New Year's Resolutions

 Well, the party is over. Christmas is complete and New year has been celebrated. 2011 has begun and who knows what it will offer?

This is probably going to be my last full year here in Bangladesh – at least for a while. We’re well over the half way point and so now we are beginning the ‘countdowns’ – last full year, last academic year, last birthdays and so on, ticking them off as they go by.

It means that I am doing a lot of contemplating about life, the future and so on but at the same time trying not to let what I have now slip past whilst I ponder deep and meaningfuls. I really have taken on board what I wrote before Christmas about appreciating what is around me, what has been given to me and who I have been blessed with. We don’t know who is going to be taken from us at any time but at LAMB we have a kind of ticking clock telling us that these wonderful people will be taken away very soon. So what can I focus on this year to make best use of my time?

Normally I don’t bother with resolutions as, like most of us, I fail to keep them, but maybe I can just think of them as targets to aim for without punishing myself if I fail a few. I’ll share my thoughts with you and maybe you can hold me accountable. Anyway, here goes:

1)      To reduce the number of times I fail my family. Without wallowing in self-pity or suggesting I beat my wife and kids or anything, I am very aware that I let them down a lot. I fail to notice when V. needs me to listen or be there for her and I fail to realise to that my son and daughter are easily belittled by me when I tell them off for not tidying their rooms, doing the homework properly, washing correctly, doing enough music practise or just breathing incorrectly. I am still working out how to discipline them so they grow up knowing boundaries without crushing their character. Maybe this year I can get it right a little more.

2)      To reduce the number of times I fail my students. Again, mostly, I am not bad as a teacher but I am still looking for that Eureka moment when I finally work out the method for teaching that gets it completely right. I have moments of brilliance but, alas, many more moments of mediocrity. How can I inspire my students and push them to reach new heights of understanding whilst not crushing their creativity or stifling their need to be young and free. How can I be both friend and teacher and get the balance of both correct?

3)      To understand the Bangladeshi culture and language better. Despite hours and hours every week of studying, I feel my language is still the worst out of any bideshi who works here at LAMB. Yet, others seem to have done their study long ago and don’t do much or any now but have a much better understanding than I do. I get frustrated that there is so much language yet to be learned and so little time. As for the culture – gosh I’ve hardly begun! I am very aware that I have so little understanding of how Bangladesh works. I feel I owe it to my friends here to grasp the culture much more so that I can avoid stepping on toes and causing offence. About the only thing I have learned from my Bangladeshi friends here is that most of the bideshis who think they know the culture well have often got it hopelessly wrong. It does not bode well for me with even less understanding, I must say.

4)      To get published in magazines. In this early stage of learning to be a writer I’ve cracked the blog and the newspapers but next is to get some articles and maybe some short stories in magazines. I would really love to get one or two of the books I have been working on out too but considering it has taken me thirty years of playing with writing to get around to completing enough to get published in anything at all, I have no idea whether something as grand as a book could get finished! Still, it’s an aim. Don’t hold me too accountable for this one…

5)      To build better relationships between Bangladesh and the West. Ultimately, that’s what I have always been seeking even before coming here and is, in part, what has motivated me to write at all. To try and stop people in my own country and elsewhere just throwing money at ‘the problem’ and feeling they have ‘done their part’ by donating to charity. Instead, I want people to see that there is a very real world outside their own and that they can do something very real to change a part of it. I am under no illusions that our time in Bangladesh will make any real significant difference to the country. But we have made a difference in the lives of a few here and, along with many, many others here  - bideshi and Bangladeshi – collectively that builds up into this wonderful place that LAMB is. On our own it is nothing, but together, in relationship, it is everything. If people back home can just grasp this and have a desire not to ‘do their bit’ so much as to ‘get involved’ then much greater change can happen throughout the world.

Well then, that’s the list. I have no idea whether any of it is achievable or even if I should begin to try. But, it should be interesting to find out.