5/26/14 Day 03

Every day we buy our lunch in the university cafeteria. They offer Bangali food and also fried chicken. I generally get their vegetable and egg rice along with a sweet. Their selection of sweets is quite odd. They’re not traditional, more like bastardizations of western sweets. I’ve had some sort of caramelized peanut cake, a custard tart, and a roll spread with vanilla whipped cream, maybe? We also get coke in glass bottles that say Coca Cola in Bangla on the side. Today we sat by a girl and actually had a little conversation with her in a mix of English and Bangla. We had plans to have dinner at the house of a woman who helped translate our research documents. Her house was near language school so the plan was for Emily and me to stay at the school for several hours after class until Dr. Shenk came. We waited and waited until 6 when the office got a call from Dr. Shenk who had fallen asleep and slept through multiple alarms. We got a rickshaw to go back to the apartment. After 20 minutes, it became clear that our driver had no idea where he was going. We had been fairly clear in asking him if he knew where our place was. He had said yes. He stopped to ask someone and then changed his direction. 15 minutes later we were still nowhere near our place and he stopped to ask someone else. He turned us into these narrow alleys full of people and shops. While it was fun to see, it was utterly humiliating being two white girls on a rickshaw in a place that didn’t quite fit a rickshaw (though we saw a few others). After 45 minutes of riding on this rickshaw, he pulled over to a group of rickshaws to ask for directions AGAIN. Finally another rickshaw driver gestured that he knew it and we got into his instead. We paid our driver the fair he would have gotten had we reached our apartment and he angrily stuck out his hand for more. By this time I was MAD, so we just left. The new rickshaw took us straight home and it turns out we were VERY far away. It took us an hour to get home. It was quite the experience.

My biggest lunch so far at school

The vegetable fried rice that is SO good!

5/25/14 Day 02

Today was our first day of language training. The work week starts on Sunday here because Friday is a religious holiday. On our way there we passed street shops selling live chickens and pigeons and countless varieties of fruits. Near our apartment is a plant “shop” with rows of plants in hemp pots along the sidewalk. Jackfruit trees are everywhere. They have huge globular fruits that hang from the tree trunk. Our language class is held in a swanky university for the rich city kids. The rooms are frigid from AC but it’s got a lovely open courtyard. Today there was a rain storm and the students were whooping and yelling in the courtyard getting wet. Apparently it’s been blisteringly hot these past few months and the rain is a great relief. They were certainly rejoicing. I am so happy to be back in a language class again. It’s just the two of us (the other student and myself) in class with several professors that take turns. We learned so much today I can’t even believe it. After class (which is 10am to 3pm with a 1 hour break for lunch) we took a CNG to go grocery shopping. Unfortunately we found ourselves in a rather swishy semi-Western style grocery store. Grocery stores here are all more like Walmart. They have food, fresh produce and meat etc, but they also contain every other item you could possibly want. Clothes, electronics, household items, toiletries, stationery, candy and more, all crammed into a small multistory space. But this one was spread out and not cluttered, so not very normal here. They pack your groceries in muslin bags instead of plastic or paper anywhere you go. Milk comes in plastic bags instead of cartons. The bread is very square. Everything is just a tiny bit different and I revel in each difference.

The courtyard at the university where we have Bangla classes

My notebook

5/24/14 Day 01

After a drive to Chicago we began our 20+ hour journey to the other side of the world. We rode a dumpy American plane to Manchester. Manchester accents are fabulous, by the way. I must spend more time in England if only to hear the accents. Then we rode Etihad (based in Abu Dhabi) to Abu Dhabi. The Etihad plane was a veritable palace. It was new and clean, no crumbs in the seats. It had a TV on each seatback and hundreds of on demand programs. The female flight attendants wore lovely hats with scarves attached. They served nice meals that tasted good. It was lovely. All our connections were tight, we had to rush through both airports. I remember feeling a particularly strong affinity towards Abu Dhabi, though I can’t pinpoint why. I just remember thinking this is somewhere I want to be. Our flight to Dhaka had a bit of a rocky start. A woman was in my assigned seat because she didn’t want to sit next to a man (a religious preference, but additionally the flight was full of migrant workers who are notoriously obnoxious). It was okay for us to be split up as long as she found a seat where she felt comfortable, but a flight attendant took it upon himself to find us seats together. We were given two seats towards the back in a majority male section. After that everything went smoothly. We arrived in Dhaka at 4:50 am with fat ankles and sore necks.

I cried when I stepped out of the airport. After so many problems and breakdowns and all the hard work to get healthy, I was finally here. It was muggy and loud and I loved it. There is so much life in this city. It’s all I thought it would be. So far the pollution is only bad when you are stuck in traffic. It makes me cough. Otherwise I don’t notice any difference. We arrived early in the morning, and after a nap we went out shopping for clothes. We have to wear traditional dress here. We took a rickshaw (!) to the first shop. I loved it. It seems to me the best way to see the surroundings. The rickshaws are beautifully decorated with bits of tin and bright colors. The drivers wear button down shirts and lungis, a sort of wrap skirt. The streets are full of different vehicles. Cars with metal bars on the bumpers, presumably to prevent damage. Green CNGs whizz along like little bugs. Brightly painted but dilapidated busses. I even saw a few double deckers. There is so much honking. Vehicles come within inches of each other. There seem to be no rules other than try not to hit each other. Pedestrians cross busy roads whenever they like. It’s a madhouse, but somehow it works. Lots of people stare at us, but that’s normal. We are told they are likely fascinated by our pale skin. Pale is considered more beautiful than brown skin. There are billboards with ads for skin lightening cream. In fact, all the models on the billboards are nearly white, some not even South Asian. How depressing it must be to grow up looking completely different from the people you see in magazines.

Rickshaws from behind

Looking down a main road

Gulshan 2 Circle