Culture is always revived through generations

“Is Bangladesh in Africa?”
It’s amazing how experiences can change the way you see the world. When I was asked whether Bangladesh is in Africa, I realised how little people knew about the world. People also think that a country with no growing wealth has no culture. But culture’s everywhere. Born in Australia I wasn’t truthfully looking forward to my trip to Bangladesh. I’ve heard of the poverty, ugly mosquito bites, and polluted air the Bangladeshi people; Bengalis breathe. I didn’t want to go. Chaudogram (Cho-doh-gram), a village in Bangladesh is what changed my life. My family and I had made our way to my dad’s hometown where the soil of the land is much purer than any holy water. But what’s more pure there, is the people. They’re the most softhearted people whom are so passionate about keeping their heritage away from becoming ‘modernised’. My dad had organised a charity lunch for the Bengalis there as many of them were living in an almost poverty-state. I remember the vivid aroma of beef curry and steamed rice feeding into our senses as my dad and our family cooked for these people. But what was more interesting was that a little boy of 6 years came up to me and asked me what my world looked like. Did I have lavishing forests and tall coconut trees reaching for the sky? Did everyone get food in my world? His curiosity had led to me ask him to take me around the village. I wanted to see the world the boy grew up with. He took me to the top of his little straw hut-house and told me of stories about his friends. They’d play hopscotch after school and go home to help their parents to make food. We walked past the lake, their ‘bathhouse’ and strode up the main road towards the cemetery. The boy looked up to me and said “I heard in your world people pay respect to tv and movie stars. But I pay respect to the dead because it is they who bought our culture and kept it strong for us.”
His words are always in my thoughts.