Friday, June 28th (The Weekend Part 3)

So, finally catching up and filling you in on the last day of Srimangal last weekend: Saturday. We woke up and had breakfast after our restless night of sleep: eggs and paratha (a fried, tortilla-type bread) and potatoes. Afterwards, we headed to the trailhead of the forest. On our way we stopped and our tour guide went into a little store to pick up a small bottle of powder. It was disgusting smelling powder made from tobacco and some other ground up ingredients that you rub all over your shoes and socks to ward off leeches and keep them from climbing on your shoes and biting you and sucking out your blood. Ew. We actually stuffed our pants in our socks, which was a pretty hip look. But hey, it’s better than leeches latching on to your skin.

As we headed in, the rainforest was really pretty. And it was actually pretty cool in the dark shade of all the trees. I will try and add pictures soon! The problem is they are impossibly slow to upload and sometimes just won’t. You might just have to wait until I return to America and its speedy internet to see most of my pictures. But we headed in to the forest and walked down a brick/dirt path until we got to the bottom of a hill with a visitor center and little shop on top. We kept on going and saw some trails starting to lead off in different directions. We started heading down one, stopping often to look around in silence if our tour guide heard noises that might be animals. I guess there are fewer animals to see in the summer when it’s so hot, but we ended up getting really lucky. We had actually stopped on the way to the trail to get out of the car and see a group of monkeys. There were a bunch of them, small and brown, swinging from trees to trees, fruit dropping constantly as they did so. A few of them had little babies clinging to their stomachs. It was very entertaining just standing and watching them move around. They didn’t seem to mind us at all and our tour guide was saying how the bigger ones can actually get aggressive and come at you. Depending on how deep you go in on the trails, you have to carry a stick to ward off monkeys and other animals.

Ahh, so I know I am already forgetting the names of some of the animals we heard about and/or saw. Our tour guide told us about a few different types of birds. And told us how there are wild boars in the forest. And some sort of tiger, like a small one. I COMPLETELY forget what it is called! And they have black bears. I guess this particular park has a black bear who lost its mate a couple years ago because some local people killed it after it attacked someone. And now the black bear is constantly looking for a companion and is much more aggressive with finding and following people. They are like the Bengal tigers in the Sundarban (the southern, mangrove forest of the country) in that they target and will pick one person in a group and then follow and track that person/group and wait for the perfect time to come out and attack. The Bengal tigers are notorious for this and have killed a lot of people down in the south. This is part of the reason they are having such a hard time conserving the endangered species. The local people want to kill them as revenge and to protect their people from being attacked and killed, but then wildlife organizations are trying to come in and protect the tigers. It's a conflict of interest. 

Anyway, the rainforest. So an endangered primate species, the gibbons, lives in this national park. I think this and one other place are the only areas they are still around. We didn’t expect to see any but we got lucky and saw a family of them! A male, female, and a baby. The male was black and I guess comes swinging out first anywhere they go to scope out the scene for danger. Then we saw the light brown female with a baby clinging firmly to her belly as she swung from branch to branch. They were so neat to see and we hung around for a while just watching them. We also briefly saw one other type of primate species, but again, I completely forget what it was called. Sorry I am useless on the names here. But that one swung out of view pretty quickly. Overall, it was a nice morning just being outside in the cool shade, walking around and seeing all of this wildlife we wouldn’t ever normally see. Oh also, because I forgot to write it in my last post and it was so cool, there were these amazing little plants in the pineapple and lemon plantations. They call them “shy plants” because when you touch the leaves of the plant, the plant curls, folding in its leaves flat against each other, like its an animal responding or something. It was absolutely incredible to see! I couldn’t even believe it. And they were so fun to play with and poke.

