Dhaka: Day 1
It’s 4:15am. And it’s hot. And I have jet lag and can’t sleep. But, as a result I now have a little time to reflect upon my journey and the few waking hours I have spent in Dhaka.
The Journey
Victoria – Vancouver – London – Dubai – Dhaka. It felt like I sat in a plane for at least a week. It was a generally uneventful experience, but there were a few highlights. The Emirates planes, for instance, in addition to great movie choices (of which there were over a hundred!) had little twinkly lights in the ceiling that looked just like stars. And, when they turned the lights on to wake passengers up in preparation for landing, they started with a deep orange light like the colour of sunrise and played the sounds of chirping birds. Small details, but it’s amazing how much difference a small detail can make when you are trapped inside an airplane for 9 hours.
Flying into Dubai was definitely the highlight of the trip. The lights of fishing boats floating on a sea of blackness were followed by the the lights of the land, that grew in intensity until the whole vista was nothing but an incredible array of twinkling lights, magnified by their reflection in the glass walls of a strip of enormous high-rises. The Dubai airport was quite impressive as well. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to take it in while running the entire length of it at top speed as I listened to the final call for my flight to Dhaka being announced.
In Dubai I encountered the first few of what I am sure will soon become an abundance of cultural differences. The first was my experience in the queue to go through security, which was much less of a queue and much more of a chaotic swarm, really. I got shoved around a lot, budged in front of a lot, and apologized to not once. I tried to remind myself that I had chosen to leave the extreme politeness of Canadians behind me and that I should appreciate the differences I was faced with, but in the exhausted state I was in I didn’t have enough cheery disposition in me to do so. Nor did I have enough energy to get upset, fortunately, so I just let the chaos take over and zoned out until it was over.
When I finally made it to the gate, with my breath a few minutes behind me, they were just preparing to board. The first pre-boarding announcement went into a long spiel about only being allowed to take one piece of carry-on luggage and then asked “only those passengers requiring extra assistance” to board the plane, at which point everyone leapt up with their 3-4 carry-on bags and rushed madly to the door. As I sat and waited, like a good, rule-abiding Canadian, I looked at the crowd and tried to figure out what it was that seemed so unusual about the group of people standing before me. Eventually, I realized: they were almost all men. Yet another wake-up call about the reality of the place I was headed. One that was reinforced by the Bangladeshi landing card, which required me to state my father’s or husband’s name as well as my own.
Flying through the night meant that I didn’t catch much of the scenery between Dubai and Dhaka. That, and the fact that the plane’s wing blocked out 80% of the horizon. But it was exciting enough to follow the little red line on the map as it wound its way from the Middle East, over Pakistan and India, beneath the Himilayas (it was neat to see Mt. Everest on the flight map!) and into Bangladesh.
As we approached Dhaka, daylight had arrived and I was able to catch glimpses of the land below. Or the water below, as was the case. Bangladesh looked more like a lake with an intricate system of islands than a piece of land with an intricate system of waterways. As we got closer to our landing, I began to see houses and people and it all began to feel more real, not to mention more overwhelming.
Once I made it out into the sticky sweet air of Dhaka, I was approached by a man named Ali from the Aga Khan Foundation and we loaded my bags into a taxi and headed to my apartment, where I was left to shower, sleep and snack on the food they had left for me. Ali returned a few hours later and, after having some lunch (Western food as he was concerned about my stomach getting upset), we went to the AKF Bangladesh office to meet my colleagues and orient myself to my new working environment. I was too tired to stick around so I headed home, crawled into bed at 4pm and fell asleep for 12 hours.
Dhaka
Let me start with the rickshaws, the city’s archetypal image. The rickshaws here are of the cycle variety, where the passenger(s) sit behind the bicycle in a little carriage with a collapsible roof. To say that the streets are full of them is an understatement. To say that they are brightly decorated is also an understatement. They are more like works of art that double as forms of transportation. Every inch is covered in colourful paintings and there are lots of shiny gold doo-dads to balance their artistry with hideous tackiness. They carry one or two passengers (all although I have once seen three impossibly squeezed in) and have bells that ring violently as they weave in and out of the (often oncoming) traffic. They have not yet discovered the wonder of shock absorbers, so bumps shake you violently from your seat and send your head crashing into the roof. And they are all driven by men, who wear plaid cloth in a variety of colours wrapped around their legs like a skirt, and who have no fear, of anything. I have ridden in five rickshaws so far, and it is beyond me how I am still alive. I have taken to watching the strong calves of the drivers as they peddle in order to avoid having my life flash before my eyes, as it tends to do if I look up.
