Day 5 in Dhaka. Can that be right? It seems we have been here for far longer. So much can happen in a single day.

We have started work with INAFI – the International Network for Alternative Financial Institutions. Their office is in Gulshan, a “posh” district of Dhaka. Imagine the worst areas of your home city. This is Bangladeshi high-style.

Some impressions of our working environment:

• Our Bangladeshi contacts are extremely knowledgeable and very helpful. They are also bending over backwards to accommodate us and make us feel comfortable. For instance, the director himself has offered to transport us to and from our hotel in his car (with his very own driver who hangs out at the office all day until he is needed.)

• There are frequent power outs. At least two a day. When this happens, little work can be done.

• The office has an army of “support staff” (read: servants) – more even, than the number of people researching there. The main presence is a young girl who brings us tea and snacks in bare feet.

We have so much to learn from our colleagues here. I can’t help but feel greatly indebted to them for all their help.

A few days ago, we met another foreigner (gasp!) A Parisian masters student who is researching female empowerment and Islam. It was a strange encounter:

Efrath and I sitting around after dinner, sipping water, comatose from the rich food, the heat and dust, and a long day of work. In walks a beautiful wild-haired girl in a salwar kameez. Double take. You’re white? Me too!

We speak about our respective reasons for visiting Dhaka. We exchange first impressions: the chaos, the pollution, the poverty – especially of children, the delicious food and how we are going to return home fat and whiter than ever as our skin is never exposed to the sun.

She asks if we believe in God. I tell her I have faith in some sort of deity (Mother Earth, perhaps?) She says faith is a prison. She says the women here make her sad and confused.

This exchange occurs over the course of several hours. The humidity clings to me like a second skin and I feel high. I think she is wrong about the women. Or at least I think it is wrong to judge them from the outside.

I say, freedom is a relative term which neither you nor I can deign to define.

I have so much to learn here but question whether I will ever understand.