According to Sheri McFadden, Bidehi 1's mother and this couple's secretary/treasurer, the Sidr Cow Fund has done quite well in its short history - thanks so much to all of you who contributed! Here's a list of some of our benefactors, and we had a few generous 'anonymous' donors as well....
David Boyd
Mr. & Mrs. Cedarburg
Dick and Sharlene Hamilton
Women's Surface Creek Saddle Club
Jessie McFadden
Donna Ames
Darlene Johnson
LuAnn Lundberg
Best of the West 4-H club
Zach and Kara Gergely
Joe and Jeri McFadden
Jessica Koehler
(If I missed your name, or if you see yours listed and would prefer to be anonymous, please let me know and I'll update accordingly...)
Thanks so much for helping to make this happen! According to our current tally, the fund has just over $400 in it - which should be plenty for a cow, and will leave some left over for other cyclone relief, too. We're hoping to use the leftover money to fund a Habitat for Humanity building trip later in the spring, though details are still up in the air.
We haven't told the family the news yet - we plan to surprise them with it in a few days. Ben and I will be traveling to their village in Gopalgonj to celebrate New Year's with them. Because we'll need their help to coordinate the actual purchase, we unfortunately won't be able to just present them with a healthy cow... apparently the issues of purchase and transportation are pretty complicated. But we'd like to go with them and take pictures to document the event for all of you, so stay tuned and we'll let you know how things turn out.
Thanks again for all your support - you've made us very happy and very proud of our communities!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
“Common Sense” and Manners
The past couple of days Bideshi 1 and I have been remarking on what a cultural phenomenon “common sense” is. At home it is not uncommon for people to appeal to “common sense” to justify a certain practice. For example, if you want to keep a swimming pool clean you don’t jump into it with your clothes on, or if a stranger in a big city asks for your phone number you don’t give it, or if you want to borrow a cooking pan from your new neighbor you knock on the door and introduce yourself first, or if you want a wound to heal you keep it out of the dirt. For most Americans above age ten these things are simply “common sense.”
However, the fact that I have to qualify this statement to include Americans “above age ten” illustrates that these customs are in fact learned. In Bangladesh where the education is different and the prevailing religion is different and the family living situation is different and the houses are different and the streets are different and the cars and plants and animals are different – where every blasted thing is different! – it should be no surprise that what we think of as “common sense” really doesn’t apply. Yet Jen and I are regularly perplexed, humored, and even offended by actions that contradict our “commons sense” notions. I’m sure it goes both ways. What seems like “common sense” to us probably seems completely bassackwards or even rude at times to the locals.
A case in point: the other evening we were boarding a bus with our friend Karen in order to return to Dhaka from Cox’s Bazaar. The bus was leaving at 9:30 p.m. We would be spending the night on the bus and arriving in Dhaka at dawn. The bus was like a typical Grey Hound with two rows of two seats separated by an isle. We had purchased three seats, two next to each other and a third window seat right across the aisle. When we sat down, Jen and I sat next to each other and Karen took the window seat across the aisle. To the three of us this seemed like a perfectly “common sense” arrangement. Let Jen and I have the benefit of each others’ shoulders for the night and let the third wheel have her own window seat.
But the steward on the bus noted the arrangement and pointed out that a man would likely sit next to Karen. Yes, Karen was aware of that. There was an awkward pause. Again the man says, but a man might sit there, pointing to the empty seat next to Karen. Yes… are you saying you would like me to move? Confusion ensues. Jen, who is next to the window on the other side, can’t hear what the steward is saying and thinks Karen wants to move. But Karen doesn’t want to move. She’s traveled the world alone for years and is perfectly comfortable, but the steward can’t seem accept that Karen doesn’t want to move. I understand the situation, but can’t get any words out in either Bangla or English to explain to anyone else. The problem is that our behavior is violating the steward’s “common sense.” No respectable woman in her right mind would choose to sit next to a male stranger for an overnight bus ride when she could instead be sitting next to a female friend – it just doesn’t make sense! Eventually Jen and Karen succeed in ignoring the steward and manage to sort things out in English. We all stayed put (and as luck would have it, the seat next to Karen remained empty for the better part of the trip).
The differences in “common sense” are even more evident in any situation involving personal privacy. Personal privacy doesn’t exist here – at least not as we construct it in the U.S. Consequently the culturally appropriate “manners” for respecting someone else’s privacy are quite different. It is quite common for neighbors, acquaintances, and even total strangers to just walk into our house. Typically people have some business to conduct –newspaper or milk to deliver, trash to pick up, pots and pans to borrow or return – but rather than knock politely and wait for someone to answer, they just barge right on in. The thought that maybe we’re in bed or in the shower or eating breakfast in our underwear doesn’t seem to occur to them. And why would it? Here, people sleep in their clothes, usually in a bed full of other relatives. There’s nothing private about sleeping. Since you don’t sleep unclothed you wouldn’t be eating breakfast half-dressed. So why knock? Everyone should be ready to deal with company any time.
Once inside, people don’t usually conduct business and leave straight away. Given half a chance, they tend to wander aimlessly through the apartment, peering into corners and snooping in a manner that drives the two Americans crazy. Perhaps if we spoke better Bangla they would put more effort into making conversation. As it is they often just wander past one or the other of us to wherever curiosity takes them. I’m not sure, but I suspect that the snooping is not actually considered typical polite behavior. But people just can’t seem to help themselves when faced with the intriguing prospect of exploring a Bideshi’s household.
Initially we felt rude throwing them out (after all we really shouldn’t have to explain…common sense?) but as time goes on we’re getting better at it. Just this morning Jen, very straight faced and sternly, told a young woman that she expected her to knock before entering, yes we will eat (there seems to be genuine concern that we don’t eat properly), and do you need anything else at this time. No? Well then let me walk you to the door…
By this point, the astute reader is probably wondering why we don’t just lock the damn door!? Well, in fact, we do. However, in any given household in our building there are enough people that someone is always home. So someone always knows when we are home. So even if we lock the door to prevent people from just walking right in, they will bang on the door until we come open it. If we ignore the first 30 seconds of banging, they just bang harder and maybe give a shout. It seems not to cross anyone’s mind that we might not want to come to the door. Or perhaps we are just being incredibly rude by ignoring them – they know we’re here, for crying out loud!
