A day in my life
I awake under the grey haze of my mosquito net. It doesn't have the Snow White Princess feel of most, but it does keep out the backward Bangladeshi mosquitos who insist on thriving during the dry winter months. It's shamefully hard to crawl out of bed into the cool 18°C apartment. I throw on a fleece wondering how I ever survived winter in Montreal.
First things first: time to make coffee. A seemingly simple task, but here it has a 2 month history: 3 weeks spent tracking down real cofee beans (here 'coffee' is synonomous with 'Nescafe'), 2 weeks finding someone with a bean grinder willing to be my friend (not easy) and 3 weeks figuring out how to suspend my tiny italian espresso pot over the enormous opening in the gas burner. But frustration and perseverance seem to be secret ingredients because coffee has never tasted so good.
While the coffee brews I water the plants on my caged-in balcony. They are covered in a layer of black dirt that gets all over my face when I lean in to water my palm. Every leaf in Dhaka hides under the same blanket of dirt, now so thick that you can see it from a significant distance. I pray that the monsoons will come with enough force to restore pigmentary order to the world.
It is time to head for work. After greeting the guards in the car park downstairs with a "Salaam-Ale-Koum!" I walk into the street and shout "khali!" (empty) at the first free rickshaw I see. I am sure every Bangladeshi within earshot is giggling at the sound of it, but I am now accustomed to being a source of endless entertainment. Just yesterday I had 15 Bangladeshis watching me read. In fact, all I have to do is stop for more than a millisecond and it's as if I am standing on my head naked singing Broadway songs. I should start selling tickets, really. I wouldn't mind so much if a) it didn't make the observation of life in Bangladesh so difficult and b) it didn't occur within such close proximity - but then with a population of 150 million, personal space is not high on the list of priorities here.
With his scarf around his head, knotted under his chin, my rickshaw walla resembles an elderly grandmother. He agrees to take me to work for the usual 20 taka (35 cents) so I settle into the barely padded seat and prepare to absorb the sights of my daily journey.
People stare at me as I pass, but I must admit they have due reason: I am a fashion disaster. For starters, I shun the shalwar (“Aladdin Pants” is a more appropriate description) and wear black slacks. My kameezes (long tops) are all too short, not bright enough and have despicably modern necklines. And the biggest disaster of all is my orna, the scarf women wear to cover their breasts and often heads. I only have one, and its black, for practical, it-goes-with-everything reasons. Black does not even register on the Orna Colour Radar in Bangladesh. It is, however, the right length (2.5m), which means I find myself entangled in it on a regular basis. It also occasionally gets caught in things, like rickshaw wheels or doors, and I find myself being simultaneously strangled and yanked to the ground in a display that Bangladeshis seem to find hilarious. When I try to wear it draped over my front it falls off approximately every 1.8 seconds, so I look like I have some sort of nervous twitch as I continually readjust it. I am convinced that Bangladeshi women have different shoulders than I do, because their ornas never seem to fall off. And if they do, they readjust them so gracefully that you would never notice it had shifted.
Recently, I have taken to wearing a thicker pashmina instead of a light orna, because, well, it’s cold! But of course what I should be doing is continuing to wear an orna with another shawl over top of it to keep me warm. And my shawl should be patterned with plaid or paisley, not plain black.
The biggest of all my orna sins, however, is that I... take it off (gasp!). I have yet to understand how exactly Bangladeshi women can function with 2.5m of scarf wrapped around various parts of their torso all day, but they do. It never comes off. They cook in it, clean in it, shop in it, work in it, swim in it….
A couple of hours at the office gives me time to download emails, reply to a few, and browse the headlines of The Daily Star, but not much more. Note to self: never underestimate the importance of high speed internet for professional productivity. In an hour I have a meeting in another part of town. I must leave now because it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours to get there, depending on traffic. It is for this reason that being half an hour late for a meeting in Dhaka does not require an apology.
