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Team

Team

woensdag 22 december 2010

Culture show

The 20th of December one of the physiotherapists proudly pronounced that there will be a culture show the next day. A culture show in Dhaka, for entertaining the disabled children and all the performances were also by disabled children. This was planned in the world disability day, but was canceled last minute.
Aylin and Roos wanted to go to this culture show! Roos doubted if she would go but Aylin couldn’t go because she was still too ill. Eventually Roos went on her own to Dhaka with a bus full of disabled children.
Since the bus also carried some of the children that would perform, we arrived very early. This way Roos could have a look on the Dhaka University, where also the culture show took place. The best university of Bangladesh looked very ‘old school’. Furthermore Roos did not have the time to look around since the debate was going to start.
There was a lot of press present which surprised Roos. Eventually she ended up in two news programs. But the most important thing was that the children seemed to enjoy themselves (except for the debate part). The culture show contained singing, dancing and a fashion show. It was nice to experience, and it made Roos a bit proud.

maandag 20 december 2010

Aylin & Roos are back on track

Aylin is still recovering from her illness, but Roos feels much better. Together they entered their design studio and started designing.
As said before, Roos her focus lies on the user and helper and Aylin her focus lies on the materials. And in the end, the different aspects will be integrated into one model.
The design studio
The research part is almost finished. Since the project follows the Bengali tempo, not all the data are collected yet. For example: the home visits Roos planned to do, are already 3 times rescheduled!
Though the girls entered their design studio. They have collected enough data to start the designing process and they could not wait for restarting the project again.
Aylin already made a few models which contain different kind of materials. And Roos is busy with making her helper- and user-friendly models.
In a few days Aylin and Roos will start their vacation. With Christmas they will be in Dhaka visiting the touristic places and eating non-Bengali food.  And after Christmas they will started their journey to the Sundurban: the largest mangrove forest in the world.

woensdag 15 december 2010

Sick


After the world disability day, Roos became sick. She thought she would give the street food a try; it didn’t work out that well. She lay in bed for more than a week. When she was sick for 3 days, the bacteria also found Aylin. She became very sick and after 3 days we decided to go to the diarrhea hospital in Dhaka (with an ambulance). The doctor over there told with pride that the hospital was specialized in cholera patients. A “you have it, or you have it not” hospital. Aylin had it. After 3 hours in the hospital we went home. Aylin should be in bed for 5 to 10 days, today is her 5th day.
Roos is starting to feel a bit better and she is ending her user research now. But still the project lies a bit behind schedule. Next week we hope to start (finally!) the designing process.
So this is a short message with a big experience.

woensdag 8 december 2010

Time


Tapra
The time that you have an arrangement is the moment when perhaps you might consider to decide if you leave to that certain appointment. Our days exist of appointments that suddenly are no appointments anymore, take place at a different location and are suddenly arranged in the morning instead of in the afternoon. Time plays no role. Do what you like and see where you end seems to be the rule.

Wednesday the 1st of December we planned to visit the daycare center in Ghior. At 9AM Roos and Aylin were ready. Suddenly, the team heard that particularly that Wednesday, there was a monthly meeting of all the employees of Niketan. So unfortunately, there was no daycare visit for us that day. As an alternative they went to the Ghior market to find materials for low-fi models.

World disability day
 Thursday Roos and Aylin scheduled a visit at the daycare center in Tapra, followed up by a visit at a factory and the day was planned to be wrapped up by a visit to Manikganj. When the team was waiting for the one who had to pick them up, they heard that he was waiting for them somewhere else. Eventually Roos and Aylin arrived at 11.30AM at the Tapra daycare center. Both collected their data and then waited for the next person who had to pick them up after lunch.  Two hours passed by and eventually at 3.30PM he arrived. Finally the team was able to visit the factory. After the visit, they did not go directly to Manikganj. Of course not. First Roos and Aylin had to sit down, drink tea and eat muffins. 

Friday the 3rd of December can be seen as World Disability Day. The plan was to go with all the children (of all the daycare centers) to Dhaka. In Dhaka a culture show was set up which Sheik Hassina would join too.  
A couple of days before, it turned out that the Sheik was not available. Never mind.. The organizers still planned to go and celebrate this culture show. Thursday was decided that the children, Roos and Aylin went to Manikganj instead of Dhaka.
World disability day
Friday morning the organizers scheduled to leave at 9.00AM. Of course 9.00AM became 10.00AM and 10.30AM the children, Roos and Aylin were in Manikganj. When arriving they could immediately join a group protesting disabled people which lead them to a conference room where they had to sit down for one and a half hour and had to listen to Bengali speakers.  Here, time is hard to define.