep pace.