After trekking, we headed to a village where they weave cloth. The walk there was sort of longer than I expected and through the blazing sun. Not used to so much movement, mixed with the heat and already a few hours of walking in the forest, I was pretty tired. We headed down a path with rice fields on either side. Cows and goats were scattered throughout the fields and we passed people tending to them and one man constructing a bamboo fence to build for a plant nursery. It all seemed sort of surreal, like we had been picked up and plopped down in a National Geographic picture. Upon arrival in the village, we sat and watched one of the girls weaving for a while. The loom was a very large contraption but she was quick and comfortable maneuvering it. Her mother brought out a stack of cloth—mostly scarves, fabric for skirts, and tablecloths—and we picked out a couple of things to buy and take back with us.

After walking back to the car, we returned into town. We went to our tour guide’s father’s homeopathic medicine shop. It was wild, and felt like stepping back in time. It was a shop like the others we’d seen—mostly an unofficial structure that was very tiny and one side was open to the little road. He had a customer sitting in there when we came in. The room was full with almost no room to walk or stand with an old wooden desk in the middle and walls lined with dusty, dark wooden display cases filled with hundreds of tiny old-fashioned looking bottles. We didn’t learn too much about it, because his father didn’t really speak much English, but we learned that most of the medicine came from Germany and people in the area tend to prefer this type of homeopathic treatment over modern antibiotics. The reason, they told us, was because these were quicker “treatments,” while antibiotics you had to take for a whole long prescription. Sort of an unsound argument, I’d say, but I guess that’s there thinking here. While we sat in the shop, we had some street snacks and tea. One of them is a snack we have in the office a lot and I SHOULD know the name by now but I feel like everyone has been calling it different names. Regardless, its sort of like a samosa—it's a round ball of potatoes and spices and sometimes carrots and onions mixed in, wrapped in flaky, presumably fried, dough. They are DELICIOUS. We also had another little pastry thing I had never seen or tried. It was a sweet, doughy outside, with an even dough-ier, sweeter inside. Yes, that is a weird, pretty poor, explanation but that’s sort of all it was. Dough on dough with LOTS of sugar. I wasn’t a huge fan of the texture (think bread dough—sticky), but I was hungry and still ate it.

After our snacks and town, we headed to one last village. This was a village of indigenous people, and it was in a very remote, hilly, forested area. We asked the difference between indigenous people and Bangladeshis, and I guess it is in their appearance but also their culture and way of life. We had to drive for a while to get to the village, but it was on our way out of town. This village specialized in producing bitter leaves and was apparently very well off because of how popular bitter leaves are here. The point of the leaves wasn’t explained that well, but it sounds like people chew on them like they chew on tobacco. They pack it in their lips and/or chew it to get a bit of a buzz. The village was very interesting though, and did seem really nice. It was on a hill and cement stairs led us up the hill, winding through cement/brick, colorful buildings. What looked like hoses brought water to many of the structures. All of the buildings seemed very sound and well built. Also, it was a Christian village. Some missionaries had come through and done a lot of work there and a Presbyterian church was the first building to be seen when entering. We stopped in the temporary school (a new one was being built) and learned about their education system. The school had three teachers and 120 students. The teachers explained how they could really use more, but it was a government school and the government had just hired three for the village. Apparently this village really emphasized education and the students did well and worked hard. For indigenous people, it sounds like there are a lot of higher learning opportunities and posts in the government and other high up positions in the country. However, many students return to the village even after getting higher education to work and live there, since the bitter leaves industry brings in much more money then some of these other available positions.

Walking around more, we also saw a few groups packing the bitter leaves. They sit on the floor with leaves scattered all around them and they quickly pick them up and stack them and then tie three stacks together with a natural-looking rope/vine. This is how they are packed to be taken into town and sold. It was overall a very interesting village to see and much different than the last one we’d seen—or really any areas we had passed on the roads coming in. 

After the village, it was time for use to leave. Actually, we were originally going to stay another night, but we decided to head back to Dhaka. We wanted to ensure a good night’s sleep after no sleep the night before and we had already packed in a lot of activity—it would be nice to have a quiet Sunday. Also, traffic is WAY worse on Sunday (it’s the country’s Monday equivalent) and so it would be quicker to head home Saturday night.