I head out in search of a CNG (also called baby taxis). Eventually, after much insistence I find one who will take me for the best price going: meter plus ten taka. Unfortunately, traffic is bad. Having negotiated the price in Bangla, the driver seems to think I am fluent in it and yabbers at me as he points to the sick traffic jam we have come across. Not sure what to say, I yabber back "I go Asad Gate" and hope he understands the implied "I don't care how you do it, just get me there!" His solution is an off-road rally that takes us over sidewalks, between trees, among market stalls, within millimeters of other vehicles... We stop only when the traffic is truly jammed, and the driver buys a cigarette and a ‘pan’ (beetle nut filled leaf) off a young boy working the streets. As we wait he passes the time chewing and spitting blood-red saliva through the door of his driver's cage, with no regard for who might be in his line of fire. Occasionally he turns his head to examine me with a look that registers somewhere between scrutiny and bewilderment. I consider that it must amaze him to see how interested I appear in all the normal every day activity on the street.
The traffic starts up again and our rally continues. We have taken side streets and I am glad to have a chance to see the Dhaka that hides behind the main avenues I am used to. I have no idea where we are, and my instinct says that we are getting further from my destination rather than closer, but I have acquired a fair degree of patience since coming here and I decide now is a good time to put it to use.
Eventually, we pop back out onto a main road. We pass the Parliament Buildings and, while I always enjoy looking at them, I wonder (not for the first time) what all the fuss is about. Note to self: watch My Architect, the documentary that may shed light on this mystery.
Our detour has sent the meter into overtime and when I arrive the fare is twice what it usually is. I grumble, but before too long my sanity kicks in and I remember that the 45 minute journey has cost me just over $1. I stop grumbling.
I have come to Mohammadpur to help with a research project on Bihari refugees. When India and Pakistan divided along religious lines in 1947, many Urdu-speaking Muslims from Bihar migrated to what was then East Pakistan. Then, after the Liberation War in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, the country was transformed linguistically and the Urdu-speaking Biharis, who had fought along side Pakistan in Bangladesh's Liberation War, were persecuted and fled to camps set up by the Red Cross. The idea was that all of the Biharis, or “Stranded Pakistanis” as they are often called, would eventually be sent to Pakistan. Thirty five years later, they live in the same camps.
Given that neither nation is taking responsibility for, or interest in, their situation, a research unit at Dhaka University has taken it upon themselves to understand how the Biharis identify themselves and what they actually want for their future, since many of them were born in Bangladesh and have no interest in returning to Pakistan. It's fascinating to speak to these people about their lives and about how they see themselves and their situation.
I meet Tarek and Hasan at a fast food place that has a menu 12 miles long and only 3 things available: chicken broast (?), chicken nuggets, chicken burger. We all go for the burger. Tarek is a University student helping out with the interviews, and Hasan is our Bihari contact who will help us arrange interviews.
We head to Town Hall Camp. For the last three days we have been conducting interviews in the neighbouring Geneva Camp, where there is a clinic with a private room at our disposal. Town Hall Camp has no clinic, so Hasan arranges for us to use a room in one family's house. Or, better said, to use one family's house, which is a room.
While it is us who should feel indebted to our hosts, their exemplary hospitality makes it seem otherwise. We are served food, and little cups of cha, sweet milky tea with saffron, are timidly placed before me with welcome regularity. With each sip or bite I consider the havoc this could be wreaking on my stomach, but I figure it can't be any worse than the street meat I ate for dinner the previous night, and somehow my bowels escaped torture for that.
Our interviews go well. At least, our audience approves: in addition to having the residents of the house all sitting on the bed with us, there is a constant stream of neighbours passing through to catch a glimpse of the fair skinned foreigner. I'll say it again: I should sell tickets. The attention makes it difficult to focus, but I am enjoying the atmosphere much more than the barren clinic office with the window that invited in the smell of garbage and the power cuts that had our days end by candlelight.
I begin to realize that the people we interview are much less concerned with their identity or citizenship than they are with having a job. An ID card or the right to vote does not interest them unless it comes with employment, which will allow them to buy a house and send their children to school. It's hard to say just exactly how unlikely it is that the Government of Bangladesh would ever provide them with anything more than a meager acknowledgment of their status as citizens, but with 100 million other Bangladeshis living in poverty to worry about, I'd say it's pretty unlikely. A tough reality for me to accept. A tougher reality for them to accept.