I can feel my character building at an alarming rate…
However, the fact that I have to qualify this statement to include Americans “above age ten” illustrates that these customs are in fact learned. In Bangladesh where the education is different and the prevailing religion is different and the family living situation is different and the houses are different and the streets are different and the cars and plants and animals are different – where every blasted thing is different! – it should be no surprise that what we think of as “common sense” really doesn’t apply. Yet Jen and I are regularly perplexed, humored, and even offended by actions that contradict our “commons sense” notions. I’m sure it goes both ways. What seems like “common sense” to us probably seems completely bassackwards or even rude at times to the locals.
A case in point: the other evening we were boarding a bus with our friend Karen in order to return to Dhaka from Cox’s Bazaar. The bus was leaving at 9:30 p.m. We would be spending the night on the bus and arriving in Dhaka at dawn. The bus was like a typical Grey Hound with two rows of two seats separated by an isle. We had purchased three seats, two next to each other and a third window seat right across the aisle. When we sat down, Jen and I sat next to each other and Karen took the window seat across the aisle. To the three of us this seemed like a perfectly “common sense” arrangement. Let Jen and I have the benefit of each others’ shoulders for the night and let the third wheel have her own window seat.
But the steward on the bus noted the arrangement and pointed out that a man would likely sit next to Karen. Yes, Karen was aware of that. There was an awkward pause. Again the man says, but a man might sit there, pointing to the empty seat next to Karen. Yes… are you saying you would like me to move? Confusion ensues. Jen, who is next to the window on the other side, can’t hear what the steward is saying and thinks Karen wants to move. But Karen doesn’t want to move. She’s traveled the world alone for years and is perfectly comfortable, but the steward can’t seem accept that Karen doesn’t want to move. I understand the situation, but can’t get any words out in either Bangla or English to explain to anyone else. The problem is that our behavior is violating the steward’s “common sense.” No respectable woman in her right mind would choose to sit next to a male stranger for an overnight bus ride when she could instead be sitting next to a female friend – it just doesn’t make sense! Eventually Jen and Karen succeed in ignoring the steward and manage to sort things out in English. We all stayed put (and as luck would have it, the seat next to Karen remained empty for the better part of the trip).
The differences in “common sense” are even more evident in any situation involving personal privacy. Personal privacy doesn’t exist here – at least not as we construct it in the U.S. Consequently the culturally appropriate “manners” for respecting someone else’s privacy are quite different. It is quite common for neighbors, acquaintances, and even total strangers to just walk into our house. Typically people have some business to conduct –newspaper or milk to deliver, trash to pick up, pots and pans to borrow or return – but rather than knock politely and wait for someone to answer, they just barge right on in. The thought that maybe we’re in bed or in the shower or eating breakfast in our underwear doesn’t seem to occur to them. And why would it? Here, people sleep in their clothes, usually in a bed full of other relatives. There’s nothing private about sleeping. Since you don’t sleep unclothed you wouldn’t be eating breakfast half-dressed. So why knock? Everyone should be ready to deal with company any time.
Once inside, people don’t usually conduct business and leave straight away. Given half a chance, they tend to wander aimlessly through the apartment, peering into corners and snooping in a manner that drives the two Americans crazy. Perhaps if we spoke better Bangla they would put more effort into making conversation. As it is they often just wander past one or the other of us to wherever curiosity takes them. I’m not sure, but I suspect that the snooping is not actually considered typical polite behavior. But people just can’t seem to help themselves when faced with the intriguing prospect of exploring a Bideshi’s household.
Initially we felt rude throwing them out (after all we really shouldn’t have to explain…common sense?) but as time goes on we’re getting better at it. Just this morning Jen, very straight faced and sternly, told a young woman that she expected her to knock before entering, yes we will eat (there seems to be genuine concern that we don’t eat properly), and do you need anything else at this time. No? Well then let me walk you to the door…
By this point, the astute reader is probably wondering why we don’t just lock the damn door!? Well, in fact, we do. However, in any given household in our building there are enough people that someone is always home. So someone always knows when we are home. So even if we lock the door to prevent people from just walking right in, they will bang on the door until we come open it. If we ignore the first 30 seconds of banging, they just bang harder and maybe give a shout. It seems not to cross anyone’s mind that we might not want to come to the door. Or perhaps we are just being incredibly rude by ignoring them – they know we’re here, for crying out loud!
I can feel my character building at an alarming rate…
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Five Rolls of Toilet Paper, a Haircut, and a Shave
I got my first haircut in Bangladesh today. Today is Victory Day, a national holiday commemorating Bangladesh’s victory over Pakistan back in 1971, and a popular day for haircuts by all appearances. The first barber shop I went to had all three chairs full and a line of people waiting. When I came looking for a trim they waived me on down the street to the next shop. There, there were also three chairs full and some people waiting, but they told me to go ahead and take a seat to wait my turn. That gave me a chance to take in the scene a little.
In the first chair was a teenage boy. Next to him was an older man getting a haircut and beard trim. In the last chair was another kid. The older man was the first to finish up and I watched carefully to see what he paid. One of the chief concerns anytime I do something new is the question of what to pay? I know a hair cut here should be fairly inexpensive. But what does that mean? Our friend Donny recently went for a haircut and received a haircut + shave + facial. The process took a painstaking 2 hours to complete -way more than he had anticipated. Afterwords the hairstylist declined to state a price. He just asked Donny to pay what he thought it was worth. That’s always the worst. Donny gave 200 Taka. He later checked with Sujit, the cook, about the price. Sujit said it was a little high, but not ridiculous. That was in upscale Baridhara. Here in Rajabajar I was expecting to pay 100-150. The old man gave 30 Taka. Hmmm, glad I saw that.
Next to draw my attention was the teenage boy in the first chair. When the stylist was just about finished - at the point where they ask, “is everything okay?” – he didn’t ask the boy, he asked the boy’s friend (brother? cousin?). The cut looked fine but the friend found something to be critical over. So the stylist took a few more inconsequential snips at the boy’s head before pronouncing him finished and waiving me to take his seat.
As I was sitting there getting the towel wrapped around my neck and water splashed on my head, I continued to watch in the mirror as the two boys finished their transaction. I couldn’t follow most what was being said, but I did understand the numbers. The boy who’d received the cut was silent while his friend did the talking. He kept saying, “something something 20 something something.” To which the guy running the shop replied, “no something 30 something something something.” Apparently they were disputing the price of the other kid’s haircut. The argument gained volume. The man pushed the kid into a chair. The kid stood up. The argument continued. They took it out into the street. More shouting. Is this going to come to blows? They moved out of my line of sight. Quieter now…eventually the shop manager came back in - incident apparently over. Okay, I definitely have to pay more than 20.
