The next day, this experience is repeated in a village, where we are this time accompanied by Qayium, sales manager at Grameen Danone Foods Ltd, in charge of the Shokti Ladies’ network. Here, no children in school, just moms and their children, who listen attentively to the recommendations of the presentation. Some win a pouch for answering a question correctly. The surprise is mutual, again, as during our visit to the milk collection points, where local farmers come to sell their raw material, for a regular salary. The calm reigns over the villages, where a goat sometime bleats, and where children's voices rise slowly. From the top of Gokul Medh, a Buddhist monument, 10km from Bogra, guided by a boy of barely 10 years, I hear CNG (for "compressed natural gas") that backfire, some klaxons, and the change of scene is total.
We spend half a day to go back to Dhaka, on the same crazy road. In Dhaka, we go to the Grameen Tower, which houses the offices of Grameen Danone Foods Ltd.. Azad, in charge of the retail network in Dhaka is waiting for us, to accompany us on the outlets in the city. He leads us, in a slum, where soon a small group of children is formed in our wake. It follows us throughout the visit several shops. I am even more impressed by the attention here. We meet a little boy in the arms of his father, eating a cup shokti Doi. Azad says "It's a customer!". We laugh, he welcomes the seller's shop then we leave.
Then he leads us in supermarkets, where the cups are lined up and are waiting for buyers. We find a new customer, cup in hand, and Azad takes the advantage to revealthe secrets of the product quality. The customer leaves with cups of mango and milk, and we, we cross the 4 lanes road (marked as European course, because there are thousands of informal lanes!), Azad leads us, I hold my breath and throws me in the middle of CNG, the rickshaw and other crazy racers. Another day, we experiment the streets from the back of a CNG, with Corinne Bazina (DG of Grameen Danone Foods Ltd) and Luc, again, stuck in the famous traffic of this city called “The city of Mosques”
The day before our leaving, the night falls onDhaka. It is 6 p. m. The klaxons concert started over the city and I feel better here than on the first day. I look around me, I look up on the banner of shokti Doi in a shop, as there are hundreds here. The discouragement of the first day gave way to great joy to be part of this adventure. In any case, I was ready to return with a lot of questions, but especially with a clearer vision of what I wanted to make with this chance.
View of Dhaka from Grameen Danone Foods Ltd's office, in the Grameen Tower.
(Via Google Translated)
]
