A Trip with "Big Bangs" to Shishu Polli

This weekend I traveled two hours outside of Dhaka to the Shishu Polli women's and children's center in the Sreepur Village. I went by bus with about 20 other people including some high school students, some other young adults. The trip was put together by an organization called "Big Bangs," a charity organization that raises money through basketball tournaments and also brings basketball to impoverished communities.
The organization is run by two ex-patriots, Pierre and Rod (Aussie and French, respectively) who fund much of the organization out of their own pocket. It is not a particularly large operation, but they effectively use basketball as a means of exciting the more affluent Dhaka community of teenagers and translating the passion for hoops into charitable action. I received wind of Big Bangs by way of a couple students who, hearing I had a history of playing ball in the states, wanted me to get in touch with Pierre and Rod, two players well regarded in the intimate Bangladesh basketball scene. I then received and e-mail at school about the trip out to Shishu Polli, and decided it would be a great way to spend a Saturday. In typical fashion I did not read the entirety of the e-mail, which contained information about the 5AM departure.
Shishu Polli Plus provides housing, clothing, food, and vocational training to help make its residents independent later in life. About 3/5ths of the children are orphans, and many of them have some kind of physical or mental disability. This was not obvious to me while I was playing with them however, possibly because of the language barrier, possibly because kids that age are so goofy anyways. Many of them seemed quite clever and all were very kind and well behaved. "Orphans" in Bangladesh are not the same as their counterparts in America, as many of the children maintain some kind of contact with their parents. However if they have special needs, and/or the parents are exceptionally poor, they cannot be cared for outside of Shishu Polli.
Saturday morning I pulled myself from my covers after wasted attempts at sleep, threw on my pre-packed backpack and walked the 300meters to AIS/D to be picked up. The ride itself was suboptimal... although air conditioned (thank Allah for that!) because the Bangladeshi road system is maintained irregularly and most likely in accordance with needs other than small villages'. For instance, I noted that in front of large textile factories, the roads were well kept, but in more isolated hamlets the potholes were feet deep. We arrived after a two hour ride that took us just 40 miles.
The school itself is on a large, gated piece of land that is fenced on all sides. Shishu Polli includes class rooms, dormitories and other facilities for the "580 babies and children and 100 destitute women" who live there (qtd. from Shishu Polli Plus's website). We unloaded the two buses and took the shirts and unpumped basketballs to the court. The surface, a smooth concrete worn from thousands of children's feet, was covered the day before with spray painted basketball lines and designs by a small group from Big Bangs that went out the day before. On the metal poles at each end we affixed new backboards to the old rings (the new rings were faulty) and we put up a couple of small hoops in the fence around the court. We then blew up about 25 balls that we would leave there.
The camp was designed to see all 480 kids who were old enough to play (they have infants as well) in shifts. We probably saw three or four groups (they were hard to tell apart, so many kids on the court!) over a six hour period. There were probably close to 100 kids running around the court or just outside of it at any one time, and an additional 30 huddled around the face painting area. We played a few fun games: the defense dance, some relays, some attempts at dribbling, but the main goal was simply to play with the kids. I ended up just walking around the court as the children swarmed from one end to the other, stealing balls, dribbling with them, showing them how to spin a ball on their fingers. All the kids were from age 5-11, and that is a LOT of kids to keep track of at once.
The reaction of the children was phenomenal, almost all of them seemed to be having a blast unlike any other time in their life. The enthusiasm and excitement was so fun to be a part of, and we even saw some tears as we were leaving. It made me wonder what they will take from those six hours over the course of their life. Will they become bitter as they grow older and learn more about wealth and wonder what we were doing with the other 162 hours of our week? Will they cherish the day as a moment when some people from other corners of the world came out to play with them? Will they recall the day at all? I certainly will not soon forget the sheer emotional impact of the day, what an overwhelming six hours, ten with travel.

Something should be said of the staff who live and work there. We were hosted by the one non-local person who works there, an Australian named Lucy. What a tremendous task! What determination and self-sacrifice! What organizational skills, to keep almost 700 people of varying needs and abilities in line and happy!! It seems so simple when you think of the concept of sacrifice, that you will give up one thing for another. It is one decision. And yet when confronted with the reality of sacrifice of this magnitude, it truly seems superhuman.