A Girl and a Rickshaw

Kathmandu, Revisited

2011-08-10T17:57:00.006+06:00

It has been four months since my first incredible visit to Nepal. This past weekend I returned with my friend Trishna for a short break from Chittagong and to celebrate her father's promotion to a major general in the Nepali army (I know, impressive). As we flew into the valley, I took in the breathtaking view. There were no thunderstorms this time so I could see clearly, the rugged rise of the land and then thousands of houses spreading out as far as the eye could see. I waxed poetic about the mountains surrounding Kathmandu to which Trishna shook her head in amused exasperation, "Those are hills, Jess. Hills."

A familiar, round-faced 10 year old met us at the airport. Abhishek grinned up at us, having brought with him his perpetual cheerfulness and bars of chocolate. We chatted merrily in the car on the way back to Trishna's house about his own upcoming adventure called "immigrate to America." Trishna's family welcomed us with open arms, Doodle, grandparents, her mother, brother, and her father who I had not met on my last visit. Given his position and career choice, I was somewhat intimidated to meet this general who's pictures with US presidents and Joint Chiefs line the walls of Trishna's house. But her father was as warm and open as the rest of the Ranas.

Signs of the promotion and the celebration to come surrounded us. Bouquets of flowers in vases (nothing compared to the hundreds that would appear the next day), a whole, roasted wild boar (a Nepali delicacy) in the refrigerator, chocolate cake, foreign beer and fancy whiskey, embroidered saris on hangers waiting to be tried on.

(all the flowers given)

And try them on we did. By 6pm the next night, the family looked stunning, especially the women. Trishna's grandmother dotted all of our foreheads with red tikka, for luck. And good thing too because 1000 people turned up to the promotion party which was held at the Kathmandu military club under a large tent top full of twinkling lights and complete with a dance floor. Visitors entered and greeted the general and his wife with flowers and congratulations before ambling into the outside tent to eat a feast and drink an unending supply of everything from water to soda to wine to whiskey.

(me and Rana family)

Trishna had a lot of responsibilities being part of the honored family but she did not abandon me entirely. She sent Abhishek to keep me company and he showed me all around the party, whispering gossip about attendees, making sure he pointed out the people he considered important. The Commander in Chief of the army. The ex-prime minister. His teachers and best friends. The man serving ice cream cones. He didn't leave my side until the dancing started. And then he was one of the first on the floor along with his grandparents, his aunts, uncles, cousins and even, yes, the general himself. The party was in full swing.

As I watched Abhishek dance with his family, his utter joy and complete lack of self-consciousness, I felt a small tug of sadness about his impending move to the U.S. He's such a happy kid, in love with his grandparents, so at home in his own country and culture. The idea of disrupting that kind of contentment, the idea of dropping him into 6th grade class in the middle of Boston, the idea of taunts or indifference from other kids, the idea of him facing what can only be described as a strong taste of absence- (absence of momos, his language, his grandfather's calling voice) seems unbearably cruel. And he has no idea that this lies ahead.

(Abhishek)

The party went late into the night as the crowd slowly dwindled and the men consumed more whiskey stirred into water. As the people diminished it became easier to actually observe what was going on. A second meal was served at midnight. Almost everyone sat down to eat except one of the younger men who stood off to the side pealing a brightly colored piece of fruit. I watched the boy's intent face, more complicated than handsome, as he lowered his dark brown mouth into the incandescent orange.

But at last, the celebration ended. When all the boar and roti and oranges had been eaten and legs grew tired from dancing, the twinkle lights began to be taken down. I have to admit that despite the excitement, I was ready to get out of the sari and into pajamas when we finally pulled into Trishna's aunt's house for the evening. The crowd had exhausted me. As I brushed my teeth and changed into a Braves t-shirt, all I could think about was my bed, but even though I wanted to go to sleep, I didn't want to wash the red tikka off.

The rest of the trip was like taking a deep breath after the month I've had at school. We saw two movies (including Harry Potter!) in a tall, spectacular cinema with unnecessary AC, a bucket of hot popcorn, and power that never ran out. We had masala tea and momos in the old palace gardens. There was a lazy lunch the afternoon following the party where the leftover wild boar and pineapple cake was served. The lunch had a familiar feeling to it despite the fact that I was a guest- that feeling of the day after a party when everyone is tired but the memories of the night before are still fresh and exhilarating, when everyone relives the best moments of the evening yet is content that the celebration is over. I think I often like the lunch the day after a party better than the party itself but I'm strange that way.

(in the old palace gardens)

We ran out of time and just a few days after arrival, we had to go back to Chittagong. I left with blue bangles on my wrists and red tikka, bestowed once again by Trishna's grandmother, on my forehead. (I never mind taking extra luck with me on a flight). The hours had been short but the trip felt full. We were the only two women on our plane and in the rows behind us sat at least a hundred men all wearing identical baseball caps, stamped with the logo of a Middle Eastern company they must have worked for. Their faces were young but heavy. It was clear that none were leaving Nepal for a holiday or to explore South Asia. All were leaving because the stomachs of their families depended upon their absence. As we exited into the terminal the group gathered together, lined up against the wall, and waited. Waited for instructions. Waited for someone in charge to point out their new gate. Dhaka was just another port on the way to being away.

They were still standing against the wall as Trishna and I disappeared around the corner, heading for our own gate, the one that would take us home.

Nepal

2011-04-02T15:57:00.007+06:00

Imagine a plane. I'm on that plane flying into the Kathmandu Valley-- mountains surround us on all sides. The plane bounces up and down and up ahead there are dark clouds, lightening, rain. I hold my breath because I'm pretty sure I've seen this in an Indiana Jones movie. But we land, somehow managing not to crash. On the ground, the storm rages and every time the thunder explodes, it echoes across the valley like I'm sitting inside an enclosed amphitheater. Welcome to Nepal.

My trip was less than a week but so much seemed to happen. It was a mixture of adventure and family-- starting with Trishna's where we visited in Kathmandu. In a beautiful, tall brick house surrounded by flowers and greenery in the heart of the city we met her mom, grandparents, her thoroughly charming nine year old cousin Abhishek and her dog Doodle. It was like being at home-- all the things we miss about family. Her grandmother patting our cheeks and insisting we eat. Joking with her grandfather about cricket. Watching Doodle flop over on his back to insist on a belly rub.

(me and Abhishek at Bhaktapur)

Kathmandu is a city of rooftops and terraces. And it is a city of ancient temples and palaces. The day after we arrived Trishna and Abhishek showed Calynn and I around town. We visited Darbur Square, a series of old palaces and temples in the main part of Kathmandu. I love old buildings and ruins so this was incredible for me. The most fascinating part was the mixture of ancient history and current daily life: teenagers lounged on the steps of the temples. Old men chatted and ate lunch. Women and children sat under umbrellas selling peanuts. One of the squares we visited called Bhaktapur was slightly outside of Kathmandu. Trishna's mom showed us around in the late afternoon and as the sun began to set the temples awoke with those visiting for prayer, another indication that the shrines are not simply old relics of the past but alive in the present. Seeing these spaces that have been gathering spots for 800 years still a part of every day, back and forth, life gave me a new perspective on how the artifacts a culture cherishes and remembers don't have to simply fade to appreciation. They can be remembered and treasured through simple enjoyment.

(pigeons at Darbur Square)

After a few days in Kathmandu Calynn and I headed off to Pokhara, a tourist town sitting beneath the Anapurna Himalayan mountain range. Before you ask, no friends I did not see Mt. Everest although I certainly feel as if I have. The first day of our trek we walked straight up for about three hours. Up and up and UP until we finally arrived at a tiny village called Dhampus. The village was nestled on the side of a mountain and in front of us were the Himalayas. I've put off writing this update mostly because I don't have words to describe the mountains we saw and how it feels to see them. It's a bit how I imagine standing on the edge of space must be or plummeting to the ocean floor in a submarine-- almost surreal and a little terrifying. I never knew the earth was so tall and having them just there, right there as you drink tea and eat breakfast, right there as a storm blows in full of cold thunder, right there at night underneath bright stars is breathtaking and otherworldly.

(Annapurna II (around 7937m/26,040ft)

(Annapurna II and Machapuchare or FishTail 6993m/22,943)

I have seen so many amazing things. Watching the sunrise over the Himalayas and hiking back down through the forest of Nepal. The monkey temple in Kathmandu, an ancient Buddhist stupa with a mile long stair case and giant stone carved Buddhas standing guard- the entire valley below. Adolescent Nepali boys spontaneously handing us red rhododendrons as we passed by on the trail. This trip to Nepal, like my travels through southern Africa, will remain at the top of my list for a very long time.