After a final cup of cha and an endless number of farewells, it's time to go. Rush hour will start in half an hour (at 7pm), and if I don't get started now it could take 2 hours to get home. I hop in a CNG and manage to get 100m down the road before someone is at the open door trying to sell me something. At this particular moment it's popcorn. And now it's coming at me from both sides. The competing vendors are both young boys and they are waving their popcorn vigorously. I am in a good mood and manage to smile at them as I offer an emphatic "Na!". This doesn't convince them and the popcorn is waved more vigorously. I smile again, make some funny faces and shout "Na!" like a mad woman, and this makes us all laugh, including the driver, whose dark face and serious beard seem at odds with his hearty cackles. Not to be so easily discouraged, they give their best tactic a shot: just put the popcorn on the nice lady's lap and refuse to take it back. So I give my best tactic a shot: just put the popcorn on the cheeky boy's head and stick your tongue out. I win. Finally the light turns green and I leave asking myself: “should I have given them money?” I then wonder how many times I must have asked myself this same question and when the answer will become clear (or perhaps just easier to accept)?
At the next intersection it's a young girl selling flowers. Her ears stick out from behind the orna she has over her head and make her look particularly cute. I decline to buy her flowers over and over again, so she rips of one of the blossoms and presents it to me with an emphatic "Geeft! Geeft!" I smile but I don't buy her game, or her 15 cents bouquet of flowers. To my surprise, without a hint of disappointment she offers a cheerful smile, an excited wave, an "Ok, bye bye sister!" and leaves me in peace. I pick up the blossom she has left me: it smells heavenly.
At the next intersection six small boys selling flowers surround me on both sides. I play the same game of silly faces and sillier sounds and eventually they stop asking me about flowers and start asking me about my name. I then ask for their names and the older boys have great fun replacing the smaller boys' names with what could only be inappropriate words, which, much to their delight, I dutifully repeat. When the light finally turns green they shake my hand and bid me farewell with a cheerful "Khoda hafez!" (roughly: may God protect you). My spirits have been dashed and lifted all at once by these small street vendors.
The vibe changes as we near the diplomatic enclave, and before I know it I am in the relative peace and quiet of the Canadian Club sharing this same tale over a glass of red wine. In an instant and a matter of kilometres, the world has transformed.
It is late now, and all that is left for this day is to crawl into bed and dream about what tomorrow will bring.
First things first: time to make coffee. A seemingly simple task, but here it has a 2 month history: 3 weeks spent tracking down real cofee beans (here 'coffee' is synonomous with 'Nescafe'), 2 weeks finding someone with a bean grinder willing to be my friend (not easy) and 3 weeks figuring out how to suspend my tiny italian espresso pot over the enormous opening in the gas burner. But frustration and perseverance seem to be secret ingredients because coffee has never tasted so good.
While the coffee brews I water the plants on my caged-in balcony. They are covered in a layer of black dirt that gets all over my face when I lean in to water my palm. Every leaf in Dhaka hides under the same blanket of dirt, now so thick that you can see it from a significant distance. I pray that the monsoons will come with enough force to restore pigmentary order to the world.
It is time to head for work. After greeting the guards in the car park downstairs with a "Salaam-Ale-Koum!" I walk into the street and shout "khali!" (empty) at the first free rickshaw I see. I am sure every Bangladeshi within earshot is giggling at the sound of it, but I am now accustomed to being a source of endless entertainment. Just yesterday I had 15 Bangladeshis watching me read. In fact, all I have to do is stop for more than a millisecond and it's as if I am standing on my head naked singing Broadway songs. I should start selling tickets, really. I wouldn't mind so much if a) it didn't make the observation of life in Bangladesh so difficult and b) it didn't occur within such close proximity - but then with a population of 150 million, personal space is not high on the list of priorities here.
With his scarf around his head, knotted under his chin, my rickshaw walla resembles an elderly grandmother. He agrees to take me to work for the usual 20 taka (35 cents) so I settle into the barely padded seat and prepare to absorb the sights of my daily journey.