Apparently unfazed by the drama, the stylist went to work on my hair giving it a nice trim. Then he splashed water on my face and put some yellow face cream all over it. Then he put some lotion over my stubble, then some shaving cream, and out came the straight razor – Yikes! It was my first experience being shaved by a tool that could cut my nose clean off (or slit my throat) if put to the task. The thought was somewhat disconcerting. I also have a bit of a cold, which made the process even less comfortable. My main concern was trying not to cough anytime the blade was in contact with my face. Thankfully, the stylist was a skilled man and apparently harbored me no ill will. I survived both rounds (he shaved me twice) unscathed.
When the time came, I asked the price. “Sixty,” he said in English. Apparently the facial and extra shave is worth the price of a haircut. Or it’s just another example of the “bideshi dam.” Either way, the price (less than a dollar) was fine with me. I, somewhat guiltily explained that I only had a 500 Taka note to pay with, and could he make change? Yes, of course. He passed the bill down to the shop manager who asked how much? Someone else said “ponchash” or “fifty” and the manager set to digging up enough change. Another customer said, “pach-sho diYe” (500 he has given you!) and rolled his eyes in disgust. The manager, unfazed, handed me 450 Taka in change. I could have made out like a bandit with the extra 10 Taka and everyone would have been happy enough (for all I know the stylist meant 50 but got his English confused), but I went ahead and handed back 10 Taka to assuage my guilt at having paid with a 500. It was received without comment.
One the way home I stopped at one of the local convenience shops – there are about 3 on every block – for some toilet paper. I said to the clerk (in Bangla) that I would take 5 rolls of toilet paper. He looked at me rather blankly and with a delayed reaction said (also in Bangla) “five?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Now?” he said, “you will take five rolls of toilet paper?”
There was a pause. I’m waiting for him to hand me the toilet paper. But he’s just standing there staring at me. Hmm, maybe his statement was a statement not a question. Maybe he just told me to take five rolls of toilet paper out of that sack hanging on the wall. I take the sack down off the wall, pulling the nail it was hanging from out with it (oops), and start fumbling with the knot to get at the toilet paper. The man sticks out his hand. I hand him the sack. He opens it and pulls out five rolls, stacking them in plain view.
“Five?” he says, pointing to the rolls.
“Yes.” I say. Why is this hard? Surely language is not this issue this time. I guess no one ever buys five rolls of toilet paper at one time.
“What’s the price?”
“sixty-five”
Five rolls of toilet paper cost more that a haircut and a shave… I pay and walk away.
In the first chair was a teenage boy. Next to him was an older man getting a haircut and beard trim. In the last chair was another kid. The older man was the first to finish up and I watched carefully to see what he paid. One of the chief concerns anytime I do something new is the question of what to pay? I know a hair cut here should be fairly inexpensive. But what does that mean? Our friend Donny recently went for a haircut and received a haircut + shave + facial. The process took a painstaking 2 hours to complete -way more than he had anticipated. Afterwords the hairstylist declined to state a price. He just asked Donny to pay what he thought it was worth. That’s always the worst. Donny gave 200 Taka. He later checked with Sujit, the cook, about the price. Sujit said it was a little high, but not ridiculous. That was in upscale Baridhara. Here in Rajabajar I was expecting to pay 100-150. The old man gave 30 Taka. Hmmm, glad I saw that.
Next to draw my attention was the teenage boy in the first chair. When the stylist was just about finished - at the point where they ask, “is everything okay?” – he didn’t ask the boy, he asked the boy’s friend (brother? cousin?). The cut looked fine but the friend found something to be critical over. So the stylist took a few more inconsequential snips at the boy’s head before pronouncing him finished and waiving me to take his seat.
As I was sitting there getting the towel wrapped around my neck and water splashed on my head, I continued to watch in the mirror as the two boys finished their transaction. I couldn’t follow most what was being said, but I did understand the numbers. The boy who’d received the cut was silent while his friend did the talking. He kept saying, “something something 20 something something.” To which the guy running the shop replied, “no something 30 something something something.” Apparently they were disputing the price of the other kid’s haircut. The argument gained volume. The man pushed the kid into a chair. The kid stood up. The argument continued. They took it out into the street. More shouting. Is this going to come to blows? They moved out of my line of sight. Quieter now…eventually the shop manager came back in - incident apparently over. Okay, I definitely have to pay more than 20.
Apparently unfazed by the drama, the stylist went to work on my hair giving it a nice trim. Then he splashed water on my face and put some yellow face cream all over it. Then he put some lotion over my stubble, then some shaving cream, and out came the straight razor – Yikes! It was my first experience being shaved by a tool that could cut my nose clean off (or slit my throat) if put to the task. The thought was somewhat disconcerting. I also have a bit of a cold, which made the process even less comfortable. My main concern was trying not to cough anytime the blade was in contact with my face. Thankfully, the stylist was a skilled man and apparently harbored me no ill will. I survived both rounds (he shaved me twice) unscathed.
When the time came, I asked the price. “Sixty,” he said in English. Apparently the facial and extra shave is worth the price of a haircut. Or it’s just another example of the “bideshi dam.” Either way, the price (less than a dollar) was fine with me. I, somewhat guiltily explained that I only had a 500 Taka note to pay with, and could he make change? Yes, of course. He passed the bill down to the shop manager who asked how much? Someone else said “ponchash” or “fifty” and the manager set to digging up enough change. Another customer said, “pach-sho diYe” (500 he has given you!) and rolled his eyes in disgust. The manager, unfazed, handed me 450 Taka in change. I could have made out like a bandit with the extra 10 Taka and everyone would have been happy enough (for all I know the stylist meant 50 but got his English confused), but I went ahead and handed back 10 Taka to assuage my guilt at having paid with a 500. It was received without comment.
One the way home I stopped at one of the local convenience shops – there are about 3 on every block – for some toilet paper. I said to the clerk (in Bangla) that I would take 5 rolls of toilet paper. He looked at me rather blankly and with a delayed reaction said (also in Bangla) “five?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Now?” he said, “you will take five rolls of toilet paper?”
There was a pause. I’m waiting for him to hand me the toilet paper. But he’s just standing there staring at me. Hmm, maybe his statement was a statement not a question. Maybe he just told me to take five rolls of toilet paper out of that sack hanging on the wall. I take the sack down off the wall, pulling the nail it was hanging from out with it (oops), and start fumbling with the knot to get at the toilet paper. The man sticks out his hand. I hand him the sack. He opens it and pulls out five rolls, stacking them in plain view.
“Five?” he says, pointing to the rolls.
“Yes.” I say. Why is this hard? Surely language is not this issue this time. I guess no one ever buys five rolls of toilet paper at one time.
“What’s the price?”