(monkey temple)

The morning we left to head back to Bangladesh I couldn't sleep. I climbed up to Trishna's rooftop to sit and watched the city wake up. The mountains around the valley were hazy-- barely visible-- a long way from the village of Dhampus. I wore a turtleneck and scarf in the chilly morning air. I could hear the bell from Trishna's grandmother's prayers and imagined the smear of the red tikka on her forehead. The car was being washed. The plants watered. People bathed. The world was content in itself. All I wanted to do was stay.

Notes on a Cricket Match

2011-03-13T00:00:00.006+06:00

Don't worry I'm not going to try to make you understand the rules of cricket (although they're pretty simple), a game which for most Americans is sort of like baseball only much sillier. You don't really need to know the rules for this story. All you need to know is that yesterday the Cricket World Cup arrived in Chittagong for the Bangladesh versus England match. Bangladesh was coming off one of the worst performances in World Cup history against the West Indies and faced elimination if they lost.

As we walked to the stadium we seemed to attract more attention than usual. What was remarkable (and later very unfortunate) was that despite the fact that we were all wearing Bangladesh jerseys, were covered in red, green, and tiger face paint, were carrying a large Bangladeshi flag, multiple people asked us who we were supporting or just concluded that we were supporting England. Our skin and their assumption screamed louder than any flare we carried. I'm still amazed by the power of expectations to erase what is really there.

The match started out well for Bangladesh, who are much better bowlers (pitchers) than they are batsman (hitters). We held England down to a 225 (not a very high score believe it or not) even though they towered over our players on the field making the Bangladeshis look like little boys with toy bats. Still, batting started out pretty good too and for awhile I thought we might eventually arrive at a solid, moving win. But I was wrong.

The heart of Bangladeshi team is the captain, a young kid named Shakib al Hasan. He's what cricket folk call an all-rounder meaning he can do pretty much everything. And he was, slowly chipping away at England (as my friend Calynn says, "Cricket is a war of attrition"), with his partner in crime Irmul Kayes. But then just as suddenly everything changed. Imrul got out and Shakib followed shortly after. The moment Shakib fell the energy seemed to be sucked out of the stadium. Two more wickets collapsed in quick succession and all I could do was hope Bangladesh's loss would be like the certain blade of the guillotine and not the prolonged torture of a slow bleed out.

Everything deteriorated. Half the crowd left. Some of the Bangladeshis sitting around us began chanting "England! England!" I was floored at how quickly some of the spectators turned. The irony was a group of Americans and a Nepali and were more loyal to a country we've lived in for seven months than many of its life-long citizens. Not everyone deserted the team. Some looked nervous and dejected but not yet ready to abandon their boys. We dwindled down to the last few batters, who were not batsman at all (pretend your'e pinning your last hopes for homeruns on two rookie pitchers).

All I can say is that the Bangladeshi come back was like a triple A team beating the New York Yankees at the bottom of the 9th with two outs in the final game of the World Series, or if you prefer basketball: sinking a three point shot at the buzzer in the NCAA Championship. The final two batsman resurected the disheartened crowd with a few miraculous hits and many more singles to follow. With the final remaining chances, Bangladesh at last pulled ahead and Chittagong erupted. The stands were electric, convulsing with a poetic rhythm. I never thought I'd dance in public in a country where men almost exclusively fill stadiums but as everyone around cheered and screamed and sang we all found ourselves without any other sense than that of the sweet joy of victory when defeat had seemed so certain.

(photo courtesy of BBC)

The other fans we'd spent the last 10 nailbiting hours with felt like family. Overjoyed groups of young men rushed to shake our hands, to thank us for our support, to assert that we were good luck charms. Basking in the triumph that felt every bit our own I was reminded of all the things I love about sports-- besides the winning: The game's ability to, even if only for a brief moment, make everyone forget about all the ways we are different and care only about the one factor in which we are united. For a few minutes last night, it did not matter that I was white or a woman or American or that I was not Muslim, married or wearing an orna. Everyone was the same.

But more than that-- I often find one of the most difficult aspects of life is truly living in the moment. I waste so much unintentional energy thinking about the past and worrying about the future. It's rare that I am inside a moment and and doing nothing more than just experiencing it. The few times I've been able to: during the madness of the campaign, the intensity of a high school crush, yesterday's cricket match are exhilarating and to be cherished. Sports often open this window into the immediate present difficult to find elsewhere.

The adventure did not end with the game. We still had to get out and find our way back to a very far away car. Upon exiting the stadium we saw before us a true mob of men who had not attended the game, surging forward, being beaten with sticks by the police. We ducked back into the stadium and as we saw the police begin to run, we ran too. Making it a safe distance into the stadium grounds I turned just in time to see an avalanche of shoes arch over the gates and shower down on us below. The crowd were launching its shoes at the cops, the ultimate insult (think George W Bush vs. Iraqi journalist). We had to end up leaving out the back with a police escort to the main road. Once we reached the main road we were on our own and suddenly my skin became a liability like it never had before. Boos echoed through the streets at the sight of us and we knew there was no convincing anyone that we were truer Bangladeshi fans than they were.

To make a long story short thanks to the help of an older man who spoke no English and a dear Bangladeshi friend with a car, we were scooped off the insane streets of the city and whisked away to Mahah's house where I promptly collapsed at 3 in the morning, still wearing my jersey.

The day was a day of being alive. The day was a great one.

Mother Language Day

2011-02-26T09:22:00.007+06:00

Last Monday, Bangladesh took the day off in honor of International Mother Language Day, a holiday that holds special meaning for Bangladeshis. I haven’t written very much about this but the people of this country are fiercely proud of their language (something I can understand thanks to the French in my blood I suppose). In 1952, when Bangladesh was still considered East Pakistan, Pakistan attempted to impose Urdu as the national language. This resulted in mass student protests where many students were killed. In Dhaka there is an enormous memorial dedicated to the memory of those who died to preserve Bangla. In Chittagong there is a memorial as well though it is much smaller.

(Lyny and Deepti, Cambodia/Nepal)

(Oanh, Giang, and Tien from Vietnam)

On the morning of the holiday we woke up early and gathered at AUW to march to the Chittagong memorial carrying a wreath of flowers and an overflowing amount of Bangladeshi pride. In a particularly moving show of unity, one of our students holding the wreath was actually from Pakistan. As we began the long walk, collecting stares along the way, I found myself smiling widely. Not only were we the bizarre sight of fifty grown women out on the streets together but our group also consisted of Nepalis, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Chinese, and Americans.

The crowd leading up to the language memorial was enormous and festive. Men sold Bangladesh flags, headbands, bracelets. Faces were painted. Bangla songs sung. Laughing, excited children were out in droves. I usually feel a little wary, at least in my own country, of such fervent displays of nationalism but these kinds of celebrations feel different in countries that are decades rather than centuries old. When Independence exists in living memory, commemoration is not just about the idea but what was experienced.

The next day at school there was a celebration of all of AUW’s languages. Students from each country performed poems or dances or songs in their own mother languages. I was not there but everyone who was, from teachers to students, spoke of the event with incredible emotion. Listening to their reactions, I could not help but think about how the old traditions and ways of those in a new world become acutely precious. Like when one of my Cambodian students said she never thought of herself as Buddhist until she arrived at AUW, until she was placed in sharp relief to the other Muslim, Hindu, and Christian students. Only then did she understand how she was different and who she was.

We work so hard to not have the individual countries band together, to encourage the students to search outside of what they know but there’s no way to fault the impulse to desire the familiar. Especially since we foreign teachers do exactly the same thing. My sense of Americanness and love of country is never more heightened than when I’m not in the U.S. The truth is I usually feel very little when I sing the Star Spangled Banner at baseball games but singing under the Southern sky in a tiny pinprick of a village in Rehoboth Namibia I had to fight back tears.

So much more to write about but I will spare you for now. Trip to Nepal coming up in March. An incredible number of exciting school projects going on. And of course the Cricket World Cup (yes, I understand cricket now). More stories soon...

* Many of these photos courtesy of Calynn Dowler

Lunar New Year and Saraswati Puja

2011-02-09T08:46:00.008+06:00

Chinese New Year Dumpling Feast...

(Professor Sangita chopping ginger!)

(making Chinese dumplings)

(more dumplings)

Saraswati Puja...

(Hindu priest with Saraswati statue behind him)

(Sri Lankan student, Ruwani)

(Hindu temple)

Bird-Watching

2011-02-05T09:48:00.003+06:00

On the mornings I wake up early enough, there's a large tree outside my window by which I can sit, drink tea, and yes, bird watch. Bird watching is not really a favorite past time of mine. But here, it’s such a rarity, that I find myself riveted whenever I see a bird that isn't a crow. In my tree their are those with bright green feathers and orange beaks that look as if they belong in the Amazon, smaller ones with jet black coloring offset by a streak of white or red, tiny brown puff balls with loud twittering voices, yellow ones, blue ones, an amazing menagerie. The crows are still there too-- darting in and out of the trees, picking on the smaller birds, and fighting amongst themselves. But for a few brief moments at the start of each day, they no longer seem to dominate the sky.

