sexta-feira, agosto 26, 2005

Volunteer

Yeasterday i applyed to be a volunteer for united nations but today i received the news that i only can appply after 25, well i am just 24 so i will wait more one year.
In the other day arte e factos asked me about the volunteering. The voluntership i do is the short term volunteering and i normally go by the SCI-Service Civil International, this organization began doing workcamps after the first world war(i think) in camp between german and french i a way to build peace. Nowadays SCI is all over the world but not in Portugal. In Portugal IPJ is their partener and can send you to their camps, but you can also apply by sending them an e-mail that you are interested in attending their camps( this is only possible because there is no SCI Portugal).
Workcamps independently of the organization is all based in the same policy. in almost all camps i only worked in the morning and had free afternoon to do what i wanted to do and the weekend is also free.
When applying by the IPJ, you have to be less than 30 years old and normally they only accept for the summer workcamps, but if you go to the SCI website you will know that there is no age limit and that there are camps all over the year. In IPJ you will find a list of camps in majority they are in Europe. If you apply by the IPJ to a developed country you don't pay anything, only 25 euros that are repayed back(you pay your travel). In the camp you have food and a place to sleep, sometimes there are some activities included. In Bangladesh my work was to plant trees or mark the camp, the work was very few and we only worked in the morning and not every day. The bangladesh camp was the first in wich i payed(100 euros), this is not a fixed price it varies from undeveloped country to undeveloped country, for example to Mongolia i would have to pay 170 euros or in Zambia 270 euros.
Warning:Every camp is diferent, you have to choose the country, the kind of work, see what kind of extra work activities they have, how is the food (if you have to cook or not), and the place you stay(house, tent, etc). And of corse the duration of the camp and when. I also know that sci organises some long term volunteering but you also have to pay something.
Today i received by the Un a big list of organizations and websites where you can know more about volunteers projects in this case world wide and not only portuguese. There are some portuguese ong that do international volunteer service.
"from the e-mail i receveid by the UN"
http://www.unvolunteers.org/volunteers/options/abroad/otherops.htm
WorldVolunteerWeb at http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/ to obtain a wealth of information on volunteerism worldwide.
Country specific information is available at http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/dynamic/cfapps/national_profiles/index.htm.
To be informed about volunteer news, events and organizations, subscribe to the WorldVolunteerWeb.org newsletter athttp://www.worldvolunteerweb.org/dynamic/cfapps/interact/subscribe/

The sci website is http://www.sciint.org/wcamps/index.htm

If you become an UN volunteer, they pay you the trip, and give you pocket money, but if you have time you can search a litle more