“sixty-five”
Five rolls of toilet paper cost more that a haircut and a shave… I pay and walk away.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
A Christmas Wish: A Cow for a Sidr-Struck Family
December in Bangladesh doesn’t feel much like the holiday season at all – especially since the news here is still full of tragic stories about Cyclone Sidr. My friend and research assistant Shakil was telling me about a conversation he had with a rickshawallah the other day. He asked the rickshawallah where he was from, and he said "Borisal" (one of the provinces hit especially hard). Shakil asked whether his family was okay, and the guy said that of his immediate family, eleven people were killed – and they were all men. Sons, brothers, uncles. They were all out on a fishing boat miles from shore - even if they'd had a motorboat, it would have taken them 12 hours to get back after hearing the warnings. But they didn't have a motorboat - just a rowboat. And now it is a family of widows and orphans. The rickshawallah said his youngest son called him from their village and said, "Baba, we have no rice. We're catching shrimp and throwing them into a fire and eating them - it's all we have. Baba, please send money." So the rickshawallah sold one of his two rickshaws for 5000 taka - about 80 dollars, much less than it was worth. And later that day he was planning to sell the second one. That means no income in the future, but it will at least buy his family some rice.
Also affected, though to a less traumatic degree, is a family who adopted me during my first summer in Bangladesh. This family has been so kind to me in the year and a half since I met them; they have been my best Bangla teachers and my first glimpse of real Bangladeshi life. And they have done all this despite their many problems: lack of a job for the two men in the house, lack of husbands for two of the daughters, lack of money generally. They, like so many others, are trying to make ends meet in Dhaka – but they’re barely scraping by. Two summers ago I visited their village home with them for several days, and it was the best experience I’ve had so far in Bangladesh, sharing their food and their entertainment and their talk. They were so proud of their village compound, with its main house built of sturdy brick and its bamboo outbuildings. In one of the bamboo and tin sheds lived the family’s prized possessions – a dairy cow and her calf. The cow produced over 4 liters of milk a day, which provided the village family members with an ongoing source of income – meager (at about $0.50 per liter, or $2 per day) but dependable. In addition, they could sell her calves. She was a very valuable member of their family.
Like so much of the livestock in rural Bangladesh, she was killed in the cyclone last month.
Ben and I talked about how we might be able to help this family. We knew that it wouldn’t be feasible to purchase a cow for them – our budget is comfortable enough, but it doesn’t cover sudden relatively large expenses, such as the $200 - $350 it would cost to buy a cow at this time of year. (Prices are especially high because the second Eid is coming, a festival that commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice with ritual livestock slaughter.) But we thought it might be a worthy cause to bring to our friends and family – if those of you who are able could make small donations to our Christmas Cow Fund (even just $5 or $10), it shouldn’t take too long to come up with enough cash to fund a dairy cow. On a large scale, it doesn’t even make a dent, of course – Sidr left so many dead, injured, homeless… but on a very small scale, for this one particular family, it could mean some income again and a return to a basic level of security. And it’s a way for people to connect in a personal way in the face of an otherwise anonymous disaster on the other side of the world.
If you’re interested in contributing a small amount to this little grassroots holiday project, we’ve asked the McFadden parents to handle processing of checks (made out to Jennifer McFadden or Ben Lamm, or both) or cash. They should be sent c/o Sheri McFadden, 19795 2325 Rd., Cedaredge, CO 81413. My mom will keep a running tally of the funds, and I can post updates on the running total as we hear back from people (and please let us know if you’d be willing to let us thank you by name on this blog!). If we can manage to collect more than the amount needed for a single cow, we think we can find other ways to use the money to help Sidr victims. We have been in touch with Habitat for Humanity Bangladesh about helping reconstruct housing later in the spring, and there are lots of other fund drives happening in various places throughout Dhaka. We’ll find a way to put it to good use – and of course we’ll keep you updated with pictures and blog posts throughout the process. We hope to hear from some of you! (Email us at jenniferlamm at gmail.com or ben_lamm at hotmail.com if you have questions, comments or suggestions - about this or anything else!)
Also affected, though to a less traumatic degree, is a family who adopted me during my first summer in Bangladesh. This family has been so kind to me in the year and a half since I met them; they have been my best Bangla teachers and my first glimpse of real Bangladeshi life. And they have done all this despite their many problems: lack of a job for the two men in the house, lack of husbands for two of the daughters, lack of money generally. They, like so many others, are trying to make ends meet in Dhaka – but they’re barely scraping by. Two summers ago I visited their village home with them for several days, and it was the best experience I’ve had so far in Bangladesh, sharing their food and their entertainment and their talk. They were so proud of their village compound, with its main house built of sturdy brick and its bamboo outbuildings. In one of the bamboo and tin sheds lived the family’s prized possessions – a dairy cow and her calf. The cow produced over 4 liters of milk a day, which provided the village family members with an ongoing source of income – meager (at about $0.50 per liter, or $2 per day) but dependable. In addition, they could sell her calves. She was a very valuable member of their family.
Like so much of the livestock in rural Bangladesh, she was killed in the cyclone last month.
Ben and I talked about how we might be able to help this family. We knew that it wouldn’t be feasible to purchase a cow for them – our budget is comfortable enough, but it doesn’t cover sudden relatively large expenses, such as the $200 - $350 it would cost to buy a cow at this time of year. (Prices are especially high because the second Eid is coming, a festival that commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice with ritual livestock slaughter.) But we thought it might be a worthy cause to bring to our friends and family – if those of you who are able could make small donations to our Christmas Cow Fund (even just $5 or $10), it shouldn’t take too long to come up with enough cash to fund a dairy cow. On a large scale, it doesn’t even make a dent, of course – Sidr left so many dead, injured, homeless… but on a very small scale, for this one particular family, it could mean some income again and a return to a basic level of security. And it’s a way for people to connect in a personal way in the face of an otherwise anonymous disaster on the other side of the world.
If you’re interested in contributing a small amount to this little grassroots holiday project, we’ve asked the McFadden parents to handle processing of checks (made out to Jennifer McFadden or Ben Lamm, or both) or cash. They should be sent c/o Sheri McFadden, 19795 2325 Rd., Cedaredge, CO 81413. My mom will keep a running tally of the funds, and I can post updates on the running total as we hear back from people (and please let us know if you’d be willing to let us thank you by name on this blog!). If we can manage to collect more than the amount needed for a single cow, we think we can find other ways to use the money to help Sidr victims. We have been in touch with Habitat for Humanity Bangladesh about helping reconstruct housing later in the spring, and there are lots of other fund drives happening in various places throughout Dhaka. We’ll find a way to put it to good use – and of course we’ll keep you updated with pictures and blog posts throughout the process. We hope to hear from some of you! (Email us at jenniferlamm at gmail.com or ben_lamm at hotmail.com if you have questions, comments or suggestions - about this or anything else!)