There are fourteen students in my new class (which focuses on reading comprehension and writing skills) and it’s a diverse group. Women from Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and of course Bangladesh. In the last couple of weeks we read Letter from Birmingham Jail and an excerpt from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Listening to the girls debate the merits of passive resistance and compare the Civil Rights Movement to struggles in their own countries gave me goosebumps. Next week we're starting To Kill a Mockingbird and I can barely contain my inner literature nerd. This class has rapidly become my favorite part of each week.

And then there's Maya*, a Nepali student I had in my TA class last term. She's bright and extraordinarily thoughtful. She reminds me a lot of my former Namibian student, Jeneth. Both seem to have an overdeveloped sense of empathy, an innate kindness and instead of being suspicious about the constant onslaught of things that are new and different, they are open and curious.

Every Thursday afternoon Maya and I meet to discuss a book we're reading. But more often than not the conversation devolves into stories from her old life in Nepal, how she's been altered by school, how difficult it is to go back, and how wonderful but overwhelming her changing sense of the world is. She asked me whether I had ever felt shaken by all this new and contradicting knowledge. She asked me how I had figured it all out. Initially I laughed, but as I began to reply I had to work very hard to hide my sadness. I had seen that look she had on her face, that need for someone "older and wiser" to tell her that the years ahead will be easier, that the answers are forthcoming with age, that the uncertainty she feels will dissipate with the passing decades. I'm pretty sure I looked at my teachers like that. I'm pretty sure I still do.

Education matters. Obviously I believe in its power and in the overall good that learning offers. But I've realized, at least here, it's just not that simple. Sometimes I marvel at what we've done, setting this course into motion for these girls. We tell them the world is theirs if they want it, if they study and try. The University broadens their lives, just like college did for most of us. The difference is none of us had to return home to the mountains of Afghanistan or a rural village in Bangladesh. None of us had to exist as a bright green bird amongst an army of crows. That takes a kind of sustained courage I'll never know.

In the evening the tree outside my window is empty so I watch the rooftop next door instead. Some nights I watch a young boy trying to wheel his bicycle around the small space, dodging bathers and those attending to the plants. He doesn’t really see the others. He’s in a wide green field. He’s racing along the banks of a river. He’s somewhere without containment because he can dream himself there.

Other nights I watch two little girls hang laundry. When they think no one is looking they toss a pebble into the air and hopscotch across imaginary squares. My window is cracked and I can hear their laughter, half uncertain of, half delighted in this secret joy.

*name changed

January Whirlwind

2011-01-29T09:28:00.010+06:00

I have hardly stopped moving since I returned to AUW from spending Christmas in the U.S. There was the usual bustle of a new semester and getting everything in line. We also had a weeklong conference with a very conference-esque name: Asian University for Women Symposium, Imagining Another Future for Asia: Ideas and Pathways for Change. The first part of the Symposium took place in Chittagong. 80 guests from around the world descended upon the University to visit classes, tour our new buildings, meet students. Students from a first year writing class read some of their original work for the guests, amazing us all with their words and poise.

Then it was Symposium Part II which involved putting 400 students and 75 faculty and staff on an 7 hour train to Dhaka. With so many of us, full train cars were devoted to AUW only and it felt a bit like we owned the place. As if we’d all clamored onto the Hogwarts Express heading for some magical destination. The girls sang songs and ate sweets. The energy was addictive. Even the faculty, extracted from their adult reserve, seemed more animated.

The Symposium was jam packed with panels and presentations. The first day the Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gave a speech which was followed later that night by dinner on the steps on the Bangladeshi Parliament Building. The Parlaiment Building was designed by Louis Khan shortly after Independence and is a sight to see.

Before dinner we were given a tour inside, which I understood from the AUW Bangladeshi staff to be a real honor and rarity. I’ve never been inside a building like that one. It looks grand (though somewhat imposing) on the outside and I had visions of the U.S. Capitol, plush and sleek, open and designed for onlookers. But I understood immediately just how rare visitors must be inside the massive halls which were stark and concrete, and felt as if we were moving in the bowels of a ship.

As we were leaving the building the guide took us up some steps to a concrete plateau that overlooked the lake (moat) that surrounds the building. The view was striking with the enormous circular Parliament in the distance and the bright orange moon in the sky.

The most exciting presentation at the Symposium was by Hans Rosling, a Swedish Public Health professor and TED talker extraordinaire, who brought the audience to its feet with his fascinating explanation of how and why countries have developed over the last hundred years. He’s one of the most engaging speakers I’ve seen in a long time.

The most touching presentation was by our own students, a group of Sri Lankan women who presented a project they worked on last summer to foster reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese in the wake of a decades long civil war. They traveled to Sri Lanka, working with youth and communities on both sides conducting research, organizing a cricket match and perhaps most movingly cleaning up a cemetery of the war's fallen together. What these students (both Tamil and Sinhala) were able to achieve, especially between themselves, reminded me that while the diversity we have at AUW is complicated and messy and the progress between groups stutters along at an unpredictable pace, exposure to those different that yourself is a powerful life-changing force.

By the time the Symposium was over all 400 of us were exhausted and dare I say ready to return to Chittagong. Dhaka did not let go of us easily however. We spent a good five hours in the train station, not able to leave until 3am. We were lucky enough to huddle inside our bus but the poor students were stuck out on the platform. Showers and beds were everyone’s priority the next morning when we finally arrived.

(Afghan students)

(Nepali students)

I’m teaching a class this semester (more on that soon) and am currently immersed in preparation and the excitement of sharing some of my favorite books with new eyes. Hope you’re all doing well.

You Know You've Been in Bangladesh Six Months IF...

2010-12-16T02:18:00.003+06:00

As the term comes to an end, I realize that I have both settled into my life here and am longing for a break at home. For the first time I am seeing the end of a college semester from a teacher's point of view and understand that it's just as time-consuming and stressful no matter what side of the fence you're on (my friends in grad school may still beg to differ). I'm running into my sixth month in-country and was thinking the other day how different Chittagong seems than when I first arrived. My ride from the airport was a chaotic jumbled mess, but now I can pick apart the pieces of this city and there is a growing familiarity with all the unknown that makes me feel a bit less foreign in my surroundings.

So in honor of the term's end and in tribute to a country that has welcomed me, I thought I'd write about the signs that let you know Bangladesh is no longer that strange country with a weird name but a kind of second home at a University that is quickly becoming the most incredible place I have ever worked.

Without further adieu, you know you've been in Bangladesh six months if...

You have ever feared for your life in a rickshaw.

I named my blog before I arrived in Bangladesh but as luck would have it I could not have chosen a more appropriate name. Rickshaws are everywhere. I was nervous of taking rickshaws at first and also uncomfortable with the idea of a tiny man made of bones and little else pedaling me a distance I could otherwise walk. But I've grown more accustomed to the rides now and even enjoy sitting inside a brightly colored flimsy basket, wind whooshing through my hair, the slight nagging feeling that I'm about to be run over by a giant bus. But there's a closeness to your surroundings and the road feels more real in a rickshaw than a van or a CNG.

(scariest rickshaw ride ever, as you can tell from my face)

The rickshaw drivers, known here as rickshawallas, generally do not own their rickshaws but instead rent them for a daily fee. The cost of a rickshaw ride is unbearably low though it does vary based on distance. Most of what they make during the day goes toward the rental fee with little left to support themselves or their families. In the States college kids pull tourists around in rickshaws with the air of the ridiculous. Here the men carrying other men often seem hollow and sad, all of their energy poured into getting strangers from one place to another while they go nowhere.

You have gained ten pounds from eating too much mishti (and curry, naan, pratha, rice, ghee...)

While my stomach situation has been less than ideal these past months, I have eaten some incredible food here. I could dedicate a book to the bread alone. But it is impossible to talk about Bangladeshis and not mention their sweet tooth. They use sweetened condensed milk in their tea. Sweet shops are everywhere with rows and rows of syrupy, sugary treats (known as mishti). The last few weeks we've been too busy but for awhile, we had a ritual every Thursday night (your Friday) to stop into one of our favorite shops, Fukoli, and each buy a box. An exciting weekend night included us huddling over our flour, butter, and confection with a pirated bollywood movie and thai diet coke. You are now aware of the extent of my social life. Despite it's limitations, I looked forward to laughter and sugar every week.

You have had to get up at 5am to go to work because of a hartal.