The drive back was as scary and crazy as the drive there, but we got back in pretty good time and had a lazy and absolutely delicious dinner right at the hotel. We took hot, much needed showers and went to bed early after a long couple of days.

Sunday, I don’t have much to report other than it was a great day. We had a lazy day--hung out by the pool and read and relaxed. It felt just like vacation. My Dad headed out that night and I stayed in the hotel just one more night and got to have one more delicious big breakfast before returning to my apartment and heading to work and back to the regular routine.

Luckily, the boys came back! They got back Monday night and have been here all week. It sounds like they had a great but hectic two weeks. They spent the whole time traveling through the northern regions staying in each place just for a few nights before moving on. They were overseeing a survey for farmers, trying to learn more about their production and seeds used and some other information that will be useful and used in other studies and by other organizations. While my internship is more centered around data and intervention design they have more of a field/survey-based internship based on their project. 

Not too much else to report on this week, but it’s been SO so nice having company again. They may be doing another much shorter field trip in the next few weeks, but I’m hoping it’s not for a while! And hopefully it will actually just be a few days! Ugh, it’s just so much nicer to not be on my own. Anyway, it’s Friday, so we are going to try and do some exploring. I think we are going to head down to Old Dhaka, which is the southern-most part of the city and home to a lot of historical mosques, buildings, and a big fort. There is also a restaurant there that apparently has delicious biriyani, so I think we will go for lunch. It’s currently pouring rain, so I’m not sure how that will affect our plans, but we shall see. Also, it’s almost noon and the boys are STILL sleeping! So, I am just hanging out for now. I will post later about how the day/weekend all goes! I do need to keep up better and after finally catching up from my crazy weekend last weekend, I will be sure to keep the blog more up to date! I’m off, though, I’ll post more later.

Wednesday, June 26th (The Weekend Part 2)

So, to continue my weekend recap. Friday morning, my Dad and I woke up and headed downstairs to meet our driver to Srimangal and we headed off. Traffic wasn’t bad at all since it was Friday morning and we got out of the city pretty quickly. The city just seemed to keep going, even though we started in a pretty northern part. Once we got into more country areas, the driving that I had previously thought was crazy in Dhaka I realized was nothing. This driving was insane. I have never experienced anything like driving through the country here. Basically, it is a very narrow two-lane road, and it’s as if cars on both sides are racing. It feels like every car on the road is competing to see who can pass more cars and go faster. And the thing is, it’s mostly buses on the roads and they swerve and sway and speed around other buses. And even with our driver, who you could consider more cautious, unless a bus was just about to pass by us, he would swerve out to the other side of the road and pass any vehicle (or vehicles!) in front of us. Just casually staying driving on the wrong side of a narrow, swerving road. And more times than not, we would barely squeeze around the car we were passing before a bus would go whizzing by, miraculously just missing our mirror but only by inches. The problem, too, of course is the road is also full of rickshaws, which are easy to pass as long as another car isn’t coming the other way. If there is a car coming the other way, you have to slam on your breaks not to hit the rickshaw. More than once we were run off the road because a bus was trying to pass a car going the other way and was headed straight for us. And we saw several trucks that had rolled over and into the trees. It was madness. I can’t even capture the madness of it. Oh and blind turns? You know how you’re not supposed to pass a car as you both go around one? That common sense doesn't apply here. We would fly around buses while both taking a blind turn and just hope for the best that no car was coming the other way as we tried to pass by them. Ugh, we had some VERY close calls. After about two hours, I honestly couldn’t take the stress of watching, so I slouched down and closed my eyes the rest of the way.

Before going into shut down mode, I did get to see a lot of the scenery we passed. Fields and fields of rice mostly. And we passed through little towns of mostly tin shanties that served as stores and houses, alike. Rickshaws were everywhere we went. We also passed dozens of rice factories, as well as some other factories. And the landscape was scattered with tall chimney kilns for making bricks with mounds and mounds of bricks surrounding them.

