Eventually you stop seeing the poverty

Dhaka is an amazing vibrant buzzing city. Brightly coloured and decorated cycle rickshaws intermingling with every sort of cheap Japanese second hand car you can imagine. Many with huge chrome bull bars, and at night with loads of extra coloured flashing lights on top, under and in every crevice.



Most of the time I've been insulated from this by the posh hotel and the chaufeur driven car that picks me up in the morning for the 500 metre drive to the other hotel where I've been working, and from there to the office where I am working another 500 metres away.

Tonight though Farhan and I joined the crowded streets and walked to Tommy Miah's Curry Heritage, one of the finest curry houses in the world I believe. We met up with an old colleague of Farhan's from the days when he worked for a huge textile mill in Karachi, Pakistan. Here they are after our meal.



On the way there beggars pestered us for cash, and I was shocked for the first time in some years by poverty. Coming towards us half naked was a little dirty girl. She was not much taller than Millie my 18month old daughter. She was probably 3 years old at the most, but already begging. Her clothes were just rags. Never before have I seen such a sad sight. I'll dream about that tonight I am sure. As I crossed the road a huge Mercedes Benz with blacked out windows beeped angrily as I struggled to get out of the way without being mown down. What a contrast.

Its odd. By the time we'd had a curry and chatted I walked back past the same beggars and peddlars and didn't notice them anymore. The sight of that little girl made the rest of it seem OK. They were doing OK.

Thats why I do this job. Today more companies signed up to provide information about where the cotton they use comes from.



There are still places in the world where the government forces children to work in fields picking cotton. Children like that little girl have no value or place in society in such places. These companies want to stop stuff like that and its good. I like this job very much even though doing it causes me to see stuff that shocks me from time to time.

I'm glad I came here. I feel more sure than ever that I have everything I could ever want.