So it seems the Bangladeshis like strikes just as much as the French. We've had two this year so far-- political strikes called hartals, announced for various partisan reasons too silly to bore you with, by one of the major parties in the country. Everything is shut down. Businesses don't open and schools are closed from 6am-6pm. Supporters roam the streets to ensure everyone is complying. The first time, AUW was called off. The second time, determined not be interrupted by the nonsense again, the University bussed us in at 5:30, all of staring at each other blurried eyed in the early morning van, not quite sure this was actually happening.

You have a pet goat named Mutton Chop.

Down the street from our apartment building is a small set of corner shops where you can get pretty much anything under the sun (including a Thanksgiving turkey but that's another story). Our favorite of these shops is called Ms. Moonshine. It's tiny but is literally covered floor to ceiling with stuff: peanut butter, dish washing soap, brooms, mops, diet coke, bread, butter, chocolate digestives, corn flakes. The people who work there are really nice, have never tried to overcharge us, and the shop is often better stocked than the grocery store nearby. Next to Moonshine is a small hole in the wall restaurant that looks like a shack. Passing by the open windows there's always a man rolling out dough and popping naan into the oven. There's also a goat that is often tied outside the restaurant nibbling a stem of green leaves or the bits of grass. After passing this goat for several weeks and making a fuss over it the restuarant owners began to point her out to us encouragingly each time we walked by. Once the owner, a jolly man with a round belly, pointed her and said "mutton" with a grin on his face to which we all groaned noooo.

None of us wanted to get too attached to dear sweet Mutton Chop because Eid was fast approaching and we figured she was a goner for sure. So we said our goodbyes to her before heading up to Dhaka figuring it was the last time we'd see her. However when we returned to our utter joy as well as confusion we found she was still alive. Calynn pointed to Mutton Chop and said simply "Eid?" The owner laughed and made a motion over his stomach indicating that our goat was soon to be a mother. It's forbidden to kill any pregnant animal at Eid. And so Mutton Chop lives! And we have babies on the way.

You are a little in love with all of your students.

Just a few hours ago, I came home from the kick-off of our big sister mentorship program (undergraduates paired with Access Acaemy) and dance party. It was similar to the welcome party I wrote about at the beginning of the year, but seeing how much the girls had grown in confidence and English ability left me speechless. The Afghan girls, who are generally never seen without head scarves, danced merrily along with the others. Their hair coverings occasionally slipped down around shoulders revealing youthful pony tails and braids beneath. I chatted with many of the students I have been lucky to know the past five months, wondering how much progress they will have made by the end of the year. For a brief moment I felt a tug of sadness inside to be leaving, even for just three weeks.

Heading home for Christmas tomorrow. So looking forward to being home with my family and in a country with redlights. See you all soon.

Dhaka Pictures

2010-11-26T12:14:00.011+06:00

(power lines)

(Language Memorial)

(Bangladesh Supreme Court Building)

(Dhaka University)

Dhaka

2010-11-26T11:38:00.002+06:00

Last week we had a five-day break for Eid al-Adha, the second Eid, which commemorates the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Ishmael (not Isaac as in Christianity). I went to Dhaka for the first time since my arrival at the airport five months ago. Before arriving we had to survive an absolutely terrifying seven-hour night bus trip on the Dhaka-Chittagong “Highway of Death.” I can safely say I didn’t sleep a wink on this swerving nightmare of a ride. It seemed like we were on an enormous rocking boat going an hundred miles an hour, making our way on a tiny fog ridden road, crushing everything in our way. But we made it and from now on I’ll be taking the train.

Dhaka was empty. A mass exodus to villages had hollowed out the City. All across Bangladesh people returned to the rural areas where they’d been born and where cows and goats awaited a very bloody fate. The ritual that belongs to Eid al-Adha is that of Qurbani, or the slaughtering of an animal as a sacrifice to God. In the days leading up to the festival you see cows decorated with necklaces of flowers or bright cloth encircling their horns—a fleeting moment of beauty and respect just before death. They lumber along, seemingly calm and unaware of what lies ahead.

It will sound strange to anyone who hasn’t been living in Chittagong since this summer when I say that Dhaka reminded me of home. Obviously it’s not like home at all. But there were many many more foreigners, women riding bicycles, cafes, red lights (though we were informed by a Bengali that they’re “optional”), parks, fewer stares, couples holding hands in gardens, and the general feel of a capital city—more cosmopolitan, progressive, and ahead of the rest of the country. While new visitors to Dhaka might see pushy rickshaw drivers, men praying in the streets, I seemed to only be able to concentrate on the familiar.

We visited the American Club, which was even more bizarre. It was like being dropped into an alternate reality. Blonde boys and girls played on a swing set next to a tennis court. Women in bathing suits read magazines by a giant in ground swimming pool. There was bacon and Starbucks and fifteen different types of beer in this strange, cocooned world. I realized it would be entirely possible to be in Bangladesh and never really know it if you existed within the walls of the American Club. But I also couldn’t be as dismissive and snide about its comforts and self-imposed segregation from the “natives” as I might have been if I was hearing about it from the U.S. When you miss home for a long enough and are gawked at any time you step outside your door, the respite that comes with pizza, sameness, and reminders of your old life is both wonderful and necessary.

There was still plenty of Bangladesh in our trip to Dhaka to keep us from completely forgetting where we were. The morning all the animals were slaughtered we were inside but leaving the house later we could not escape the aftermath. It was a vegetarian’s nightmare (and I was traveling with two of them). Bodies, and when I say bodies I mean entire bodies, of goats and cows lay sprawled out in front of houses. We were staying in the wealthier part of Dhaka called Gulshan so it seemed every house on our street could afford a cow. I saw stomachs, rib cages, bowels, legs, piles of hooves and hides. Men pounded on bones and slabs of meat with enormous knives. Blood streaked down the long white Punjabis men wore. Women squatted in saris, cleaning out the intestines. The smell of the blood and meat was thick and distinct but did not seem to deter men and women from sipping tea right next to those who were chopping at flesh. We were told it would take 4-5 hours with everyone working to completely take apart the cow and have suitable meat for cooking.

On the banks across the houses sat groups of thin, ragged men, women, and children holding bags in their hands, waiting. Eid al-Adha is not just about sacrificing an animal to God. What happens after the sacrifice matters too. A third of the meat is kept by the owner of the cow. A third is given to friends and family. And a third is handed out to poor waiting strangers who have never and will never own a cow. The open-handed generosity brought out images both oddly beautiful (men and women practically skipped with overflowing bags of meat on their heads and in their hands) and uncomfortable (lines of people arguing with one another about who would get what). But mostly the holiday left me with a sense of unsparing balance. The animals that died at the hands of those who would eat them gave life and precious meals to the people I often see digging for scraps in the mounds of trash outside of my well-furnished apartment. I think few of us imagine that there’s dignity in a hamburger but watch men live off garbage and food becomes a currency with multiple values.

And speaking of feasts, whether you axed your own turkey or not, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Shockingly, Chittagong’s fanciest hotel had a Thanksgiving buffet last night and we ate our fill. It wasn’t as good as my grandmother's, but they even had cornbread.

Malumgaht and Halloween

2010-10-30T21:18:00.010+06:00

(Malumgaht Village)

(me as a Hare Krishna for Halloween)

(Two Rickshaw Drivers and the Hindu Goddess of Knowledge Saraswati)

Rules of the Game

2010-10-29T16:41:00.001+06:00

As I hone in on busy month number four in Bangladesh, I thought I'd write about a few rules I've come to live by in my attempts to adapt to a new lifestyle and culture:

Rule Number 1: The crows are King.

I'm not sure there's anyone or anything in Bangladesh with more chutzpah than the thousands of crows that swarm the garbage piles of Chittagong. They are large and sharp-beaked with a collar of feathers around their necks, making them look like members of some ancient, evil royal family. They aren't scared of people or dogs and snap at each other with eager ferocity. I was walking to our favorite bakery one afternoon when a large chunk of raw meat landed on the ground inches away from me. I stared, flabbergasted, wondering where it had come from and if more was on it's way when suddenly the giant black bird swooped down, tossed the flesh in the air once and caught the meat in its mouth. Don't mess with the crows.

Rule Number 2: Electricity is precious.

Power is a constant problem here. I'm pretty used to it by now-- every four or five hours the electricity switches off. The outage time varies, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a stretch of a several hours. The reasons behind this issue are a little complicated but basically there isn't enough electricity to go around. And the system for transmitting the electricity is not designed to support the demand of a country that has a population of 150 million. And so this is the system we have-- the government which controls a large share of this sector cuts off power at various intervals throughout the day.