Well, when we finally arrived, we pulled up to the Rainforest Resort, a very, basic looking building painted a bright, light blue. We had a room with air-conditioning though and two beds (granted rock hard) so it would work. We headed into town for lunch with our tour guide, who had met us upon arriving to the Rainforest Resort. We ate at a pretty nice place that had another group of tourists there too. Downtown Srimangal was small. A lot of the structures were old cement or tin and the street was an endless line of little shops of fruit and food and other random goods. Lunch was traditional, with kebabs and naan, cucumbers and dahl (which is a brothy sauce they serve a lot here and you can pour over anything).  After, we headed out to see the tea, pineapple, lemon and rubber plantations. We had passed them coming in but we hadn’t learned anything or walked through them yet.

We stopped by a rubber plantation first. It mostly consisted of just stopping off to the side of the road where rows and rows of rubber trees had been planted in perfect lines. They cut the trunks and set out little bowls to catch the sap dripping down and they turn that into rubber. Now was not the season for collecting so they were mostly dry. Apparently the leaves drive out animals and birds because they don't want to eat them. So overall, they are pretty environmentally unfriendly plants to farm.

After continuing past the rubber plantation, we drove to a pretty remote area, got out of the car and started walking down a bumpy, narrow dirt road. We walked through a fence to the side and entered the pineapple plantation. The first part was a hill and when we reached the top we saw the plantation was rolling hills in every direction. It was very pretty. The pineapples had just been harvested so there were no fruit plants, but the rows of the pointy leaves they had been plucked off of remained. Wild boars are apparently an issue with the pineapple plantations. They break in and burrow through the plants causing major destruction and not even in order to dig up plants and eat them. They just destroy the plants. Srimangal is an area home to Muslims, Hindus and indigenous (they call them “tribal”) people.  There is actually a fairly large Hindu population compared to the rest of the country (Srimangal is about 30% Hindu). While Muslims and Hindus don’t eat pig, the pineapple plantation owners will allow indigenous people to come into their plantations and hunt the wild boars. It's a win win for the both of them.

After the pineapples we headed back to the dirt road and farther into the remote area. What I noticed most was the silence. After the crazy constant honking and chaos of Dhaka, I hadn’t heard this kind of remote silence (or any type of silence) in a long time. It was very peaceful. Towards the end of the road, the lemon plantation began. They call limes here lemons, and apparently they don’t eat lemons (what we consider lemons) because they are too sour and juicy. At the end of the road was a little wooden shack. Dogs greeted us, barking loudly. For those of you that know my history of dogs in developing countries (dog bite in Ghana), I am not a huge fan. I immediately got panicked, but stayed calm enough to make it just past the shack where some people were loading up a cart of lime/lemons. The workers here are crazy. They pack these large two-wheeled wagons of fruit and then WALK them all the way into town to Srimangal. From certain areas this is miles and miles of hilly trekking. It takes hours. We passed many people making this trek as we drove in. They then turn around, come back, and do it again. The men loading the wagon stopped and cut up some freshly pineapple for us. It was absolutely delicious—juicy and sweet. The dogs had calmed down, thankfully, when we headed back out on the road to leave. Ahh they still made me nervous.  

Getting back to the car, dripping in sweat (it was VERY hot out!), being able to sit down in the air conditioning felt amazing. From the pineapple/lemon/lime plantation we went to the main event: the tea plantations. We drove in a long way, weaving down roads through tea plantations that seemingly went on forever. People (mostly women) could be seen with big bags slung over their shoulders picking the tea leaves. All of the tea picking is done by hand and for a ridiculously low wage (like 30-50 Tk a day…). It seems like brutal work out in the heat among the endless plants. Throughout the hills of tea plants are shadow trees, which are planted to create the necessary shade for the plants. We stopped and walked around a little and heard about the history of this area. Its border had been suddenly and randomly made, breaking up families and communities between India and Bangladesh (Srimangal is RIGHT near the Indian border). We also heard about the history of tea plantations in the area. Many of the workers originally were brought over from India by the British, who tricked them into thinking they would have a better life only to be tied into exploitative and oppressive work. The conditions continue to this day, even without the British presence.

