I have made it and am alive and in Bangladesh and MUCH calmer than I was 8 hours ago when I wrote out the post below. Both of my roommates Kishan and Prabhat are here and we had a crazy first day going to the office and the market. I'll write more about that later. If anything goes wrong here it will be getting catapulted out of a rickshaw into the street. They are miniature little seats with barely any siding for two people, pulled by very skinny men who weigh MUCH less than me. They pull you through potholes and cracks and sewage so that every bump you are sure you are about to be launched out of your seat...or the rickshaw is about to split into two pieces...more on that later and my crazy day. Here was my first post I wrote out right when I got here. It was post-total panic alone in a new apartment....
"So, here goes. I’m sitting in my bed in what will be my room
for the next two months. And I’m scared. I didn’t expect to be this scared.
Flying into Doha was easy enough, the airport was foreign and I was surrounded by
mostly middle-eastern and Asian people, but it felt familiar enough. I stuck
out quite a bit but there were other people that stuck out more. My flight from
Doha to Dhaka was easy, as well. I was nervous but mostly excited. I was one of
the very few white people on a very empty plane. It was right before we landed
that it all hit me. We cleared the clouds late coming in to land and looking
outside I was shocked. I saw a sea of dirty buildings that look ready to
collapse. Dense tropical foliage filled the tiny spaces between them. Every
other building seemed to be crumbling or only half-built. Crumbling walls lined
the runway. You could SEE the heavy humidity in the air. It was different than
I expected. It made me nervous.
I landed and made it through immigration just
fine besides nobody understanding the concept of a line. People would randomly come out of nowhere and go up to the counter at the front of the line. Then onto baggage.
Baggage claim was insane. It was one, small carousal with about 200 people
crammed around it shoving to get closer as one bag came out at a time, slower
than the next. It took two hours to get my bag, but I was just happy it made
it. I ventured to go to the bathroom while I was waiting, which was the first big
surprise of the country. Just a plastic rimmed hole. No toilets. They flushed
interestingly enough. Not sure the purpose of flushing, but they flushed.
Back
to the carousal. I found my bag and was lucky that Alamgir, who was
picking me up, was waiting right outside. I exchanged some money and got in the
car waiting for us. Outside was a sea of people just hanging on the gates to
the airport. The air was—is—heavy and thick and hot and sticky. There was no
method to the madness on the road. Honking and cars going every which way. Two
story buses teetered next to tiny rickshaws. People weaving through the cars as
if cars weren’t about to hit them. Endless honking. We made it onto a wider
road that was moving—the highway I’m guessing. We passed an “army golf course’
that was quite an entertaining sight. And a hospital. Huge, and modern and
sparkling new. Comforting, but still not trying to end up in there.
We finally
came off to an area of narrow dirt roads with a blend of everything from nice
looking buildings and buildings that had been reduced to a pile of bricks.
Shacks lined the streets. As we got near I saw a naked little toddler, alone, smiling and patting his face on a little tree stump. We pulled into a very, very narrow street and up to our building.
Looked nice enough. Alamgir was friendly throughout the ride, but I have a hard
time with the accent. I feel like an idiot saying “Sorry? Excuse me?” every two
seconds, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. He leads me through a garage
on the bottom floor to an elevator. I am not thrilled about getting into this
two person “elevator,” but we’re headed four flights up. We get to my apartment. A flimsy wooden door is the entrance. We walk in, and it’s nice. It
reminds me a lot of Ghana. Bare and relatively empty: two couches, a chair, a
table, a refrigerator, and a little kitchen area through a door to the side. We
have a nice TV, which is random and the landlord took the time to show me how
to use the completely standard channel and volume buttons. Music videos in
another language are still playing in the background. There are three bedrooms
each with their own bathroom (and full, real toilets), so that is a pleasant
surprise. I have a low, flat, double bed and a cupboard and dresser in my
room. The other two rooms look about the same. I noticed Alamgir took his shoes
off coming in and forgot that no shoes in a household is a big thing here. I’ll
have to remember that.
Then Alamgir turns to leave. He has to go pick up Kishan
(one of the two other boys who will be living with me) but says he will be
back. I panic. I have no service on my phone and am stuck in a tiny apartment
in the middle of Dhaka with no way of getting a hold of anyone or going
anywhere if I need to. What if he doesn’t come back? My imagination runs wild. Panic.
Finally, though, thank god, I get service to work on my phone. I call my parents
and manage to calm down. I step out on the balcony as I talk to them and the
view from our apartment is other tall, dingy apartment buildings clustered
around us and even attached to the building. Everything is overwhelmingly close-knit. Metal bars close in our two
balconies. I hear someone praying nearby, loudly. It is impossibly humid here
and I suspect I’ll get used to having a constant layer of sweat on my skin.
Sitting in my room now with a fan, I’m pretty comfortable. I must say I am
pleasantly surprised by how nice the apartment is. But every noise makes me
jump. The elevator is loud and makes me nervous. I feel isolated. I don’t feel very
safe. I don’t know why I feel quite so skittish, but hopefully it will settle.
Hopefully I can find peace for the next couple of hours and then will have
company. It sounds like we are going to go shopping for things we may need when
Alamgir and Kishan come back—sheets, water, etc. I am really hoping that they
hurry back. But I at least feel somewhat less stranded with service. And I'm getting more and more used to the constant noises all around me in
this apartment building and the endless honking from the street. Ahhh here goes a pretty wild
two months."
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