I'm really lucky. My housing and the University are so nice that we have back-up generators. That means a few minutes after the power cuts off we get it back. Air conditioners don't work and certain outlets aren't connected but for the most part the building hums along like nothing has changed. Most houses do not have generators so that when the power is out all you can do is swish your hand held fan and wait for it to come back.

At night, the streets are transformed into a world of flickering orange light. Each stall has a tiny lantern and one right after the other the rows give the appearance of a constant candle light vigil. Rickshaw drivers gather around a single flame to repair a broken bicycle wheel. Men play cards in tight circles, squinting to see how good their hand is.

Rule Number 3: Ask for help and people will.

One of the volunteers broke her ankle this past week and had to have surgery. You can imagine that this led to much anxiety and frantic searching for a good doctor. High on my lists of things I hope I never do is have an operation in Bangladesh. But through some faculty recommendations and help from many people we ended up at a Christian missionary hospital called Mulamgraht three hours south of Chittagong. The American and local staff were extremely kind. A nurse from Canada who has lived on the mission for 22 years since the death of her husband was very attentive, explaining everything as we went along, speaking in Bangla to most of the staff in her flat northern accent. The mission also had a school-- little Hindu girls in blue chased after me along their fenced in playground, their hands coming together as if in prayer, with slightly bowed heads as they greeted me with a giddy Nomoshkar.

Rule Number 4: There's no road so narrow that a rickshaw, CNG, car, and a giant bus won't fit.

On my several harrowing trips to and from the hospital this week, I oscillated between genuine fear and outrage at the close calls, near head-on collisions, and utter disregard for my idea of driving courtesy to complete awe of the ability of these drivers to go anywhere at all on roads much to small for so many passengers.

Granted it took us 3 hours to travel roughly 50 miles but the slow pace also allowed for some beautiful views of the tiny villages that cropped up in intervals along the way. One especially spectacular late afternoon an evening rain came in, brushing the twilit market with moisture. As we crawled along I watched black umbrellas blossom like upside down lotus flowers while men bargained for fruits, vegetables, and paan. One vendor sat straight-backed, his arms and legs crossed on a carpet of bright yellow bananas. In the half gray, half golden light, seated amongst his bounty, umbrella overhead, he didn't look like a poor farmer. He looked like a king.

Rule Number 5: Exercise is good for you.

A few of us have started waking up around 6am to run through the quiet neighborhoods near my apartment en route to a place called the Forest Research Institute. Inside the park it's quiet, green, and there are no cars. There are, however, an astonishing amount of people exercising. Old men with bright orange beards, dyed with henna. Younger men jogging in tight shirts and pants that are too short and barely reach their ankles. Women chattering together in abayat and hijabs, covered down to their toes, only their identical exercise shoes peaking out from underneath.

These morning runs have been a lesson in how tolerant Bangladesh truly is. Calynn was the one who pointed out what an amazing country we live in where it's acceptable for us to run in our t-shirts and sweats in the same park with women with varying degrees of covering. Sure there are stares but that's the case wherever we go. People are often bewildered by our presence but never angry. Of course I haven't forgotten that the rules governing me as a foreign woman are very different than those reining over the local women. I have the liberty to be free and strange and independent with few consequences.

Rule Number 6: Make friends.

And this I have. Every day I am thankful for the company of the people I have met here. Tonight is our Halloween celebration. Trick-or-treaters will be knocking on our door, eager for candy. And I'll be wearing a costume. Be on the look out for the pictures.

What happens when it rains...

2010-10-10T13:36:00.003+06:00

(Photos courtesy of Jessi Hinz, WorldTeach Volunteer)

The Evening Commute

2010-10-07T02:03:00.003+06:00

Happy October, everyone. Here it is still 90 degrees with 150% humidity, so I'm guessing that means I don't get a Fall. Sorry for my brief hiatus. School has been in full swing and I've been sick twice-- nothing too serious but definitely unpleasant. I've been able to work more directly with students this past month and that has been like a breath of fresh air. By and large they are earnest and hardworking, and curious about the world around them. It's clear that they are trying to figure out exactly who they are out from under the shadow of elders but mindful of their families' expectations. Still-- these women aren't a homogenous group. Some work harder than others. Some write better than others. Some have incredibly tragic pasts. Some are funny. Some are demanding and inconsiderate.

After most (long) days at AUW, I enter the Circus of Crazy otherwise known as the hours between 7-9pm on the streets of Chittagong. We don't live far from school but their are nights when the walk home feels twenty years long, mostly because so much is happening in between here and there. It's dark. Bodies are everywhere, crawling along the narrow avenues we pretend are sidewalks. The streets are choked with cars, trucks, CNGs, rickshaws, and pedestrians weaving in and out each other, like ants making paths in their encased plastic farm. The smell of sweat and dirt and heat mix with the abundance of street food, popcorn, chicken rolls, curries, fried anything. Men wrap paan by candlelight for passersby. Tiny generators vibrate outside the bright one-room stalls that sit one right after another and act as anything from restaurants and tea shops to pharmacies and fruit markets.

People shout. Men stroll holding hands, enjoying each others company. The women out and about are few and easy to spot and the later it gets, the more scarce they become. Sometimes I feel a bit like an endangered species, always amazed when they find one of their own kind. There are beggars galore. Children who pull at your arms, old men with deformed arms and legs, women with matted hair and soiled clothes, the blind of all ages, wearing white and chanting softly in Bangla.

Crossing the street becomes an adventure all of its own. We all have different methods. Julia is the calmest of us all, certain the cars and CNGs will stop, no matter how fast they barrel in our direction. Calynn's feet start in a walk but quickly fall into a scurry reminiscent of a chipmunk just before it is squashed. Trishna and I are somewhere in between, often waiting for a local to cross and tagging along behind him. But we're either doing something right or are just plain lucky. Their haven't been too many close calls.

I always feel a sense of relief when I finally get back to the apartment. The quiet of my solitary room is an incredible contrast to the journey home. But there's something in the heat and immediacy of the city that cannot be shut out by the gates we foreigners surround ourselves with. The smell, the memory of the old woman lying on the ground covered in flies, the brush of CNG metal as it whirs by my shoulder. There's a kinship in this chaos, in this exposed, unvarnished exchange of life. I barter with my students, trading nouns, verbs, and adjectives, simply hoping that knowledge will be currency enough to buy change. The rickshaw driver barters with his customer so that he can eat at the end of the day. The call to prayer barters with souls, giving us five reminders a day of faith's discipline and demands. We are all vendors, selling our street food, whether the goods we are peddling are religion, the English language, addictive betel leaves or even just our point of view.

I just wish I could find a stall that carried the colors of leaves changing and roasted coffee beans. Maybe next week.

Eid Mubarak

2010-09-14T00:33:00.022+06:00

Off to the village for Eid Break. I went with an AUW student named Charmin, who's father Gies is also the University cook, to spend the biggest Islamic holiday Eid, in the "real Bangladesh" as the locals like to remind us city dwellers. Eid ul-Fitr celebrates the end of Ramadan and is a time to dress up and eat and visit with friends and family. We traveled by about 3 hours by bus, on a somewhat terrifying trip where I longed for both a seat belt and Dramamine. Little towns dotted the landscape in between stretches of nothing but rice paddies and lots (and lots) of water. For the first time I understood Bangladesh's existence as a sinking country.

We finally arrived at Charmin's house where we were greeted by her mother who hugged us tightly as if we were relatives returning from a long journey. Charmin's house was a small cement home with three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a tin roof. Besides her mother and father, her younger sister Tonne (15) and younger brothers Robin (19) and Salman (8) were there. The siblings were quiet at first, staring at us with wide, curious eyes and shy smiles.

Almost immediately we were given food. Juice and homemade coconut pastries and sugared dumplings and rice and vegetables and fried lentil cakes and curried meat and fruit and tea. I must have had 18 meals in the two and half days I spent in the village, all made by fasting hands. Every few hours some new concoction would appear followed by the insistence on eating and eating a lot. It is the first home I've been in where there was no extra person to help cook and clean. Everything was done by Charmin, her mother, her father, and her siblings.

We were all a bit timid at first but curiosity soon won out over reticence. Salman was a big cheeked, bright, thoroughly happy child. The closeness he and Gies shared was palpable; the little boy followed his father everywhere, hugged him constantly, and the two were often teased by others in the family about their obvious affection for each other. Robin's English was broken and hard to follow but he seemed to understand everything that was going on. Tonne was the shiest of them all but she followed her big sister around, watching our interactions closely, never far behind the others.

Charmin showed us her family's pond where we fed the fish they were raising. Even in a modest yard there were so many plants growing-- red, green, and black chilies (black are the hottest), mangoes, coconuts, bananas, and limes. The coconuts towered high above us, topping trees without branches. I asked Charmin how they were able to get them down. She told me there were boys in the village who could climb the trees in thirty seconds to retrieve the fruit. I laughed and told her that couldn't be true. An hour later, one of these village boys appeared and proved us both wrong. He scaled the tree in five seconds, not thirty.