Close by the tea plantation was a very peaceful pond that we walked around. On one side was a hill we walked up and we were able to see the area better with its rolling hills, plantations, and endless rainforest on the outskirts. It was very beautiful and it had cooled down considerably as the sun was starting to set. The pond also had bright purple water lilies scattered around the edge. It seemed like a pretty popular spot and other people were milling around, taking pictures, and walking down the path.

After the lake, we headed to a tea stand. Apparently it was the first tea stand to make multi-layered tea, but now it’s a popular thing. Basically, they make cups of tea with several flavors layered on top of each other, and make it so the flavors somehow don’t mix with each other. The result is a cup of tea with visibly different layers of tea—both multi-colored and multi-flavored.  So we got a five-layer cup of tea, which had cinnamon tea, ginger tea, green tea, black tea, and one other one I forget. It was wild how as you made your way through the cup of tea the flavors continued to change. They love their sweet tea, though, so for the most part the flavor seemed like straight sugar. It was still neat to sit outside and relax.

Afterwards, we did a quick dinner of biriyani and headed to the hotel. We settled down after a very long day ready to get a good night of sleep. But a good night of sleep was NOT in our cards. I don’t think we could’ve had a worse nights sleep than what we ended up with. It was one thing after the next all night long. First, there was a dog right outside our window that barked incessantly, all night. It would stop for a little and then shortly after start right back up. On and on and on—SO loud. The other thing was, just as we were turning the lights out to go to sleep, the loudest storm I have EVER heard began. The lightening and thunder were deafening. I was ready for the house to split open or a tree to fall in. And it wasn’t like the thunder was right over us for a little and then passed by. It seemed to stay right above us forever, with deafening cracks and crashing for hours. At about 11pm, the electricity went out. At first, this seemed pretty bad. The air conditioning doesn’t work on just the generator so we were down to a single fan. But it got worse. I woke up from my half sleep to stifling heat. The generator had gone off! We were surrounded by suffocating heat—no fan, pitch black. It stayed off for a good two hours. It was beyond uncomfortable. Finally, the generator picked back up so the fan was working. Circa 6am though, again, off it went. Sticky, stuffy heat quickly built up in the room. Luckily, this just lasted until 7am when the full-blown electricity returned. Just in time for us to get up and leave…after our very restless, sleepless night, we got up and had breakfast, preparing for a morning of trekking in the rainforest.

I’m going to wrap up this post now, but I will finish the Srimangal weekend adventures later or tomorrow! For now, there was our first day in Srimangal—busy and hectic but beautiful and very interesting. It was so nice to get out of the crazy hustle and loudness of Dhaka.

For now, I am back in Dhaka, and it is currently POURING down rain. It’s dark and loud and coming down hard. I’m just at work taking a little break to write this. My roommates have FINALLY made it home and we are going to stock up on some groceries at the supermarket after work. They haven’t been yet, so they will get to experience the convenience of Lavender (the supermarket’s name) for the first time. It’s crazy they have spent more of their time in Bangladesh outside of Dhaka than in Dhaka. I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on here and finish my Srimangal story later!! Pictures of the weekend are coming soon too!

Tuesday, June 25th (The Weekend Part 1)

So, what a crazy weekend! It’s been awhile since my last post but that’s because I was traveling this weekend. Like I said, my Dad came in and we headed up to a northeastern city called Srimangal that’s in an area known for it’s tea, lemon, and pineapple plantations as well as Lawachara National Park (a preserved rainforest).