quinta-feira, agosto 25, 2005

My dream

( i looked like this when i arrivedback to Portugal)
My biggest dream is to become a volunteer in a remote part of the world. Since i am a young boy that i have this dream to be a volunteer and travel around the world. i would love to work for an ong, to UN anywhere. Well i have the contact of a ONg in bangladesh that works with GIs and even i have the adress of GIS company in Bangladesh.If anyone that has some influence on an ONG and look for a GIS especialist that has been in Bangladesh,
Poland, France, Spain, Germany, Malta, Cheq Republic, Slovaquia, Italy and Malta please give me a call.
I am happy today even i have a lot of things to do. I was back from Bangladesh on Saturday and next week on friday i am back on the road and i am going to Germany. I love this feeling. Moving not beeing in the same place for a long time. It's great. Before going to Germany i am going to Denmark so i can join one more country to my list.
In my last post i wrote in Portuguese but a friend of mine asked me to write again in english so i am going to speak just a litle bit more about bangladesh.
I arrived to bangladesh in the 1 of August, in the airport i got the visa only for 15 days( they don't give more), i took so much time getting the visa that i thought that i would lose my bags and that the person waiting for me in the airport. In the end i got my bagage and Mussaraf was still there waiting for me. The guy was very happy to see me and me also. Daka is a crasy city, full of crasy drivers, rickshows and a lot of polution and baby taxis. it's strange to just arrive and then be sent to a totally diferent world.
In my first day i got the news that i was going to the middle of the country to kalia( a very small village) and that the only international volunteers were me and 1 french girl and 2 guys from nepal that were somewhere lost in India. In the same day i left Daka and arrived to Kalia. In the way to Kalia i crossed the beautifull river Padma by boat, i was sorrounded by locals admiring my camera.
When i arrived to Kalia i wanted to call home, but it was a big surprise for me that there were no phones. Nobody contacted me for 2 days, my sister only called two days after in the midle of the night to a number that i have given to her just to call in case of emergency. i know now that those days were hard to my familly that were starting to get in panic.
Kalia is the end of the world, there is full of trees and rivers and mosquitos, and next to kalia there is tagherhat one of the biggest market citys that i have seen, the city is a market, if you want something you go there and find it( not including postcards, that new invention). The trip between kalia and tagherhat can be done by foot or by a king of rural rickshaw. The diference between this 2 villages are so big that i can't explain( one is the calm the other the stress).
Kalia is sorrounded by big agriculture fields maily rice and jute fields. The main food there is rice with something, doesn't matter what, the only excape possible was a litle bread in the morning with egg, but not always. The people in the camp didn't use a lot of spice because of me and Laure(french girl) but the food normally is very spicy.
I stayed 12 days in kalia. In the first day i was around the town like the candy men giving candy to every kid in every school, then in the end of the day i palyed a litle of football with out boots.
In the nexts days we worked in the morning planting trees and marking the football camp.
The football field was nice and the best thing on it were the cows and goats that lived there.
In the following days i went to a hindu marriadge. the bride is very happy(has you can see in the photo) and to a muslim marridge lunch. I saw people working handicraft in bambu and pottery. I also went to a very small boat trip. The greatest day in Kalia was when i participated in an hindu ceremony, i played drumms and all, it was really great. i miss that so much. Now for me the hindus are great.
After Kalia i went to cox bazzar, the beachg resort. The view there is great but i have to confess that there are much more nice places to stay and go than there.
just after one day i was once again in daka, this time trying to get a extention of my Visa(that only came 3 days after).
The next 3 days i was in the northwest, i have tryed the bengali train and it was great. I slept in a ong camp and in an arqueologic guesthouse in the midle of nowhere. it was my india jones days.i could write a lot about those days but they would be never enought.
My last days were spent in daka, seeing places that i thought didn't exist in that big city. I was in the hindu quarter and attended a great small boat trip. to end the day i lost my visa card.
And this where my 20 days in daka very resumed in this post.
Every photo correspond to a part of the text, try to find it.

the religions in Bangladesh:guess who is who

terça-feira, agosto 23, 2005

Bangladesh

É bom estar de volta a esta terra de camões onde a lingua portuguesa é rainha. Hoje escrevo em português porque é esta a minha lingua. Escrevo em Português também como forma de homenagem a Bangladesh.
No inicio do século XX, existia apenas India mas os Ingleses decidiram partir o país em dois na altura que deram a independencia, sendo que passou a haver a India e o Paquistão. Uma das grandes razões pelo qual o Bangladesh se tornou independente do Paquistão é o orgulho de falar Bengali, o povo de Bengala achou que era a gota de água quando o estado Paquistanês tentou proibir o ensino de Bengali nas escolas e obrigou o ensino de Paquistanês. É com orgulho que Bangladesh celebra o dia internacional das linguas todos os anos sendo também o seu dia nacional, dia da celebração da sua grande individualidade que é o Bengali.
Estive 20 dias no Bangladesh e foi uma experiência muito boa que não vou esquecer tão cedo.
Bangladesh é um pais pacifico onde as diferentes comunidades religiosas convivem sem nenhum problemas. As noticias sobre atentados de fundamentalistas islamicos não demonstram a verdadeira realidade do país. Eu estive numa pequena aldeia onde hindus vivem em harmonia com a maioria muçulmana.
Daka é a capital louca, com o stress do dia a dia, cheia de rickshows e babys taxis sempre prontos para te levar a qualquer lado pelo dobro do preço real. É sempre necessário negociar o preço, mas por vezes é dificil discutir com pessoas que só percebem a sua adorada lingua o Bengali. Daka possui também uma certa magia, principalmente em Old Daka. É nessa parte da cidade que sentimos a verdadeira alma da cidade, ruas estreitas, cheias de pessoas. Ai estive num belo forte antigo e até vi o pink palace, um testemunho dos tempos do colonialismo inglês. O rio que atravessa a cidade é cheio de vida, com os seus barcos, pessoas a nadar, a lavar os dentes , a tomar banho, a saltar para a água. Não muito longe do rio existe a rua dos hindus, onde de dois em dois edificios encontramos uma estátua de kali ou de outro deus, quando por lá passei a festa reinava e havia muita musica e cor, pessoas cheias de pó branco e amarelo. Foi bom tomar um chá naquela rua.
Kalia é uma pequena aldeia rural e pouco mais se pode dizer. Não existem telefones e durante 12 dias ou tomava banho no lago comunitario ou utilizava a bomba de água. De noite na escoridão total houvia a musica dos rituais hindús e por vezes houvia a reza muçulmana.
As casas eram simples mas de diferentes formas e feitios. Era normal ver uma cabra ou vaca calmamente a pastar.

