Before arriving here I had been told that Bangladeshis are extremely hospitable. I’ve now realized that even that is an understatement. The first time that we were invited to dinner at someone’s house, we sat awkwardly as the wife hovered beside us, filling our plates whenever an empty space should appear. We chuckled somewhat uncomfortably and repeatedly insisted she start her own meal. She laughed us off and explained that in Bangladesh guests are treated like royalty. Since that first visit, the truth of this custom has been continually revealed to us.

With time, we’ve also come to realize that there are certain expectations of the guest. For instance, it’s considered impolite not to try every dish prepared (a feat at times if this includes nearly a dozen). When we manage this, but barely, we hurriedly explain that “Everything is delicious, we are just sooo full.” I think this gets us by without insult, but only just.

With the start of our field visits, I’ve realized this hospitality doesn’t only apply to when we are having dinner at someone’s house. When we enter more remote communities, we can draw attention by arriving in a car and walking around in an entourage of four to six. As visitors, people encourage (and expect) us to stay, to chat, and to share food or tea. We fail to satisfy these expectations.

The problem is that we are often constrained by time. For a number of reasons, traveling around Bangladesh is a challenge. A persistent problem is the horrendous traffic. In Dhaka it can take us two hours just to leave the city; traveling to a nearby cities only 100km away took us almost six hours. Also, it’s now the rainy season and so it’s not uncommon for a heavy deluge to force us to re-schedule a visit – venturing out becoming pointless with the roads impassable. On top of this, there have been a rising number of national strikes in the country. When these occur, often spanning 24-48 hours, the entire country slows down and movement is highly restricted as protesting processions incite adequate fear to limit transportation.

Considering these factors, we often feel a sense of urgency to quickly complete our work when we arrive in a community, particularly because it’s typically a race against the setting sun. Cramming everything in not only seriously hinders the depth of our research, but also means that we fail to honour the hospitality that people offer us. On more than one occasion, people have insisted that we stay to eat with them, but we have (while apologetically) refused on account of our time constraints. In one village, as we walked away from an interview, the head of the household gestured for us to return, calling out that we should come back to share fruit. We continued walking away, shaking our heads and shouting that we had a bus to catch. We were told later that the farmer had been offended.

In general, participatory research runs the risk of being an additional burden for respondents due to the disturbance and time requirement it necessitates. This issue can be magnified in cases such as our own, where the sample size doesn’t only include prospective recipients of the intervention, but also those who are unlikely to receive any direct future benefit. While this can be unavoidable, I think in return, it requires acting with the greatest respect for those you interview. Thus, having seen (and benefited from) Bangladeshi hospitality, I find our inability to act appropriately unacceptable.

It is not only in research that foreigners earn themselves a bad reputation. Someone close to us here who normally has only flattering things to say about foreigners told us, “Europeans are bad people. After they leave, at first they will pick up your calls. Then the connection will only go through sometimes. After, two or three months, someone will answer and say, ‘No, I don’t know who you are’.” Recognizing the accuracy in those words I felt ashamed realizing the extent to which, in so many ways, it’s foreigners who benefit in exchanges with Bangladeshis. Indeed, despite having this opinion this friend of ours has always been extremely generous towards us.

Within this internship, experiences such as these have further shed light on the particularly harmful aspects of development tourism. In research and in relationships, we are a whirlwind of questions and demands, arriving and then leaving, perhaps without any follow up in the near future, or ever again.

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