When I have the courage to look up, the interesting sights to be seen are endless. My journey from home to work takes me past poor shanty neighbourhoods, between bodies of water that are home to houses on stilts and boats with beautiful curved bows that carry loads of passengers between shores, along side empty fields where little boys play cricket in the nude, down narrow alleys crowded with women in colourful saris (I was spot on with my colour scheme for this blog) and wide avenues lined with tall buildings, beside buses that lean sideways under the weight of all the people hanging out the door… I have only seen a minute percentage of the city so far, so I can only imagine all the sights I have yet to encounter.
I should note, for those of you who might be concerned about Bangladesh’s reportedly precarious political situation, that the city is fairly calm. Yesterday many of the shops were shut and there weren’t many people out (I was told this after I remarked at how many people were in the streets) but today things are pretty much back to normal (and although it didn’t seem so yesterday, there definitely were a few inches of uninhabited pavement for people to squeeze into). The CEO of AKFB keeps me up to date with details reports of the goings on and feels like things should be fine for the next little while.
My Apartment
Being a densely populated city, my apartment building is surrounded almost entirely by other apartment buildings. This does not make for great views, unless of course you enjoy looking into other people’s living rooms and kitchens. Fortunately, there is a sliver of vista off my balcony that looks out over some trees inhabited by colourful birds, and then into more living rooms and kitchens in the distance. But, on the upside, all the cockroaches I have encountered so far have been dead, I have an en suite bathroom and currently the whole apartment is under my reign.
Work
My office (yes, that’s right, I have my own office!) is on the roof, as there wasn’t enough space downstairs in the main building. I quite like the isolation and the fact that I can step out the door onto the roof and check out the view of the waterway below on one side, and the rickshaw filled road on the other. I also have my own bathroom and fridge, so all in all it’s a pretty sweet set up.
My job is slowly taking shape. I met this morning with the Director of BRAC’s Research and Evaluation Division. I have been invited back this afternoon to a planning meeting for an upcoming international conference on What Works for the Poorest? I am working on a semi annual report and trying to get in as much reading as possible. Once I get everything under control I will start looking at the wider development scene and see if I can’t stick my nose into a few interesting projects.
Speaking of work, it’s time I get at it.
The Journey
Victoria – Vancouver – London – Dubai – Dhaka. It felt like I sat in a plane for at least a week. It was a generally uneventful experience, but there were a few highlights. The Emirates planes, for instance, in addition to great movie choices (of which there were over a hundred!) had little twinkly lights in the ceiling that looked just like stars. And, when they turned the lights on to wake passengers up in preparation for landing, they started with a deep orange light like the colour of sunrise and played the sounds of chirping birds. Small details, but it’s amazing how much difference a small detail can make when you are trapped inside an airplane for 9 hours.
Flying into Dubai was definitely the highlight of the trip. The lights of fishing boats floating on a sea of blackness were followed by the the lights of the land, that grew in intensity until the whole vista was nothing but an incredible array of twinkling lights, magnified by their reflection in the glass walls of a strip of enormous high-rises. The Dubai airport was quite impressive as well. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to take it in while running the entire length of it at top speed as I listened to the final call for my flight to Dhaka being announced.
In Dubai I encountered the first few of what I am sure will soon become an abundance of cultural differences. The first was my experience in the queue to go through security, which was much less of a queue and much more of a chaotic swarm, really. I got shoved around a lot, budged in front of a lot, and apologized to not once. I tried to remind myself that I had chosen to leave the extreme politeness of Canadians behind me and that I should appreciate the differences I was faced with, but in the exhausted state I was in I didn’t have enough cheery disposition in me to do so. Nor did I have enough energy to get upset, fortunately, so I just let the chaos take over and zoned out until it was over.
When I finally made it to the gate, with my breath a few minutes behind me, they were just preparing to board. The first pre-boarding announcement went into a long spiel about only being allowed to take one piece of carry-on luggage and then asked “only those passengers requiring extra assistance” to board the plane, at which point everyone leapt up with their 3-4 carry-on bags and rushed madly to the door. As I sat and waited, like a good, rule-abiding Canadian, I looked at the crowd and tried to figure out what it was that seemed so unusual about the group of people standing before me. Eventually, I realized: they were almost all men. Yet another wake-up call about the reality of the place I was headed. One that was reinforced by the Bangladeshi landing card, which required me to state my father’s or husband’s name as well as my own.