Monday, December 10, 2007
Our New Digs
After two weeks of Internet problems and another week of post-moving-in chaos, we can finally send an update: we’ve settled into our new home. Various adventures and misadventures have ensued over the course of the last few weeks, which Bideshi 2 has chronicled. (The latest of these is the installation yesterday of our new hot water heater in the bathroom. The guys from the shop came expecting a 20-30 minute process involving installing the 15-gallon heater in its space, connecting some pipes, and plugging the thing in. They ended up staying here for about 7 hours, drilling and chipping and hammering away at the brick walls in which our bathroom plumbing is apparently embedded. They had to put in a new electrical box, extra long pipe fixtures, and who knows what else. But the good news is that the operation was successful, and we can now have a warm shower any time we want!)
Ben and I are very happy with this arrangement. The flat is ridiculously large for a couple, especially in Bangladesh – it would normally house a good-sized extended family with its three large bedrooms and two bathrooms, a sitting room and a dining room. Tuni and Clay had the glass divider removed that separated living and dining spaces, to the main space is open – usually Bangladeshi apartments are arranged in a sequence of boxes with lots of doors, like the mouse-mazes from Psych 101. But this place is comfortable and breezy, with windows on all four sides. The large window in the sitting room looks out onto the tops of three coconut palms, with clusters of green fruits like oversized grapes. From my seat on the sofa (recycled from a retired ship dismantled in the Chittagong wrecking yards, Tuni told me), I can see the balconies of neighboring apartments, where buwas (housemaids) in their mismatching colors hang laundry, sweep, fill and empty buckets. There are very few cars in the narrow winding strets of this neighborhood, but there are lots of rickshaws dinging their bright bells, and feri-wallahs selling fish or chickens or spinach or pots and pans and towels – whatever ware they have, they carry on their heads or in their hands, and with their voices loud and strong and tense they call out to the apartments: oi, murghi! (Hey! Chickens!) We buy our milk from one of them; the sweet doorman Tajul introduced him to us and explained in his Mymensingh dialect (among many other things I didn’t understand) that he will come every day, and we will pay him once a month based on our own reckoning. The milk is delicious, especially after a month of consuming powdered substitute.
I can hear all kinds of snippets of our neighbors’ lives – when they are sweeping or pounding laundry or putting away the dishes, the chink of silverware, the clack of plates stacked. The crows make a great ruckus all day long, and hundreds of other twitters and croaks and caws come in through our open windows. The temperature here now is delightful: December is the start of the “cold” season, which menas something in the neighborhood of 70-75 degrees. (Outside people have started wearing shawls, knit hats – even scarves wrapped around their heads!) It is such a blessed change from summer and the sweltering heavy heat of borsa. Monsoon. We will have two or three months of beautiful weather before the wave of hot dry still air settles in March or so.
This apartment building is a small one, with just five flats. The landlord and his wife, their three-year-old sone, and two younger brothers live on the top floor; we are on the fourth. I haven’t met anyone of the lower floors yet, though I caught a few people staring at us through cracked doors when we moved in. In the garage on the ground floor lives Tajul the doorman (darwan in Bangla) and his wife Rashida, who is the landlords’ buwa and who will help us with sweeping and laundry three times a week. Their youngest son, ten-year-old Shohagh, lives with them and keeps an eye on his little nephew, Shadin, who is three and as adorable as any three-year-old I’ve ever seen. They think we are great fun, and come visit us every day and bang on my tabla drums. They’d like to play with the computer, too, but they do as they’re told - they don’t touch. They just watch, eyes as big as saucers. Rashida is worried about our eating habits; she sends up big plates of rice with little dishes of vegetables every few days, and over the last weekend she asked us to eat dinner with them in their little room in the garage. They live in virtual squalor down there, with hardly any possessions of their own and no money to buy fish or meat, but they are wonderful hosts. Rashida served us rice cakes with bitter mustard, and rice with yellow dal, and we ate until we thought we’d burst. Such is Bengali hospitality – most clearly demonstrated by those who have the least to share!
Tales from the Rickshaw Part 3
The other day Bideshi 1 and I were out grocery shopping at one of the few “supermarkets” that is comparable to an American supermarket at a local mall called Riffles Square. We loaded up on expensive convenience foods and approximation western goods for when we don’t feel like trying to make real food out of exotic (or at least unfamiliar) ingredients. We left the supermarket with a couple of sacks of groceries and hired a rickshaw to drive us home. We are new to the neighborhood and don’t really know all the variations on how to get from point A to point B, and we’re also not super competent Bangla speakers, which makes asking directions a little difficult. (I’m sure those readers who have traveled in foreign lands are familiar with the experience of asking a perfectly clear question and understanding absolutely nothing of the answer…) Usually we’re able to tell the rickshaw walla where we want to go and he will either say he can take us there or he can’t. So far, we have always ended up where we wanted to go…eventually.
We told this particular rickshaw walla to take us to West Rajabajar, Indira Road, which is where we live. He tilts his head to the side with the subtle gesture that indicates he can get us there. The journey is complicated by the fact that between Riffles Square and West Rajabajar is Mirpor Road. Mirpor Road is one of the biggest roads in Dhaka and rickshaws are typically not allowed to cross – although maybe sometimes in some places they are able to. When those times are, I doubt anyone could accurately describe. Anyway, we board the rickshaw and get under way. I glance at my watch in order to be able to pay our standard fare of 1 Taka per minute. If we take a reasonably direct route, I know it should take 15-20 minutes.
The journey is tortuous, the buildings are tall and box us in, and the sky is a uniform smog grey. After about ten minutes I don’t know what direction we’re headed, only that I have never been here before and that by this point we should be near Mirpur Road, which is nowhere to be seen. We get to a big road, Green Road, take a left, travel a ways, reach another big intersection, and stop to wait for the traffic light to change (a rare occurrence – the stopping and waiting that is). I ask the rickshaw walla where Indira Road is. He points straight across the intersection. Can rickshaws go on Indira Road, I ask. This is a somewhat stupid question, because I see rickshaws on Indira Road outside our house all the time. No, he says. The light changes and we proceed through the intersection and take a left. Where are we going, I ask. He doesn’t answer. Jen asks the question. West Rajabajar, he replies somewhat annoyed. He’s obviously thinking, “just where you told me to go dumbass.” Jen says, our house is on Indira Road. Indira Road? You want to go to Indira Road? Yes we say. House eighty-eight-by-one Indira Road, Jen says in English (meaning that our house is number 88/1 on Indira Road). He turns around.
