First village visit

Today we went to visit a village where there is a Grameen branch office. The village was about an hour from the neighborhood in Dhaka where we are staying, so we took a taxi (which was terrifying, as usual. we almost got hit by approximately 10 buses). When we got there, we met the branch coordinator, who is a Grameen staff member. We chatted with him and our internship coordinator about the logistics of the Grameen model and then went to a Centre meeting. A branch covers about 5 sq km, and within the branch there are Centres, and within the Centres there are groups. There were about 30 people at the centre meeting, so about 5 or 6 groups were represented. During the meeting, they paid back the weekly installment of their loans, and we had the chance to ask the borrowers questions. None of the women in the Centre had defaulted or had trouble paying back their loans, and most of them had been with Grameen for about eight years. 

Everyone we talk to is so biased towards Grameen, which is very clear because their English isn't very good. Today I tried to ask the branch manager and coordinator questions about the Grameen model and what modifications it needs to work in the cities and they told me that the current model that is geared toward rural villages will also work in the cities, which I find hard to believe. Grameen is limited to the rural areas of Bangladesh because they are backed by the government, so they face regulations that other NGOs don't have to deal with. 

Bangladesh is an interesting place. There is very limited and sporadic Western influence, which creates a really interesting concept of "modernity." When we were in the village this morning, there were men carrying baskets of mud on their heads to build houses, but then we went into a woman's house who had a color, flat screen tv. It's a very weird contrast.