My Dad arrived on Thursday morning early, and I had slept at the hotel. Oh my god was the hotel nice. Clean, cozy bed, a hot shower, good food. It was heaven. He arrived early and we went downstairs to breakfast—an endless and delicious buffet of options. After breakfast, we headed to my apartment, and my Dad got to walk the streets of Dhaka for the first time. It was as crazy as ever—honking, swerving cars, busy sidewalks cracked and littered with garbage, throngs of people. My apartment was not far from the hotel, and we just grabbed some clothes and things for the weekend. I also got to show my dad the market by my house. We walked through the meat stands, the vegetable stands, the fruit stands and the boxed goods stands—people yelling out “Madame! Madame!” as per usual (oh yeah, they all call me madame here…). After the market we headed a few streets over to Road 11. This is the main road in Bananai (my neighborhood) and is the busiest. It’s full of restaurants and shops all the way down. We stopped in a traditional clothing store and King’s Confectionary—a bakery where I FINALLY found some whole wheat bread! Yum. I’m going to have it for the first time for breakfast today (the only bread at the market is basically Wonderbread).

After roaming a little, we hopped in a rickshaw to go back to the hotel. My Dad’s first rickshaw.  A rickshaw with two people and a big bag is certainly less stable than one, and we definitely filled the seat. Also, there’s nowhere really to hold on and depending on how careful your driver is you go over endless bumps and potholes. When we got back to the hotel, we had a couple of hours before we were going to take a tour of the National Assembly Building (where I had gone with Martin—Parliament—but we were going to go inside). I decided to take my Dad to Star Kebab, a very authentic local restaurant I had been to once that has good kebabs, naan, biriyani and jahl fry—all pretty classic dishes here. However, it had started pouring and storming harder than I had ever seen it rain here, so we tried to wait a little for it to pass. We ended up taking a car, which was a very pleasant treat I will unfortunately not have access to as the rain picks up. I’ll be braving the weather via rickshaw or by foot…I think it will mostly be a you-have-to-accept-you’re-going-to-be-soaked-most-of-the-time type of thing. We headed there and ordered the few dishes I had listed. Kebabs are straightforward enough. They don’t actually come on sticks though—they’re just seasoned (and I think fried?) pieces of chicken that you tear off and eat with the naan. Yum. Biriyani is a seasoned rice and meat dish. Pretty straight forward. We got chicken. And then Jahl fry they consider a “gravy” but really its just pieces of meat in a thick-ish sauce that you eat with rice or naan. It’s sort of oily but has good flavor. After our pretty big and heavy lunch we headed back to the hotel for our tour.

The tour was great. It started with a minor problem in that I didn’t have my passport with me and you need one to get into the building. But, this is Bangladesh. Soooo, we stopped by a convenience store and picked up a packet of cigarettes: my passport for the day. Bribes can get you places here. 

The tour guide was great and when we got to the building (after a LOT of traffic, as per usual), we went on in. The building was designed by the famous architect Louis Kahn (I don’t know if many of you have heard of him). I guess he worked on Yale and some other buildings you have probably seen or heard of. You can Google him. But anyway, I have posted a picture before of the actual building, so you can go back and see the outside of the building (from a long way away). It’s very modern and geometric and sits on 200 acres of grounds (hence, my picture being far away). Also, all sides of it are surrounded by a lake/mote that goes right up to the sides of the building. The original plan was to have the houses around this lake/mote be Parliament members’ houses and they could boat across to the main building. It didn’t pan out. But a cool idea nonetheless.

The building is mostly made of concrete with strips of marble, and the inside is all exposed concrete. The inside has cut outs of circles and triangles and squares between the different hallways and passages. There are also several large cylinder light shafts throughout the building (that add the geometric nature of the building) to bring in plenty of natural light. The light fixtures, the furniture and the general set up of the building feels like you’ve stepped right back to 60s (when it was designed). Parliament was in session that day, and the Prime Minister was actually in the building. We didn’t see her, but at one point when were walking around there were like 20 guards fanned out around and above us on balconies and I guess they were screening the area before she would walk through.