People stare at me as I pass, but I must admit they have due reason: I am a fashion disaster. For starters, I shun the shalwar (“Aladdin Pants” is a more appropriate description) and wear black slacks. My kameezes (long tops) are all too short, not bright enough and have despicably modern necklines. And the biggest disaster of all is my orna, the scarf women wear to cover their breasts and often heads. I only have one, and its black, for practical, it-goes-with-everything reasons. Black does not even register on the Orna Colour Radar in Bangladesh. It is, however, the right length (2.5m), which means I find myself entangled in it on a regular basis. It also occasionally gets caught in things, like rickshaw wheels or doors, and I find myself being simultaneously strangled and yanked to the ground in a display that Bangladeshis seem to find hilarious. When I try to wear it draped over my front it falls off approximately every 1.8 seconds, so I look like I have some sort of nervous twitch as I continually readjust it. I am convinced that Bangladeshi women have different shoulders than I do, because their ornas never seem to fall off. And if they do, they readjust them so gracefully that you would never notice it had shifted.
Recently, I have taken to wearing a thicker pashmina instead of a light orna, because, well, it’s cold! But of course what I should be doing is continuing to wear an orna with another shawl over top of it to keep me warm. And my shawl should be patterned with plaid or paisley, not plain black.
The biggest of all my orna sins, however, is that I... take it off (gasp!). I have yet to understand how exactly Bangladeshi women can function with 2.5m of scarf wrapped around various parts of their torso all day, but they do. It never comes off. They cook in it, clean in it, shop in it, work in it, swim in it….
I haven't yet scratched the surface of the sharee (sari), but let me just say that the mystery as to how women manage to pass their lives wrapped up in one long piece of cloth is parallelled only by the beauty of watching them do it.
A couple of hours at the office gives me time to download emails, reply to a few, and browse the headlines of The Daily Star, but not much more. Note to self: never underestimate the importance of high speed internet for professional productivity. In an hour I have a meeting in another part of town. I must leave now because it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours to get there, depending on traffic. It is for this reason that being half an hour late for a meeting in Dhaka does not require an apology.
I head out in search of a CNG (also called baby taxis). Eventually, after much insistence I find one who will take me for the best price going: meter plus ten taka. Unfortunately, traffic is bad. Having negotiated the price in Bangla, the driver seems to think I am fluent in it and yabbers at me as he points to the sick traffic jam we have come across. Not sure what to say, I yabber back "I go Asad Gate" and hope he understands the implied "I don't care how you do it, just get me there!" His solution is an off-road rally that takes us over sidewalks, between trees, among market stalls, within millimeters of other vehicles... We stop only when the traffic is truly jammed, and the driver buys a cigarette and a ‘pan’ (beetle nut filled leaf) off a young boy working the streets. As we wait he passes the time chewing and spitting blood-red saliva through the door of his driver's cage, with no regard for who might be in his line of fire. Occasionally he turns his head to examine me with a look that registers somewhere between scrutiny and bewilderment. I consider that it must amaze him to see how interested I appear in all the normal every day activity on the street.
The traffic starts up again and our rally continues. We have taken side streets and I am glad to have a chance to see the Dhaka that hides behind the main avenues I am used to. I have no idea where we are, and my instinct says that we are getting further from my destination rather than closer, but I have acquired a fair degree of patience since coming here and I decide now is a good time to put it to use.
Eventually, we pop back out onto a main road. We pass the Parliament Buildings and, while I always enjoy looking at them, I wonder (not for the first time) what all the fuss is about. Note to self: watch My Architect, the documentary that may shed light on this mystery.
Our detour has sent the meter into overtime and when I arrive the fare is twice what it usually is. I grumble, but before too long my sanity kicks in and I remember that the 45 minute journey has cost me just over $1. I stop grumbling.
I have come to Mohammadpur to help with a research project on Bihari refugees. When India and Pakistan divided along religious lines in 1947, many Urdu-speaking Muslims from Bihar migrated to what was then East Pakistan. Then, after the Liberation War in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, the country was transformed linguistically and the Urdu-speaking Biharis, who had fought along side Pakistan in Bangladesh's Liberation War, were persecuted and fled to camps set up by the Red Cross. The idea was that all of the Biharis, or “Stranded Pakistanis” as they are often called, would eventually be sent to Pakistan. Thirty five years later, they live in the same camps.
Given that neither nation is taking responsibility for, or interest in, their situation, a research unit at Dhaka University has taken it upon themselves to understand how the Biharis identify themselves and what they actually want for their future, since many of them were born in Bangladesh and have no interest in returning to Pakistan. It's fascinating to speak to these people about their lives and about how they see themselves and their situation.
