Bangla Meeting

Very unexpected Aylin ended up by an unplanned meeting of several NGO’s at the 10^th of January in Tapra. Since Aylin was not familiar with this meeting she asked Ahklas(Niketan’s manager), who brought her there, how long this meeting was going to take and when it would start. Ahklas discussed with the chairman and some other members and told it would start at 11AM and would take an hour. She explained she actually had no time for this meeting in fact of a very busy project schedule and knew on for hand 11PM means 11.30PM and one hour can be also four hours. Since all those meetings are in Bangla and no single word is in English she did not see any value for her. When Ahklas seemed to be very disappointed she changed her mind. Project work could also be finished during the evening.

First some tea was served. The chairman explained that today the minister of the Manikganj district would attain the meeting. This seemed to be very special. The 11PM planned meeting started at 12PM without minister. Also a lot of other required members not seemed to be present.

Ahklas explained the chairmen discussion point of today was time management. The only things Aylin could understand so far was: foreigner, Netherlands, 5 minutes, 1 hour, schedule, work. Ahklas mentioned the chairmen took the hour ago discussion between me and Ahklas as example.

Although this chairman kept on talking Aylin got the notion that nobody was listening. Participants were answering phones every minute, even the chairman himself. Neighbours were talking about daily topics and started their own discussion. Sometimes even the chairman seemed to speak only to the man in front of him. Then suddenly the minister was arrived. This seemed to be photoshoot time. This in fact several gadgets were handed. Of this moment a picture had to be made in companion with the minister and the relevant person. This photoshoot took 15 minutes and afterwards the minister immediately has to leave in case of his schedule. Taking the lunch which was served afterwards was not even possible for him.

This lunch contained several warm snacks, fruit and drinks. The meeting kept on going, just like the making phone calls, chitchatting and standing up. Even Ahklas and Aylin started talking about whether the warm snack was spicy or not. When the lunch was finished, the meeting was finished.

Well, so far we can conclude time management is a definition Bangla people are not yet familiar with.