Coming Home

It's been about a week now since we landed in Winnipeg and I've been trying to return to my everyday life as a student home for the summer from university. It's been an interesting mental process trying to reconcile my time in Bangladesh and my life in Canada. In a lot of ways I really can't believe the two places exist on the same planet with them being so incredibly different. I am overwhelmed with the large open space of the prairies and the quiet of fields and valleys. It almost feels like I have new eyes and a whole new appreciation for what I once thought was boring open space. There's been a few instances now of walking down the street and wondering where the call to prayer from the mosque is. I have been revelling in having water from a tap I can drink and if we're being completely honest, having no squat toilets anywhere is a huge and glorious relief. I know I learned a lot from the experience and that there are things that we did there I'll never forget but it's a little more difficult to explain in a nutshell what the trip was or how I felt about it to family and friends. I know it was a great experience in terms of personal growth and giving me more perspective but I don't know if I would go back. I don't regret my time spent in Bangladesh at all and I wouldn't mind travelling to more underdeveloped or third world countries but I found the culture of Bangladesh hard to work in to the capacity that I wanted to as a girl. It's also been difficult for me to think of what I plan on doing differently now that I'm home. For me, meeting the girls of the rehabilitation center and hearing their stories really resonated and I want to advocate and be a part of advancing gender equality here in Canada in tribute to them. Girls here aren't being tortured for dowry or trying to commit suicide in large numbers to escape arranged marriages and family pressure but there are still large inequalities and injustices that I think in trying to address for girls and women here is a way I can make a difference maybe in some small way, for the women of Bangladesh.