I meet Tarek and Hasan at a fast food place that has a menu 12 miles long and only 3 things available: chicken broast (?), chicken nuggets, chicken burger. We all go for the burger. Tarek is a University student helping out with the interviews, and Hasan is our Bihari contact who will help us arrange interviews.
We head to Town Hall Camp. For the last three days we have been conducting interviews in the neighbouring Geneva Camp, where there is a clinic with a private room at our disposal. Town Hall Camp has no clinic, so Hasan arranges for us to use a room in one family's house. Or, better said, to use one family's house, which is a room.
While it is us who should feel indebted to our hosts, their exemplary hospitality makes it seem otherwise. We are served food, and little cups of cha, sweet milky tea with saffron, are timidly placed before me with welcome regularity. With each sip or bite I consider the havoc this could be wreaking on my stomach, but I figure it can't be any worse than the street meat I ate for dinner the previous night, and somehow my bowels escaped torture for that.
Our interviews go well. At least, our audience approves: in addition to having the residents of the house all sitting on the bed with us, there is a constant stream of neighbours passing through to catch a glimpse of the fair skinned foreigner. I'll say it again: I should sell tickets. The attention makes it difficult to focus, but I am enjoying the atmosphere much more than the barren clinic office with the window that invited in the smell of garbage and the power cuts that had our days end by candlelight.
I begin to realize that the people we interview are much less concerned with their identity or citizenship than they are with having a job. An ID card or the right to vote does not interest them unless it comes with employment, which will allow them to buy a house and send their children to school. It's hard to say just exactly how unlikely it is that the Government of Bangladesh would ever provide them with anything more than a meager acknowledgment of their status as citizens, but with 100 million other Bangladeshis living in poverty to worry about, I'd say it's pretty unlikely. A tough reality for me to accept. A tougher reality for them to accept.
After a final cup of cha and an endless number of farewells, it's time to go. Rush hour will start in half an hour (at 7pm), and if I don't get started now it could take 2 hours to get home. I hop in a CNG and manage to get 100m down the road before someone is at the open door trying to sell me something. At this particular moment it's popcorn. And now it's coming at me from both sides. The competing vendors are both young boys and they are waving their popcorn vigorously. I am in a good mood and manage to smile at them as I offer an emphatic "Na!". This doesn't convince them and the popcorn is waved more vigorously. I smile again, make some funny faces and shout "Na!" like a mad woman, and this makes us all laugh, including the driver, whose dark face and serious beard seem at odds with his hearty cackles. Not to be so easily discouraged, they give their best tactic a shot: just put the popcorn on the nice lady's lap and refuse to take it back. So I give my best tactic a shot: just put the popcorn on the cheeky boy's head and stick your tongue out. I win. Finally the light turns green and I leave asking myself: “should I have given them money?” I then wonder how many times I must have asked myself this same question and when the answer will become clear (or perhaps just easier to accept)?
At the next intersection it's a young girl selling flowers. Her ears stick out from behind the orna she has over her head and make her look particularly cute. I decline to buy her flowers over and over again, so she rips of one of the blossoms and presents it to me with an emphatic "Geeft! Geeft!" I smile but I don't buy her game, or her 15 cents bouquet of flowers. To my surprise, without a hint of disappointment she offers a cheerful smile, an excited wave, an "Ok, bye bye sister!" and leaves me in peace. I pick up the blossom she has left me: it smells heavenly.
At the next intersection six small boys selling flowers surround me on both sides. I play the same game of silly faces and sillier sounds and eventually they stop asking me about flowers and start asking me about my name. I then ask for their names and the older boys have great fun replacing the smaller boys' names with what could only be inappropriate words, which, much to their delight, I dutifully repeat. When the light finally turns green they shake my hand and bid me farewell with a cheerful "Khoda hafez!" (roughly: may God protect you). My spirits have been dashed and lifted all at once by these small street vendors.
The vibe changes as we near the diplomatic enclave, and before I know it I am in the relative peace and quiet of the Canadian Club sharing this same tale over a glass of red wine. In an instant and a matter of kilometres, the world has transformed.
It is late now, and all that is left for this day is to crawl into bed and dream about what tomorrow will bring.
posted by ash at 9:02 PM
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