We made quite the spectacle, foreign and strange in a village where few foreigners ever visit. Kids and adults alike would stop by to peak in and see if the rumors were true, Americans running amok in the Bangla wilderness. The same questions came from everyone. First, "are you married?" followed by what country we were from, who our families were, what did we think of Bangladesh, and then, sometimes, what job we were doing.

Eid fell of the 11th-- that morning Charmin's family was up early-- by 6am already cooking. The men went to the nearby village mosque to pray after eating. The women prayed at home. The village was a bustling place for Eid-- with people dressed in bright colored saris, hands decorated with henna, bundles of food in their arms visiting houses to show and share with others their good fortune. I realized as I watched the excited shuffle from home to home, that no matter where you are or what your station in life, people find a way to express the vibrancy of being alive. In Namibia it was the grand dresses of the Herero women and the ceaseless singing and dancing. Here it's the spiciness of food and the radiant cloth that people decorate themselves with.

Tonne had a few of her friends drop by. One of the fourteen year old girls had just been married, Charmin whispered to me. I tried not to stare and quickly forced the pity out of my face at the site of a child who'd never met the man she was to marry, and who in three years would be delivered to him and to an entirely new life she did not choose. Charmin, a married woman herself, noticed the pity anyway. And she confessed to me that while she loved her husband (her marriage was not arranged though her parents' was), she missed the freedom of her youth when as a young girl she could run around the village, go swimming, and do scandalous things like ride bikes and brush off the expectations and customs of her elders. And I understood that while it's not universally true, most 10 year old girls in Bangladesh have more outward liberty than their mothers.

We briefly visited another, even more remote village (of Charmin's husband's family) and there almost no men were at home, only the women. As a group gathered at our exhibition, I watched the older women the closest. There were beautiful wrapped in cotton saris, marriage bracelets encircling bone thin arms, wrinkles earned and lovely carved into their faces. I could not take my eyes off of them and how they sat closely together, whispering and chewing tobbaco wrapped in betel leaves. I could feel the years of shared experience between them, the bonds formed by their similar hardships and by the partition between their world and the world outside.

My favorite moment of my visit was the night the power went out. And with no back-up generator the cement home became a furnace in a matter of moments. We were all sitting in one of the bedrooms. Charmin's family, utterly concerned that the Americans might melt, brought out hand fans and there by kerosene lamp we all sat waving these fans, trying unsuccessfully not to sweat. The family teased each other in the darkness. I witnessed tenderness between husband and wife, father and daughter, brother and sister. And we were invited into that tenderness as the kids laughed and poked fun at our pale, swollen feet. We laughed too.

Najma

2010-08-31T23:16:00.003+06:00

School began this week. It was exciting to watch the University emerge from its quiet, ghost like existence into a place filled with wide eyed and nervous students moving in bunches from class to class. AUW is such a new school that right now their are only two classes in place-- a first year and second year. Then there's the Access Academy, a one year prep program for students who come mostly from poor backgrounds and are not yet ready for University level work. The idea is to spend one year in the Academy before moving into the Undergraduate level. The Access Academy is where most of the WorldTeach volunteers teach.

On Friday night I went with my housemate Lihuan (who is the director of student development), the Provost, and the executive director of WorldTeach to a welcome party the second year students were throwing for the new Access Academy students. The dance was on the rooftop of the school. The girls had decorated it with homespun streamers and slightly deflated balloons. There was 7-Up and dry chocolate cake. For a moment I thought I had walked into my 8th grade dance. Everyone lined the walls in chairs, hardly speaking to each other, certainly not dancing.

But as the evening wore on, the atmosphere on the roof changed. Girls rushed up to us trying to pull us out to the dance floor, wanting to snap pictures of our faces with cameras and cellphones. They clustered together by countries-- groups of giggling girls from Vietnam, girls from Nepal with quick English and lovely smiles, girls from India dressed stylishly and leading the charge on the dance floor, and the solemn girls from Afghanistan with pale faces and high cheekbones who rarely left their seats.

I talked to many of the Afghan girls, all of whom offered quiet thoughtful replies to my questions. I was especially taken with one in particular named Najma Qurbani. She had a hard time understanding my English so I talked slowly, well trained from my year in Namibia. She spoke of homesickness, a language I am fluent in, dwelling on brothers, sisters, her parents and her country. But her tiny, bright eyes expressed what her vocabulary could not: that while being away hurts, this chance to learn, to get better, to become her own source of hope matters more.

There are so many things about this job that are incredible. But one of the most amazing parts is the diversity of the campus. Bangladesh is just as foreign to a student from China or Iran as it is to me. Hindus from India sit next to Muslims from Pakistan. Tamils from Sri Lanka eat in the same dining hall as the Sinhalese. No one is singing kumbaya and there can be tensions but for the most part the girls seem to coexist and worry more about their grades than old histories and current politics.

So many cultures and backgrounds in one place makes the world smaller and more accessible. Here we are all bundled together, forced to know and recognize each other. But if the world is shrinking, there's also a sense, almost every day, of glimpsing a new way, or image, or idea, a view just beyond what you wake up knowing in the morning. Friday, before the dance, I looked at Afghanistan and all I could see was a war. Now I can see Najma.

Bhatiary Village Pictures

2010-08-29T18:24:00.008+06:00

(kids at the village park)

Iftar

2010-08-23T00:15:00.018+06:00

On August 12th, Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, began. Like most Americans I have always vaguely thought of Ramadan as that really long holiday Muslims celebrate by not eating. And that part is sort of true. People wake up at 3am to eat and pray before the sun rises and then not a drop of water or food is supposed to be consumed until sunset at 6:30pm when a siren can be heard across the city signaling time has come to break the fast. That fast-breaking meal is called Iftar.

Experiencing Ramadan in a country where most people are observing it in some way is entirely different than knowing one kid in high school who skips lunch for a month at the beginning of every year. The holiday affects everything around you. Most restaurants are closed. No eating is allowed in the streets (except by the few who duck into tiny stalls enveloped by black curtains. I try not to laugh as I pass by and see men's feet sticking out from underneath as they sip tea in these "Ramadan-free zones"). People are tired and cranky and eye your water bottle with considerable envy. One of the faculty members, Ibrahim, told me that the month is meant to make Muslims think of others who have less than themselves but that often many people just gorge the whole evening and end up eating more than usual. Thanksgiving immediately popped into my head.

Some volunteers and I were in the grocery store around 6:30 one evening and as we perused shelves all the employees gathered in groups on the floor. They sat on cardboard boxes, men with men, women with women, around plates of traditional Iftar food-- mostly fried and sweet goodies and of course dates, the fruit you are supposed to eat first when breaking the fast.

The situation was initially extraordinarily awkward as the prayer was broadcast throughout the store. Calynn, Julia, Trishna and I were the only customers there, hovering in the cereal aisle not sure what to do. I felt like an intruder on some sacred ritual I knew nothing about. But then one of the men insisted we have some of the meal and offered up dates and crackers and sweets and we understood-- Iftar food is for sharing. No one breaks the fast alone.

After my impromptu celebration in Agora, I was talking to my friend Rifat, a staff member at AUW, about it and she invited me to Iftar at her family's house. I was both touched and excited. Even after almost two months in Bangladesh, much of my time has been confined to the University and work. I looked forward to Saturday all week. We rode in a rickshaw to her fairly large and lovely apartment where I met her mother, father, husband, son, sister, and her niece and nephew.

The feast was already on the table when I arrived. Rifat's mother, a shy round faced woman had prepared it all. Rice pudding with bananas, fried vegetables, chickpeas in curry, papaya with raisins, sugar, and milk, coconut squares, lentils, lassi, dates, cucumber and carrot salad. Everyone welcomed me and we gathered around the table, drawn by the fantastic smells of the food.

All the women including me covered our heads with our ornas (the scarf most Bengali women wear around their shoulders and chest). The men wore beautifully embroidered white shirts and caps that beamed from their warm brown skin. Upstairs I could hear the cartoons that Rifat's son Shyan and his cousins were watching, an amusing aside coupled next to a tradition over 1500 years old.

As the call came over the radio, a brief prayer was muttered and then we dug in. Everyone ate quickly and with purpose—there was little talking. Rifat heaped food onto my plate and made sure I tried every single dish. Each one was delicious.

After eating, each person left to pray and then one by one returned to the table. It was then I got to know her family a little better. Her father was soft-spoken and gentle, conversing in the English of an educated man. Her husband Rony, a law professor who works in Dhaka, was both handsome and kind. Her sister, a doctor, did not share the natural gentleness of Rifat or her father—but her sharp directness often betrayed someone who laughed often and easily.