Now we’re heading the wrong way on a divided street. Yeehaw! We get back to the big intersection and turn left (which would have been straight across from where we were previously stopped) go a little way and then break off into the narrow side streets. We take some rights, some lefts, and get good and turned around. At this point it’s pretty clear that the rickshaw walla doesn’t have the faintest idea where we are relative to house 88/1 Indira Road. He stops and asks for directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point up the road. Okay, good, we must be on the right track. We go to the next intersection. The rickshaw walla stops again to ask directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point left. We go left. This scenario repeats four or five times – not incredibly confidence inspiring. The rickshaw walla keeps telling us “no stress, no stress.” Finally Jen recognizes a sign (hurray for reading in Bangla!). We are just a few blocks from home, and getting the rest of the way there is no problem.
We get off the rickshaw in our driveway. I look at the watch. Shoot. In all the fuss I’ve forgotten what time we got on, but I think probably 30 minutes ago, maybe 40. I give him 30 Taka. He’s not happy. He wants 100 Taka. This is ridiculous. A rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. Jen tells him so. He sticks to his guns. 100 Taka! No way, we start to walk away. He follows us into the gated garage. He and Jen are now arguing at high volume. I take the groceries upstairs figuring he’ll leave soon enough. Four floors up I can still hear them arguing. I go back down. The rickshaw walla is pleading his case to the doorman and his family. I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but I imagine that it goes something like these stupid foreigners hired me to bring them to West Rajabajar then changed their mind when I was half way there. They didn’t know where they were going and made me drive all over kingdom come. Now they won’t even pay me a decent fare for my trouble. Meanwhile, Jen is saying we’re foreigners, we’re new to this area, we don’t always know the shortest way to go. That’s your job. Don’t think we’ll give you 100 Taka just because you took us the long way round.
Finally Jen says, if I give you another 10 Taka will you leave? The rickshaw walla says 20. Jen pushes a ten Taka note into his hand. At this point I’m just tired of the scene we’ve created. So I take the rickshaw walla by the shoulders. He’s surprised. His eyes pop open like a deer in the headlights and he shuts up for a second. I turn him gently around, push him out the door, and close the gate. He gets on his rickshaw and rolls down the driveway, stopping at the end to talk to the man standing there. I wonder if he is asking directions or deriding the cheating, cheap-ass bideshis that live in house number 88/1 - both probably.
Inside the garage Rashida, the doorman’s wife, is asking what we paid the rickshaw walla. Too much Jen says. Where did you come from she says? Riffles Square we tell her. Should be 15 Taka she says. We gave 40, Jen says. Oooh, bideshi dam (price), she says.
Fifteen minutes later Jen is in tears. She’s replaying the events in her head. One-hundred Taka he wanted. That’s one dollar and forty-three cents. For us that is next to nothing. Why didn’t we just give it to him? She feels terrible. But at the time, money was not the issue. The fact is, a rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. He was trying to take advantage of us. Asking for 100 Taka is an insult. That’s why Jen was mad.
In retrospect it seems so trivial, so petty. How could it matter to us when the price is so low either way? But it does matter. He was out of line. It is not his place in the world to follow a customer into the garage and ask for more money. From our perspective as Americans to perpetuate that sort of class division seems wrong and unjust, but here to allow a rickshaw walla to charge you 100 Taka, to actually pay him that much, is to display your social incompetence. Not that we retained much dignity in the end. As it turned out, I’m sure we put our social incompetence on broad display by having a shouting match with him. Sometimes it’s just hard to get it right.
We told this particular rickshaw walla to take us to West Rajabajar, Indira Road, which is where we live. He tilts his head to the side with the subtle gesture that indicates he can get us there. The journey is complicated by the fact that between Riffles Square and West Rajabajar is Mirpor Road. Mirpor Road is one of the biggest roads in Dhaka and rickshaws are typically not allowed to cross – although maybe sometimes in some places they are able to. When those times are, I doubt anyone could accurately describe. Anyway, we board the rickshaw and get under way. I glance at my watch in order to be able to pay our standard fare of 1 Taka per minute. If we take a reasonably direct route, I know it should take 15-20 minutes.
The journey is tortuous, the buildings are tall and box us in, and the sky is a uniform smog grey. After about ten minutes I don’t know what direction we’re headed, only that I have never been here before and that by this point we should be near Mirpur Road, which is nowhere to be seen. We get to a big road, Green Road, take a left, travel a ways, reach another big intersection, and stop to wait for the traffic light to change (a rare occurrence – the stopping and waiting that is). I ask the rickshaw walla where Indira Road is. He points straight across the intersection. Can rickshaws go on Indira Road, I ask. This is a somewhat stupid question, because I see rickshaws on Indira Road outside our house all the time. No, he says. The light changes and we proceed through the intersection and take a left. Where are we going, I ask. He doesn’t answer. Jen asks the question. West Rajabajar, he replies somewhat annoyed. He’s obviously thinking, “just where you told me to go dumbass.” Jen says, our house is on Indira Road. Indira Road? You want to go to Indira Road? Yes we say. House eighty-eight-by-one Indira Road, Jen says in English (meaning that our house is number 88/1 on Indira Road). He turns around.
Now we’re heading the wrong way on a divided street. Yeehaw! We get back to the big intersection and turn left (which would have been straight across from where we were previously stopped) go a little way and then break off into the narrow side streets. We take some rights, some lefts, and get good and turned around. At this point it’s pretty clear that the rickshaw walla doesn’t have the faintest idea where we are relative to house 88/1 Indira Road. He stops and asks for directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point up the road. Okay, good, we must be on the right track. We go to the next intersection. The rickshaw walla stops again to ask directions, “basha eight-by-one Indira Road kothay?” No, eighty-eight-by-one kothay, Jen corrects. The men across the street point left. We go left. This scenario repeats four or five times – not incredibly confidence inspiring. The rickshaw walla keeps telling us “no stress, no stress.” Finally Jen recognizes a sign (hurray for reading in Bangla!). We are just a few blocks from home, and getting the rest of the way there is no problem.