We went into the main assembly hall where Parliament was supposed to have been in session thirty minutes before we showed up. It was not even ¼ full and people were milling around chatting. Then, an alarm started going off. It was the alarm signaling there were not enough parliament members for them to go into session, and more members needed to arrive immediately. Classic. It went off for a while and finally stopped—I guess enough people finally showed up. Pretty wild that they can’t get people to show up for these sessions. I remember going to Parliament in South Africa and being similarly surprised by how dysfunctional it seemed.

After our tour, we headed back to the hotel and ended up just having dinner at a restaurant there. Sort of boring, but it was nice to be able to shower and go right upstairs and know I wasn’t going to get sweaty and grimy trying to manage to get around town on a rickshaw. We went to bed early, because we were going to have to get up early to leave for our ride to Srimangal.

I will post later about all of our Srimangal adventures! There were a lot and this post is already getting long and I have to get off to work. I am breaking up my posts about this hectic and fun past week. I really should’ve just posted along the way! Woops. I can blame bad internet and a crazy schedule. But off to work I go. Like I said, I will post about our tea plantation and rainforest adventures later. 

Monday, June 17th

So after a quiet Friday, the weekend ended up being pretty good! Saturday I woke up with a terrible case of vertigo, which was unexplained, but after drinking hydrating salts (the grossest mix of salt and sugar and water ever), I felt better. Probably just dehydration.

Anyway, every year, a group of expats in Dhaka film a show called Itadi. It’s a mix of dance and acting (in Bangla) and is televised for Eid, which is the festival at the end of Ramadan. I guess it’s sort of a big deal, and hundreds of thousands of people watch it. The filming is next weekend and the first rehearsal was this past Saturday, so I decided to go. Ariadna was who told me about it, and she was going to go, but then decided not to, so I went on my own. I didn’t love trying to track down a location I didn’t know to do something with people I didn’t know, but I figured I’d at least get to interact with some people who spoke English for an afternoon.

It was at the Nordic club, which is one of the members-only clubs in Dhaka. There are several of them, and almost all of them are just for foreigners—Bangladeshis are not allowed. It’s sort of a weird system. In one sense, it’s nice for the expats to be able to “get away” and there’s a pool (where you can actually wear a bathing suit) and a bar (I guess it’s a popular spot for drinking, since there’s nowhere else to drink in Dhaka), an exercise room and game room, etc.  and they host events (it basically acts like a country club). But, I guess they can be pretty oppressive towards Bangladeshis and there is a somewhat negative relationship between the clubs and local people. Up until recently, the clubs exhibited a lot of prejudice against the local people. They also perpetuate this large divide I’ve noticed here between the foreigners and the local people. I mean, the language itself starts it all. But talking to Ariadna, it sounds like it’s tough to connect even if you do speak the language. The cultures are just so different. So the expat community is sort of goofy. It’s a bunch of foreigners who have picked up and moved here to do development work for the country, while remaining very much removed from the country socially—sticking, instead, to themselves to form a small community of foreigners. I guess it’s not quite that simple, but it’s certainly a strange and very visible dynamic.  

Anyway, the Nordic Club was nice (I was super jealous of the people in the pool), and we used their dance studio to practice. I was definitely the youngest woman there. So many foreigners though! They were everywhere and everyone spoke English, which I must say was a nice break from my isolating week. Everyone was friendly and we were settling in when I realized we were going to have to learn the dance (that’s what this rehearsal was for). In all of my excitement to meet and hang out with some other English-speaking people, I forgot the real reason we were there. To dance. I am terrible at dancing...so uncoordinated. As expected, it was pretty brutal to learn. I just can’t manage to coordinate the moves with my feet with the moves I am supposed to be doing with my arms at the same time. I usually focus on the arm movements, because it’s more obvious if I mess those up. Yes, I am that challenged at dancing. Luckily, I wasn’t the only bad dancer. And we all had fun laughing at ourselves trying to learn some traditional Bangladeshi moves. And the music was really good! Overall, it was quiiiite a sight. Also, I have barely done any physical activity here. I have tried to work out here and there in the apartment, but just in short bursts. The heat makes it tough. But this was three hours of dancing…I thought I was going to pass out. And it was HOT. But overall, it was a lot of fun and great getting to hang out with people! So, although I had felt totally awkward going alone, I am glad I did. It paid off.