(Rifat and Shyan)

(cousins)

(Rifat and her husband Rony)

(Rifat's sister and mother)

As I continued to help myself to dates, and watched the undiminished joy on the faces of those around me I grasped that you don't have to be Muslim to appreciate the beauty of ritual and tradition, to admire the discipline bound with the celebration of release and achievement. Just like you don't have to belong to a family in order to recognize kinship.

Later Rifat and I sat underneath the laundry line on her rooftop, a sanctuary of space I know she cherishes. We could see all of Chittagong as the sun dipped and the last call to prayer echoed from different mosques across the city. We watched Shyan run around the same small square of roof his mother played on as a child. She pointed to an enormous tree eclipsing the tall buildings nearby saying she remembered this tree from the time she was ten. It struck me then how different our lives are. She's a married Bengali woman with a little boy in kindergarten living by the constancy of landmarks that have always been and will always be there. I am in my mid-twenties, on my own, and my scenery seems to never stop changing. Yet in her company I often feel like I am talking to a very old friend.

Some of the best days I can remember involve moments just like that. Moments where I find a piece of the familiar cocooned in the foreign unknown. Eating Herero bread baked in the ground with Tjizakuje’s incandescent smile. The sunrise May Day celebration in Oxford, voices piercing the barely lit sky, Spring suddenly there. And Iftar at Rifat’s.

Volunteers, Me, and Omar Shareef

2010-08-12T22:11:00.002+06:00

The Missionary and the Atheist

2010-08-12T20:15:00.000+06:00

I first saw our Bangla teacher, Dr. Lynn Silvernale, in a small, dimly lit and very crowded bookshop. She was seated in a chair while the rest of us gathered cross-legged on the floor like kindergartners eager for story time. Her hair was the bright pearly white that my grandmother's once was. She seemed both regal and diminutive in her simple wooden throne. I had been in Chittagong only a week or so and had tagged along with some of the faculty to see her speak.

Lynn came to Chittagong in 1961, before Bangladesh was even a country. She traveled on a freighter carrying train engines with only one other passenger for 51 days from New York through the Suez Canal stopping in India along the way to the port city I now live in. She had a clear and very deeply felt mission-- to go into the wilderness of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and convert Muslims and Buddhists to Christianity. And that's what she's done for the last fifty years, this tiny woman, all angles and bones, wrapped in a modest sari. She's also become fluent in Bangla and translated the Bible into the Bangla, a project that took over twenty years to complete and had never been done before.

I listened to her speak that evening and often found myself uncomfortable or in disagreement with her conclusions, but I also could not shake a very sturdy awe building inside me. How brave was this woman to step onto a ship on one side of the world, leave everyone and everything she has ever known, and emerge into the jungle without a cell phone or internet or real roads or understanding a word of Bangla. That kind of devotion, that raw commitment to a cause, not to mention her sheer nerve are qualities to be cherished. And it reminded me that even those you think are dead wrong can still have so much to teach.

After she spoke she opened the floor up to questions. The reverence with which the Muslim men treated Lynn was incredible to watch. While thinking nothing of cutting each other off, dismissing someone else's point of view, whenever they spoke to this 70 year old woman who'd spent her life in their country and with whom they shared a common piety their tones held the same respect and awe I felt in my silence. That she had devoted her life to Bangladesh and God seemed to eclipse all other details.

Ramadan started today. All around me people are waking up at 4:00am to eat before the sun rises and cannot so much as drink a drop of water until it sets again. I don't know how the rickshaw drivers can manage. As I walked home this evening, restaurants were setting out food by the side of the road for folks to break the fast. Many at the University are observing the holiday as well, including my friend Samiya.

Samiya is a young, soft spoken, lovely woman. A glance at her smooth face and its demure features would betray someone no older than twenty-five but her feet tell a different story. I remember glancing down at them one afternoon and in seeing their weathered, hard, calloused skin I for the first time considered she was not a girl. Samiya and I have adopted each other somehow over the last month. I think we share a similar loneliness. I'm new and far away from home. She's from Bangladesh but she's a rarity here: despite the fact that she will fast for the entire month of Ramadan she confessed to me in hushed tones not long ago that she does not believe a word of the Quran. She does not believe in God at all.

What is most fascinating and also sad about Samiya is not her specific beliefs or non-beliefs. It's her attachment to secrecy. She told me with real fear in her voice that I couldn't tell anyone what she had confided (and I actually changed her name and a few details in this post since this is going on the internet though it's doubtful anyone from AUW will read this). Her parents and in-laws are not aware of her lack of faith. And she seems so isolated within her own culture. Her difficulty in making real friends in a country that is so outwardly pious and that does not accept the notion of doubt is a predicament I completely understand. I remember growing up in my small Georgia town, that rigidity of belief, that inability to question or wonder or even consider another way without condemnation is something I felt almost every day at Gainesville High School.

The volunteers have arrived and they are wonderful. I've been running around like crazy this past week with the busyness of campaign work. But at night, as I'm crawling into bed for much needed sleep, I have a few quiet minutes to reflect on the uniqueness of an experience that offers me the chance to meet both Samiya and Dr. Silvernale in the same month, in the same country, in the same spirit of kinship.

Who will I meet next?

Hierarchy

2010-08-02T11:03:00.011+06:00

There's a tiny room in my house shaped like a rectangle-- maybe 10ft by 3ft. Adjoining it there is an even smaller room which has a hole with a pipe connected to it. I assumed this was a strange kind of storage space until my friend Devlynn told me they were my servant's quarters. The servant would sleep in the one room and use the bathroom in the hole in the other room. Never mind that I have three perfectly good toilets in my apartment.

It's been a frantic few weeks trying to prepare Orientation training, making sure the volunteers have good living arrangements, figuring out who will be teaching what, and about five million other things that seem to come up a day. And even with the craziness of my job right now, I have had time to experience the city and its people a little more, both the good and the bad.

Last weekend a woman working as part of the AUW administration named Rena invited Devlynn and I to her house for lunch. She's married to a very wealthy business man from the Punjab province in India-- bordering Pakistan. I was not too surprised when her driver picked us up and whisked us off to a large house in a gated community. I was slightly more taken back when she introduced us to her four live-in servants and a very old, very bony woman who was the Nanny of her two sons (the sons spoke impeccable English) Salman and Zen. I was shocked when as we sat for a delicious, beautiful meal with a water pitcher on the table and instead of refilling our own classes, someone was called from across the house to come in and fill them up instead.

That day at Rena's I saw in concentrated form what I've been witnessing in bits and pieces since arriving. The first is that there is a large swath of the population that has almost nothing. These are the begging boys outside the grocery store who saw fit to hit me when I refused to give them money. These are the women who fish garbage out of the ditch in front of my house. These are the rickshaw drivers who have to pay such an enormous amount to rent their rickshaw that they can barely break even despite driving people around 12-14 hours a day. But then there's this tiny segment of society that seems to have EVERYTHING. The man who owns the apartment building I live in uses the total amount from the rent he collects as a spending allowance for one of his sisters. It's her "fun" money. A girl I work with stared at me with confusion and pity when I told her I cooked for myself here and at home in America. And one of the apartment buildings where we house teachers has a separate staircase for workers and cleaners because they are not allowed in the elevator and they are not allowed on the stairs that foreigners walk on.

I know this is not uncommon-- anywhere you go- you usually always have the super rich and the very poor but here that contrast is so vivid. And the lines between those who barely own shoes and those who don't need to because they are carried everywhere they go are fixed and unapologetically reinforced. Class is not to be wiped away or hushed up or acted as if it doesn't exist. Class is to be celebrated. A factory owner or brick layer or sweeper of streets isn't just what you do. It's who you are always going to be.

Around town.

2010-07-23T18:00:00.006+06:00

(one of the famous rickshaws)

(gas station)

(Bangladesh phone booth)

(View from Panchlaish rooftop)

Graduation Pictures

2010-07-18T11:53:00.007+06:00

(getting ready for graduation)

(working on the roof)

(mowing the lawn)

(Students waiting)

(AUW Faculty)

Sounds of Chittagong

2010-07-17T09:00:00.001+06:00

I walked to the grocery store two days ago. The distance was less than half a mile but it was the most intense half a mile I have ever encountered. Having been shuttled around in school vans since I arrived and living on my island of comfort, I was both eager and nervous to break free of this protection and experience the city on ground level. And so I did. I went with a woman from Denmark named Maria who's here for a month helping in the finance office. (Of course her English is flawless). We ventured out around dusk, shortly after getting off of work.