We get off the rickshaw in our driveway. I look at the watch. Shoot. In all the fuss I’ve forgotten what time we got on, but I think probably 30 minutes ago, maybe 40. I give him 30 Taka. He’s not happy. He wants 100 Taka. This is ridiculous. A rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. Jen tells him so. He sticks to his guns. 100 Taka! No way, we start to walk away. He follows us into the gated garage. He and Jen are now arguing at high volume. I take the groceries upstairs figuring he’ll leave soon enough. Four floors up I can still hear them arguing. I go back down. The rickshaw walla is pleading his case to the doorman and his family. I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, but I imagine that it goes something like these stupid foreigners hired me to bring them to West Rajabajar then changed their mind when I was half way there. They didn’t know where they were going and made me drive all over kingdom come. Now they won’t even pay me a decent fare for my trouble. Meanwhile, Jen is saying we’re foreigners, we’re new to this area, we don’t always know the shortest way to go. That’s your job. Don’t think we’ll give you 100 Taka just because you took us the long way round.
Finally Jen says, if I give you another 10 Taka will you leave? The rickshaw walla says 20. Jen pushes a ten Taka note into his hand. At this point I’m just tired of the scene we’ve created. So I take the rickshaw walla by the shoulders. He’s surprised. His eyes pop open like a deer in the headlights and he shuts up for a second. I turn him gently around, push him out the door, and close the gate. He gets on his rickshaw and rolls down the driveway, stopping at the end to talk to the man standing there. I wonder if he is asking directions or deriding the cheating, cheap-ass bideshis that live in house number 88/1 - both probably.
Inside the garage Rashida, the doorman’s wife, is asking what we paid the rickshaw walla. Too much Jen says. Where did you come from she says? Riffles Square we tell her. Should be 15 Taka she says. We gave 40, Jen says. Oooh, bideshi dam (price), she says.
Fifteen minutes later Jen is in tears. She’s replaying the events in her head. One-hundred Taka he wanted. That’s one dollar and forty-three cents. For us that is next to nothing. Why didn’t we just give it to him? She feels terrible. But at the time, money was not the issue. The fact is, a rickshaw fare is never 100 Taka. He was trying to take advantage of us. Asking for 100 Taka is an insult. That’s why Jen was mad.
In retrospect it seems so trivial, so petty. How could it matter to us when the price is so low either way? But it does matter. He was out of line. It is not his place in the world to follow a customer into the garage and ask for more money. From our perspective as Americans to perpetuate that sort of class division seems wrong and unjust, but here to allow a rickshaw walla to charge you 100 Taka, to actually pay him that much, is to display your social incompetence. Not that we retained much dignity in the end. As it turned out, I’m sure we put our social incompetence on broad display by having a shouting match with him. Sometimes it’s just hard to get it right.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
No Thank You
One of the strange things for a bideshi in Bangladesh is the fact that Bengalis almost never say “thank you.” It’s not that they just don’t say “please” or “thank you.” They don’t even have the words. They do sometimes say “dhonnobad” (which translates as “thank you”) if you pay them a compliment or give them money or do some other favor. But it is a stronger word than the “thank you” we use in English. In day-to-day transactions there is no “please” or “thank you” (or “excuse me” for that matter, though occasionally someone will say that in English). Even to a rube like me, the lack of “please” and “thank you” rubs me the wrong way when it catches me off guard. Today, for example, we have some guys installing a hot water heater in a little crawl space above our bathroom. When I got home from class they were working up there with only two sputtering little candles to see by. Having done a fair amount of similar work in the past, I am sympathetic to the need to have good light to work by. So I figured out a way to rig up an incandescent bulb in the crawl space. The workers adjusted their tool bag so that it wasn’t blocking the light and kept right on working without saying a thing. Rude right? No, just the way it’s done around here. Out in the street it’s even more pronounced. People are all the time bumping into each other, pushing each other out of the way, etc. and no one says anything. The fact is though, if you said “excuse me” every time you brushed shoulders with someone, you’d never say anything else. So maybe there is method to the madness…
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
A Real Live Snake Charmer
A few days before Thanksgiving, a traveling snake charmer was passing through our neighborhood in Baridhara, calling out to the apartment buildings as he went along. Lucky me, I just happened to be making my way home from a day in the markets as he was walking past. I didn't know what he was selling at first - he carried a bamboo pole across his shoulders with a cloth bundle tied to each end. But as he walked and called, he stopped and played a few notes on a strange-sounding bulbous flute. It reminded me of a clarinet with a head cold. One of the security guards on duty told me he was a "Shapkhela" - which literally means "snake player." And so I decided that this was something Ben and I had to see. After the usual price negotiations, we invited him into the cool shade of the garage, where he unpacked his bundles: three lidded baskets. In one were two cobras, in another some kind of viper, and in the third a skinny green milk snake. Of course the batteries in our video camera hadn
't been charged, but Ben managed to get a few minutes of video using our little Sony camera. See for yourselves! (But folks living in godforsaken parts of the country where high speed internet is still unavailable might want to try their local libraries or educational institutions - the video might not play well on a dial-up connection...)Thanksgiving in Dhaka
We spent Thanksgiving here much as we would have in the states, cooking food, socializing, eating food, socializing, eating more food, etc. The party was held at our new friend Kristin's apartment in Gulshan. Kristin is a former Fulbrighter who has stayed on in order build an "eco-resort" tourist destination in southern Bangladesh that she hopes will draw ex-pats out of Dhaka and give them a chance to experience the country away from the city. Kristin likes to entertain (note how the flowers match the table cloth which matches the chairs) but doesn't really cook much. So she envited her friends over to help with the preparations. We baked some pumpkin pies and supervised the roasting of the turkey. Tuni and Clay made mashed potatoes and "orange fluff." Kristin put together a green bean casserole and Jen whipped up some stuffing out of a box. The chief difficulty in preparing the meal was the fact that the numbers on the temperature dial on Kristin's oven bear no correlation to the actual
temperature in the oven. So we were forced to use the somewhat low tech stick-your-arm-in-and-see-if-its-hot method of temperature monitoring. Consequently, the turkey took about 2 hours longer to cook than expected. Gee, that's never happened before...The food was all yummy. The Americans ate plenty. The Deshies ate less. Watching the six-year-old daughter of one of Kristin's friends pick gingerly at the food on her plate we realized, "oh yeah, kids don't like weird food, and this food is weird to them." We had cooked for twenty Americans and so had lots of left-overs. That's all right with me, though, 'cause I love pumpkin pie.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Masala Cha - Try it at home!
Tea is one of my favorite things about this place. Tea is everywhere. Everyone drinks it. You are not strange and eccentric if you like tea here; it is something that a normal human being is supposed to like. It is the default beverage at all gatherings and social functions. When you go to someone’s house, the first thing they do is offer you tea, which you are obliged to drink, regardless of your actual preferences. (Coffee, on the other hand, is regarded as something strange and eccentric – which is not surprising, given that “coffee” in this country means Instant Nescafe.)