After, I headed home and finally spoke to Ariadna about doing something. We decided to get take out and watch a movie. We got take out from a place near me that has DELICIOUS Indian food. I didn’t even know I liked Indian food, but it’s so good and it’s everywhere here.  I’ve definitely been trying a lot of new food here and liking most of it. I would list what we ordered, but I don’t even know. Ariadna ordered it all. It was a mix of potato pastries and kebabs and naan and this yogurt chickpea thing. Not a good description. But it was delicious. We didn't end up watching a movie and just watched some old Modern Family episodes and caught up. I learned about how she ended up in Bangladesh (it was NOT her original plan) and what she wants to do after she leaves in September (she wants to do some of her own development research in Mexico, hopefully with the local government). And we talked about the many options for working in development and the different opportunities within IPA. It was good. I have become overwhelmed by the different education options geared towards development work. And there are endless ways to be involved in development work for any given level of education. It has all given me a lot to think about. Maybe more on that later. After dinner and hanging out, tired from a long day, I headed home.

Sunday was pretty uneventful. I went to work. But after, I went to a supermarket!! Yes, they do have supermarkets here. Ariadna showed it to me the night before. It is amazing, and even carries Jiff peanut butter. Yum. Although, a man tried to talk to me while I was shopping—asking where I was from, what I was doing here, if I came alone (sketchy). He said he was from California, but looked and sounded Bangladeshi. Hm. I just gave him short answers and kept walking until he left me alone. I didn’t go too overboard, because I had to carry it all home, but I was able to get almonds and Raisin Bran and chicken and oranges and crackers.

I decided I would try to cook that night. Ambitious. Cooking was slow. I have a two-burner stovetop, but one burner doesn’t work and the other one’s light blows out a lot and I have to relight it. I finally eeked out some green beans and carrots and chicken. It was pretty plain, but I was starving by the time I ate it, so I didn’t care. First time cooking something other than eggs in Bangladesh…sort of a fail. But it did the trick for dinner. And I am just happy to have a supermarket! It will be perfect for when the market is just a little more than I want to handle or when I need some of those specialty items I’m missing (peanut butter…).

Last night I woke up for the first time to the call to prayer. It was 4:30am. I must be relatively close to a mosque, because it’s pretty loud from my apartment. I was able to fall back asleep just fine, but I can’t believe people get up that early to pray every day. Also, I sort of thought the call to prayer would just be a siren or something. I think I saw that in a movie. But it’s a guy’s voice, which sounds like he himself is praying. And it goes on for a while. Also, apparently it all starts in one mosque in the city. And then once the next mosque hears it, it sends out its own call to prayer, and so on across the entire city until all the mosques have sent out the call. Pretty cool.

Anyway, on a different note, this Thursday, my Dad is coming to Dhaka! I can’t even wait. He has a meeting in Qatar, so is just going to travel that much farther to come see me. It’s pretty insane, but I’m not complaining! We are going to go to Srimongol, which is the tea plantation area of the country. There is also a national park there that’s a rainforest so we will be able to explore that as well. We should be able to see some cool animals and waterfalls. It’s the closest place to Dhaka worth visiting, and I think it’s worth traveling outside of Dhaka, since there really isn’t that much to do here. If my Dad’s coming halfway around the world, we might as well do more than get stuck in traffic and get stared at (aka being a tourist in Dhaka). He gets here Thursday morning, and ahhh I can’t wait! Oh, also, the boys are getting home Sunday now…of course. Will they ever come home? At least I have an exciting weekend to look forward to! I’m hoping to go out somewhere fun to dinner this week, too. Other than that, just another quiet week until Thursday. I’ll keep you posted!