I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop
The first time I saw Meem, which was also my first day at work at a sweatshop, she was having a good day despite the wretched heat. She sat cross legged on the concrete flopatagonia simple guide pants test2or, a tiny, frail figure among piles of collars, cuffs and other parts of unstitched shirts.
She had a pair of cutters in her hands, much like eyebrow tweezers, and she was trimming threads from a navy collar. She clepatagonia clothing reviewsared one collar after another of threads until the big pile, which had been bigger than her, was no more. It took her all morning and she didn look up much, did not join any conversation. When it was done, she took a few gulps of water from a scrunched bottle, walked around for a bit, her little hands rubbing her back, and went back to trimming threads this time, from navy cuffs.
Later, she said, it had been a good day: the electricity didn patagonia better sweater fleece vest - women'splay hooky (which meant the three ceiling fans worked all day) and so it wasn oppressively hot, she had fish curry for lunch, and the floor manager didn yell at her for humming too loudly.
It was a very good day, she said again, dancing a little jig.
On a sweaty day this August, I arrived at a factory in a neighbourhood near Lalmatia in southwest Dhaka. The wide streets were lined with old buildings and were clogged with rickshaws, crowded buses and fancy cars. Clothes were hung out to dry from balconies, restaurants shared common front yards with abattoirs. At most street corners, there were shoe shine men, tiny places that served tea and Bengali sweets.
Morningtime was almost always more chaotic as schoolchildren in uniforms scrambled to get to class and grown ups hurried to work.
Off a main street and at the end of a laneway was the sweatshop.
Hamid, formerly a sewing operator with a big garment factory in Narayanganj, is the owner. About three years ago, he took a loan and started his own businesspatagonia simple guide pants test a small factory that operates without a name and today employs about 45 people.
I walked in the first morning just after 8, a bottle of water in hand, and introduced myself to Ali, the floor manager, as Rubina, the new sewing helper. He is a small, wiry man who, I later discovered, cooks and sleeps at the factory.
He nodded and told me to take a look around.
Gettipatagonia down sweater care instructionsng the job hadn been easy. Before Rana Plaza collapsed in a Dhaka suburb on April 24 and 1,129 people lost their lives, reporters got into factories and chronicled the appalling safety conditions, child labour and subsistence salpatagonia ventura ca store hoursaries. Now big factories have security and careful screening. Outsiders, especially non Bengali speakers, are lookepatagonia az bike shopd at with deep suspicion.
Even though my appearance helped, it didn help that I don know Bengali and don look impoverished. Initially, I tried to get a job at a big factory with the help of some well connected friends in Dhaka. But as a friend said, his factory owner friend simply asked him why he didn just give me the down on her luck relative money.
In the end, a cabbie I had hired while on assignment in Dhaka last year came through. A friend of his friend owned a small factory making garments for local retailers and often taking orders from big factories when they faced deadline pressures.
The cabbie topatagonia outlet store 101ld Hamid that his wife cousin (me) was an Indian woman who had recently moved to Dhaka, knew a few words of Bengali and needed a new start.
Hamid was in a bind. Some of his workers hadn returned from their villages after Eid and he had a deadline to meet. So he said yes, he would try me out for a few days. If I did well, we would talk money, said Hamid.
The factory wasn big: about two dozen sewing macpatagonia discount code disneylandhines lined thpatagonia discount code eastbaye walls of the windowless room, about half the size of a basketball court. Two cutting machines sat in a corner. The sewing machines had little benches for the operators, and almost all had piles of colourful fabric by the side. Three ceiling fans, covered with layers of dirt, hummed quietly.
In one corner was Hamid office. It had glass windows and a glass door. Most fabric was kept there before it was cut. A phone sat on the desk with an old computer that was almost never used.
There were no fire extinguishers, no exit other than the main door.
(I later counted another 21 sewing machines on the secopatagonia everlong review ipadnd floor of the same building. A rickety staircase was the only way up. Workers on the main and second floor didn socialize much.)
The sole washroom was right at the end of the laneway, opposite the sweatshop. It was dimly lit, with puddles of dirty water, and the toilet was little more than a hole in the ground. It was used by every business on the floor; even for showering by those who live there, including Ali, whose clothes hung on a clothesline in the narrow hallway. Rats frequently visited.
At the factory, the sewing helpers, seven of upatagonia simple guide pants test3s, always sat in the middle of the floor, trimming threads, ironing, folding and later packaging.
That first day, in the centre of the floor, sat Meem.
Her father, who worked at another garment factory, had an early shift and so he had dropped Meem off. Even though work didn start until 9, she was already trimming threads. Ali gestured for me to sit on the floor and in rapatagonia simple guide pants test0pid Bengali told Meem to give me work.
As soon as his back turned, Meem, who was nibbling on a samosa, told me to take it easy.
is your first day . . . just watch for a couple of hours, she said shyly.
No one at the factory, including Meem, knew I was a reporter. Except for a few questions about her patagonia simple guide pants test1family, I never interviewed her: everything in the story is what I saw, what I heard.
I watched her and I watched Ali and began to understand how the factory worked.
Ali preferred to cut fabric into shirt pieces himself and did so every morning before the workers arrived. He then distributed the pieces, along with matching thread, to sewing operators. Some stitched shirt arms, others collars, cuffs and pockets.