O nordeste é rico em sitios arqueológicos com testemunhos de todos os grandes imperios que dominaram o país, desde os tempos do budismo até ao islamismo actual. A fotografia demonstra um dos poucos locais no Bangladesh que pertencem há lista de sitios pratimónio da humanidade. Este é um antigo mosteiro budista, no centro o grande templo e em volta estavam as celas dos monges budistas( cerca de 100). O templo foi queimado pelos hindus quando estes conquistaram esta parte do território. Mesmo assim os hindus aproveitaram o local e ainda podemos ver inumeras gravuras hindus.
Cox bazar é uma das maiores praias do mundo e o que mais se parece com uma estância balnear, a cidade em si não é muito interessante, mas aposto que se tivesse explorado um pouco mais os arreodores teria adorado. Esta terra fica muito perto da fronteira da Birmania e é dos pouco lugares onde ainda existe uma forte comunidade budista.
Neste belo país estive em locais de culto das 4 mais importantes religiões do mundo.

Para o ano Mongólia ou Nepal.

segunda-feira, agosto 22, 2005

Bangladesh



I am back from Bangladesh!
At 23:30 my trip was over i was back to my city Lisbon.
Bangladesh is an incredible country and even i am here for soo few time i already miss it and i am sad.
Bangladesh is a very poor country but has a very big treasour that is their people. The kids are great always laufigh with a smille that can destroy your heart. Every where you can find someone that just want to help you and is just happy to be next to a forenner. The emotions, the feelings, the experience was so intence that is so hard to describe. i took photos but is impossible to define the feeling of being there.
i loved this days, even it was hard to have no privacy for 20 days, now that i am again in this cold europe i miss this people. their anoiace of asking us all the time, who are, where do you come from. I even miss eating with my hands opr sitting in the floor~, and the most strange thing is that even i am happy to eat the european food i miss bangla food. It's all so strange.only people that has been to this part of Asia understand how i feel.
i miss Bangladesh

quinta-feira, agosto 18, 2005

still in bangaldesh

Bangladesh is one of the few countries that is safe and has very few turists.
the country is beautifull full of trres and rivers, since i have been here.this is a very big experience in all senses, i feel like i am in the national geograph.
there are very few foreners in bangaldesh so every time someone see me and my friend they say>
name
coutry
i am a bit tired of repetig all the same thing but it is ok.we are like a living show, everyone star at you. you are anormal thing.
since i was here i traveled by train, crasy bus, pantu, baby taxi, rocshow. i was in a hindu wending and in a party were i played drumm, it was great. i was also in a muslim lunch. i have been in big monuments. i was in a budist, hindu temple and tomorow i am going to old daka.i swamm in the indian ocean.
when i come back i will show my photos.