Flying through the night meant that I didn’t catch much of the scenery between Dubai and Dhaka. That, and the fact that the plane’s wing blocked out 80% of the horizon. But it was exciting enough to follow the little red line on the map as it wound its way from the Middle East, over Pakistan and India, beneath the Himilayas (it was neat to see Mt. Everest on the flight map!) and into Bangladesh.
As we approached Dhaka, daylight had arrived and I was able to catch glimpses of the land below. Or the water below, as was the case. Bangladesh looked more like a lake with an intricate system of islands than a piece of land with an intricate system of waterways. As we got closer to our landing, I began to see houses and people and it all began to feel more real, not to mention more overwhelming.
Once I made it out into the sticky sweet air of Dhaka, I was approached by a man named Ali from the Aga Khan Foundation and we loaded my bags into a taxi and headed to my apartment, where I was left to shower, sleep and snack on the food they had left for me. Ali returned a few hours later and, after having some lunch (Western food as he was concerned about my stomach getting upset), we went to the AKF Bangladesh office to meet my colleagues and orient myself to my new working environment. I was too tired to stick around so I headed home, crawled into bed at 4pm and fell asleep for 12 hours.
Dhaka
Let me start with the rickshaws, the city’s archetypal image. The rickshaws here are of the cycle variety, where the passenger(s) sit behind the bicycle in a little carriage with a collapsible roof. To say that the streets are full of them is an understatement. To say that they are brightly decorated is also an understatement. They are more like works of art that double as forms of transportation. Every inch is covered in colourful paintings and there are lots of shiny gold doo-dads to balance their artistry with hideous tackiness. They carry one or two passengers (all although I have once seen three impossibly squeezed in) and have bells that ring violently as they weave in and out of the (often oncoming) traffic. They have not yet discovered the wonder of shock absorbers, so bumps shake you violently from your seat and send your head crashing into the roof. And they are all driven by men, who wear plaid cloth in a variety of colours wrapped around their legs like a skirt, and who have no fear, of anything. I have ridden in five rickshaws so far, and it is beyond me how I am still alive. I have taken to watching the strong calves of the drivers as they peddle in order to avoid having my life flash before my eyes, as it tends to do if I look up.
When I have the courage to look up, the interesting sights to be seen are endless. My journey from home to work takes me past poor shanty neighbourhoods, between bodies of water that are home to houses on stilts and boats with beautiful curved bows that carry loads of passengers between shores, along side empty fields where little boys play cricket in the nude, down narrow alleys crowded with women in colourful saris (I was spot on with my colour scheme for this blog) and wide avenues lined with tall buildings, beside buses that lean sideways under the weight of all the people hanging out the door… I have only seen a minute percentage of the city so far, so I can only imagine all the sights I have yet to encounter.
I should note, for those of you who might be concerned about Bangladesh’s reportedly precarious political situation, that the city is fairly calm. Yesterday many of the shops were shut and there weren’t many people out (I was told this after I remarked at how many people were in the streets) but today things are pretty much back to normal (and although it didn’t seem so yesterday, there definitely were a few inches of uninhabited pavement for people to squeeze into). The CEO of AKFB keeps me up to date with details reports of the goings on and feels like things should be fine for the next little while.
My Apartment
Being a densely populated city, my apartment building is surrounded almost entirely by other apartment buildings. This does not make for great views, unless of course you enjoy looking into other people’s living rooms and kitchens. Fortunately, there is a sliver of vista off my balcony that looks out over some trees inhabited by colourful birds, and then into more living rooms and kitchens in the distance. But, on the upside, all the cockroaches I have encountered so far have been dead, I have an en suite bathroom and currently the whole apartment is under my reign.
Work
My office (yes, that’s right, I have my own office!) is on the roof, as there wasn’t enough space downstairs in the main building. I quite like the isolation and the fact that I can step out the door onto the roof and check out the view of the waterway below on one side, and the rickshaw filled road on the other. I also have my own bathroom and fridge, so all in all it’s a pretty sweet set up.
My job is slowly taking shape. I met this morning with the Director of BRAC’s Research and Evaluation Division. I have been invited back this afternoon to a planning meeting for an upcoming international conference on What Works for the Poorest? I am working on a semi annual report and trying to get in as much reading as possible. Once I get everything under control I will start looking at the wider development scene and see if I can’t stick my nose into a few interesting projects.
Speaking of work, it’s time I get at it.
posted by ash at 1:05 AM
1 Comments:
just found your blog, and it made me so happy! i'm a white girl moving to dhaka in a few months, so it was super-helpful..
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