So much of Chittagong is best described in sounds rather than the whirl of indistinguishable colors and movements I see every time I step out of my door. The Muslim call to prayer: a haunting, beautiful song that envelops the entire city five times a day. The tinkling whistles of the rickshaws paired with the chorus of heavy-handed horns on the cars, trucks, and CNGs. The men at fruit stands hollering out for customers and the beckoning voices of children tugging at your shirt for money. And the notes of work being done, bricks forged, ships loaded, our American clothes stitched and sewn.

Our walk was no different. There were hundreds of voices and hundreds of smells all at once. Garbage everywhere. Rotting food. Sweat, including my own. The exhaust from all of the vehicles made it difficult to breathe and I had a headache almost immediately. There were so many people, bodies were difficult to dodge. But we made it. And I was rewarded with extra crunchy peanut butter.

Besides walking to the grocery store, I have been spending almost all of my time putting together materials and a schedule for the volunteers' orientation which will last roughly two and a half weeks after their arrival. Part of that work involves helping to coordinate a community English class we'll be teaching at the Women's Chamber of Commerce. Almost immediately after arriving I was invited to a meeting where the leading women in business and the community were gathered. Everyone was dressed beautifully, the saris so different and yet somehow reminiscent of the grand dresses of the Omatjete Herero women as they stood together speaking in their own language of their own endeavors.

The lack of men in the room was conspicuous and you could feel the change-- the ease and the freedom the women have with each other. Dinner was served around 10pm. And even these women (who are reasonably well off) heaped piles of food onto their plates. They ate with noticeable immediacy, as if they were anticipating future hunger and were trying to out pace it.

In the midst of the clacking of plates and the hum of Bangla (the language people speak here) I was reminded again how much sounds matter here. You can't tell who these women are in a glance. You can't tell if she's a doctor, a journalist, or a hotel owner. You can't tell what's happened to them or what they are doing with their lives just by looking at them but you can if you listen. I feel fortunate to have met these women first-- these sparse but bright towering women-- before I meet the ruins.

We were treated with the highest respect and honor-- offered front row seats, forced to eat the dinner buffet first. In the beginning I naively attributed this to my unusually pale features and status as an American but I don't think so anymore. It was my affiliation with the University and as a teacher that signaled my treatment rather than my skin. Education is so valued here, especially by these women who were buoyed to their unusually blessed lives because they were allowed to learn.

Today is graduation. There will be speeches. There will will be diplomas. There will be food. And I will try to take pictures. Talk to you soon.

Pictures from my first few days...

2010-07-13T06:54:00.006+06:00

(View from my window)

(shop to grab a snack at Mimi's market)

(Me in a CNG-- a diesel powered, three wheeled cab)

(beautiful colors at Mimi's market)

(Snack time!)

Arrival

2010-07-08T11:24:00.002+06:00

Well I’m here. After without a doubt the longest trip of my life, I am here: Atlanta to Los Angeles. Los Angeles to Bangkok. Bangkok to Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh). Dhaka to Chittagong. The Chittagong Airport to where I now live. I include that last leg because the ride from the airport to my apartment took three times as long as my flight from Dhaka to Chittagong. And the distance was only about 15 miles.

I could sense immediately upon flying over Dhaka that I was somewhere new and completely different. The land was green and marshy, the canals of water crowded and brown. On the runway I saw men and women with simple tools like pick axes and shovels tearing up the tarmac. Despite being a spread out city of 12 million the airport was tiny with 2 terminals—the international terminal (which was air conditioned) and the domestic terminal (which was not). There was a single metal detector in the domestic terminal and two x-ray machines. Behind a green curtain a woman guard patted me down with a handheld metal detector.

Everything went smoothly until I got to Dhaka around noon on Wednesday July 7th. My luggage came through. I cleared customs, immigration, no problem. But when I went to check in for my flight to Chittagong the carrier told me that they no longer operated the flight I was scheduled for and they had no more flights to Chittagong for that day. After a brief moment of panic and with help from two friendly airline workers it was arranged for me to fly an hour later than scheduled on a different airline—Biman (the national airline of Bangladesh). I tell you all this because had I not been utterly exhausted when I stepped onto the Biman plane I’m not sure I could have gone through with the flight. If the bright orange and green flowered upholstery was any indication the plane must have been from the 1970s. The arms of the seats were cracked and some broken completely. The windows were so scratched up I could barely see outside of them and the carpeted material covering the side of the plane was pealing off. I watched a cockroach scuttle from the seat pocket in front of me to the window ledge while the flight attendant served us warm juice boxes. I felt a glorious sense of relief that I was too tired to even care and pushed the nagging concern about the state of the plane to the back of my mind as we took off.

I arrived in Chittagong 35 minutes later around 5 in the evening local time. (I’m ten hours ahead of home right now because Bangladesh does not observe daylight savings time). A kind man who works for AUW named Alan was holding up a paper sign with the words the Asian University for Women on it when I exited the “baggage terminal.” He helped me carry my bags to the van and before I could even get the door open I was surrounded by several begging young boys.

Alan warned me the ride would take about 2 and a half hours because of traffic. I tried not to appear too surprised. As we pulled out of the airport I could not stop looking at everything around me. There were people everywhere—mostly men but some women too. Makeshift metal shacks lined the road. The buildings were shops and places to eat. I saw a group of shirtless boys in a dusty field playing cricket. In another field the boys were playing soccer. Fruit and vegetable stands were everywhere with bananas bunched together on long stems and many fruits I did not recognize. We passed the bay where hundreds of the biggest ships I’ve ever seen stood being loaded with cargo from oil to bricks to produce.

Then we hit what I hesitate to call rush hour. I hesitate because that will give you the impression of packed orderly lanes of cars crawling along through a city. And that’s not what this was at all. The extremely narrow road really should have only been used for one car at a time going in one direction but the road was used in both directions. It was paved but no there was no demarcation of lanes at all. There were vehicles like ours, cars, larger vans and trucks but there were also hundreds of rickshaws— driven by wiry men with thin hard bodies and also mini- cars shaped like tiny green Volkswagens (these are cabs). And let us not forget the pedestrians who thought nothing of darting out into this madness. (along with our friends the cows, goats, and dogs).

The folks of Bangladesh make the drivers of New York and New Jersey look like calm submissive saints who rarely use their horns. Alan weaved in and out of this collage of crazy using his horn as a constant instrument (if you’ve been watching the World Cup the buzzing noise of the vuvuzela filled stadiums is an apt description of what this all sounded like only louder). People stared unabashedly as we drove by and I even saw some taking pictures of me with cell phones from their buses. I didn’t see another Westerner until we arrived at my apartment.

The drive from the airport was actually a perfect introduction to this bustling city and a country of 150 million in the space of Florida. But I was relieved to arrive at my apartment which is stunningly beautiful. I’m going to try not to compare this experience to Namibia too much but I could not help remembering showing up to the empty cement room that hot afternoon in January of 2007. This could not have been more different. I feel so spoiled. Where I’m staying is called the Panchlaish (after the road we are on I think) and it’s a series of apartments in a gated area. Mine (which I assume I will share with others soon) is spacious with a large table and a living area with a couch, chair, coffee table, desk and tv. My room had a bed with sheets and a mosquito net and AN AIRCONDITIONER. There’s also a lovely little kitchen with a working fridge (wooo!). And a bathroom connected to my room. Everything was neat and clean and welcoming. There are three other bedrooms in the place—all empty right now.

Omar, the director of operations for the University ordered me dinner and it was delivered to my room. In a word: delicious (rice, dahl, okra, all in a wonderful curry sauce) but I was too tired to eat much. Needless to say I pretty much collapsed for twelve hours straight. I’ll have internet soon in my room so communication should be easy with you all. Thanks for hanging in there with this ridiculously long posting. I hope to take pictures soon.

Pre-Game

2010-06-21T04:00:00.003+06:00

Two weeks from tomorrow-- I'll be taking off from Atlanta to go to LAX. Then LAX to Bangkok. Bangkok to Dhaka. Dhaka to Chittagong, Bangladesh. The total travel time is listed as 27 hours and 43 minutes. Those of you who know my love of flying are sure to be cringing along with me.

Chittagong, where I will live and teach for the next year, is a port city of 4 million sitting on the Bay of Bengal. My job is with WorldTeach, the same organization I volunteered with in Namibia. We have a partnership with the Asian University for Women (http://www.asian-university.org/), an incredible school which serves women from all over South Asia and the Middle East. I'll be working as the field director for WorldTeach's program and along with 11 volunteers will also be teaching and assisting at the University. The volunteers don't arrive until August so until then it'll be up to me to organize and plan their orientation. The school year starts in late August.

I think the next two months will be a whirlwind of newness and hard work filled with colors and sounds and a country I have never seen before. I hope you'll join me.