Then it was Symposium Part II which involved putting 400 students and 75 faculty and staff on an 7 hour train to Dhaka. With so many of us, full train cars were devoted to AUW only and it felt a bit like we owned the place. As if we’d all clamored onto the Hogwarts Express heading for some magical destination. The girls sang songs and ate sweets. The energy was addictive. Even the faculty, extracted from their adult reserve, seemed more animated.
The Symposium was jam packed with panels and presentations. The first day the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave a speech which was followed later that night by dinner on the steps on the Bangladeshi Parliament Building. The Parlaiment Building was designed by Louis Khan shortly after Independence and is a sight to see.
Before dinner we were given a tour inside, which I understood from the AUW Bangladeshi staff to be a real honor and rarity. I’ve never been inside a building like that one. It looks grand (though somewhat imposing) on the outside and I had visions of the U.S. Capitol, plush and sleek, open and designed for onlookers. But I understood immediately just how rare visitors must be inside the massive halls which were stark and concrete, and felt as if we were moving in the bowels of a ship.
As we were leaving the building the guide took us up some steps to a concrete plateau that overlooked the lake (moat) that surrounds the building. The view was striking with the enormous circular Parliament in the distance and the bright orange moon in the sky.
The most exciting presentation at the Symposium was by Hans Rosling, a Swedish Public Health professor and TED talker extraordinaire, who brought the audience to its feet with his fascinating explanation of how and why countries have developed over the last hundred years. He’s one of the most engaging speakers I’ve seen in a long time.
The most touching presentation was by our own students, a group of Sri Lankan women who presented a project they worked on last summer to foster reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese in the wake of a decades long civil war. They traveled to Sri Lanka, working with youth and communities on both sides conducting research, organizing a cricket match and perhaps most movingly cleaning up a cemetery of the war's fallen together. What these students (both Tamil and Sinhala) were able to achieve, especially between themselves, reminded me that while the diversity we have at AUW is complicated and messy and the progress between groups stutters along at an unpredictable pace, exposure to those different that yourself is a powerful life-changing force.
By the time the Symposium was over all 400 of us were exhausted and dare I say ready to return to Chittagong. Dhaka did not let go of us easily however. We spent a good five hours in the train station, not able to leave until 3am. We were lucky enough to huddle inside our bus but the poor students were stuck out on the platform. Showers and beds were everyone’s priority the next morning when we finally arrived.
I’m teaching a class this semester (more on that soon) and am currently immersed in preparation and the excitement of sharing some of my favorite books with new eyes. Hope you’re all doing well.
