Update to My Plans

So apparently there is a slight breeze coming off the Indian ocean. They even named it, Cyclone Laila! ... so suffice to say we are postponing our trip to the beach for now. We may head up to the Tea Estates however in the north of Bangladesh. On a brighter note, my application for my visa went well, but I still only find out on the 26th if I will get a Visa or not. The guy said it would be pretty likely, but not a hundred percent sure.

The Indian embassy is a huge joke though. No where on their website does it say that they are only open for 2 hours a day, 10am-12pm. The only advice that their website gives foreign nationals in Bangladesh is to go home and get a visa. Then their application form on the website tells you to bring only about half of the stuff that you need to bring - they just don't tell you the other half until you get there. At which point you have to go either back to your hotel, which was a 45 minute drive away, or wander around until you find a Internet Cafe. And don't even bother calling them, their phones seem to always be down.

Basically if they made any attempt to communicate with people it be so much easier. They only give out short term Visas, no single entry no multiple entry ones, another fact they do not mention until they reject you.

So my day went like this. I got to the embassy at 9:30, had to wait till it opened at 10. My visa officer told me that I needed proof of my internship with the Grameen Bank. So I walked to Gulshan-2, the big roundabout in the area, and found a internet cafe and printed it - I had tried to do this back at the hotel but apparently their printer is closed until 10am. I went back to the embassy, and my visa officer started asking questions about Grameen, what I actually did there, what I was learning. He then told me that they were a lie and that microfinance banks were a ruse to kidnap women from villages, and then it was a huge controversy that Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize. I then had to wait all the way until noon when he said ok, took my passport and my money and told me to come back on the 26th to find out if I can go to India on the 27th.

Interestingly the branch managers we have talked to said that convincing people that their borrowers will not "vanish" is one of their biggest obstacles in expanding into new villages. I'm not sure where this rumor came from, but I would imagine it was started by loan sharks trying to hold on to their customers.

So that is my rant for the blog. Basically the lesson to be learned is if you are going to the area, get all the visas for the countries that you are even just considering going to. This week long struggle in Dhaka could have been in one afternoon trip to downtown Toronto, with someone who spoke fluent English and when it is not 42 degrees outside.

Cheers,
Mike