I am something of a tea snob at home. I like loose tea – my favorite is single-estate Assam tea, TGFOP, which I take strong, with milk. (Shameless plug: if you’re curious, check out Hajua Assam Tea at www.SpecialTeas.com, along with the rest of their fabulous inventory. You name it, they’ve got it. And they ship quickly, too!) I haven’t found any Assam tea here, but Bangladesh is home to several large tea gardens of its own, and although they export their best stuff, the tea they sell in bags (the Bangladeshi version of Lipton’s) is excellent. When you buy it on the street at one of the myriad tea stalls, it’s fixed with a healthy dose of sweetened condensed milk and a couple spoonfuls of sugar for good measure. (All this in a demitasse the size of an espresso cup.) Generally sweetened tea makes my teeth hurt and my head ache, so I avoid the sugar if I can.
But there’s one exception: masala cha, or what we know as chai in the US – served sweet, with plenty of milk. The “masala” (pronounced here kind of like “moshla”) means “spiced”, and despite what Starbucks has led us to believe, chai does not really come out of a box. In fact, it’s much better if you make it at home, the ‘real’ way – which is what Ben and I decided to do recently. We thought we’d share our recipe and let you figure out how to improve upon it.
We took a trip into the bazaar at Gulshan to purchase our spices – we visited one of the dry goods vendors who’s come to recognize me. The place is called Iqbal’s Store, and the guy who runs it has been working in the same place for 24 years. I’m getting to know the vendors pretty well – did some recording there the other day, as a matter of fact, and got to watch them in action. Their store is the most popular one around, if traffic is any indicator. But anyway. We bought all our spices from them; they helped us sort out what we needed and gave us little vocab lessons along the way. We picked up a bunch of cloves, whole black peppercorns, stick cinnamon, ginger, bay leaves and cardamom pods (the total cost came to 76 taka – just over a buck, for spices of much better quality than you’d usually get in the US, and in much larger quantities... and all cleverly wrapped in recycled paper and magazine pages!), took them home to our little 2-burner propane stove and brewed up a very overspiced pot of tea. We toned down the cloves and peppercorns quite a bit and tried some different proportions. The magic numbers for an acceptable 3-4 person pot of tea turned out to be in the 4 or 5 range. But try them out and mess with them, and once you’ve got it mastered, let us know…
Boil together in a pot with plenty of (potable) water:
4-5 whole cloves
4-5 whole black peppercorns
4-5 whole cardamom pods
1 bay leaf
thinly sliced fresh ginger (start with – you guessed it - 4 or 5 paper-thin slices; more to your liking)
lots of stick cinnamon (at least one whole stick; more to your liking)
After a few minutes of moderate boiling, you can go ahead and add tea – loose (e.g. English breakfast) or bag tea (yes, even Lipton’s!) both work; you’ll have to strain the tea either way. I'd recommend using at least 3 bags or three healthy teaspoons of loose tea for a 3-4 person pot – the milk will weaken the brew. Once it’s brewed strong enough for your liking, lower the heat and add milk (not skim!) – about ½ the quantity of water seems to work well. Get the whole mixture nice and hot, strain it, and serve immediately. You can either pre-sweeten while it’s still over the heat, or serve unsweetened and pass around the sugar bowl. Yumminess!
I am something of a tea snob at home. I like loose tea – my favorite is single-estate Assam tea, TGFOP, which I take strong, with milk. (Shameless plug: if you’re curious, check out Hajua Assam Tea at www.SpecialTeas.com, along with the rest of their fabulous inventory. You name it, they’ve got it. And they ship quickly, too!) I haven’t found any Assam tea here, but Bangladesh is home to several large tea gardens of its own, and although they export their best stuff, the tea they sell in bags (the Bangladeshi version of Lipton’s) is excellent. When you buy it on the street at one of the myriad tea stalls, it’s fixed with a healthy dose of sweetened condensed milk and a couple spoonfuls of sugar for good measure. (All this in a demitasse the size of an espresso cup.) Generally sweetened tea makes my teeth hurt and my head ache, so I avoid the sugar if I can.
But there’s one exception: masala cha, or what we know as chai in the US – served sweet, with plenty of milk. The “masala” (pronounced here kind of like “moshla”) means “spiced”, and despite what Starbucks has led us to believe, chai does not really come out of a box. In fact, it’s much better if you make it at home, the ‘real’ way – which is what Ben and I decided to do recently. We thought we’d share our recipe and let you figure out how to improve upon it.
We took a trip into the bazaar at Gulshan to purchase our spices – we visited one of the dry goods vendors who’s come to recognize me. The place is called Iqbal’s Store, and the guy who runs it has been working in the same place for 24 years. I’m getting to know the vendors pretty well – did some recording there the other day, as a matter of fact, and got to watch them in action. Their store is the most popular one around, if traffic is any indicator. But anyway. We bought all our spices from them; they helped us sort out what we needed and gave us little vocab lessons along the way. We picked up a bunch of cloves, whole black peppercorns, stick cinnamon, ginger, bay leaves and cardamom pods (the total cost came to 76 taka – just over a buck, for spices of much better quality than you’d usually get in the US, and in much larger quantities... and all cleverly wrapped in recycled paper and magazine pages!), took them home to our little 2-burner propane stove and brewed up a very overspiced pot of tea. We toned down the cloves and peppercorns quite a bit and tried some different proportions. The magic numbers for an acceptable 3-4 person pot of tea turned out to be in the 4 or 5 range. But try them out and mess with them, and once you’ve got it mastered, let us know…
Boil together in a pot with plenty of (potable) water:4-5 whole cloves
4-5 whole black peppercorns
4-5 whole cardamom pods
1 bay leaf
thinly sliced fresh ginger (start with – you guessed it - 4 or 5 paper-thin slices; more to your liking)
lots of stick cinnamon (at least one whole stick; more to your liking)
After a few minutes of moderate boiling, you can go ahead and add tea – loose (e.g. English breakfast) or bag tea (yes, even Lipton’s!) both work; you’ll have to strain the tea either way. I'd recommend using at least 3 bags or three healthy teaspoons of loose tea for a 3-4 person pot – the milk will weaken the brew. Once it’s brewed strong enough for your liking, lower the heat and add milk (not skim!) – about ½ the quantity of water seems to work well. Get the whole mixture nice and hot, strain it, and serve immediately. You can either pre-sweeten while it’s still over the heat, or serve unsweetened and pass around the sugar bowl. Yumminess!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Cow Brains and Salty Fish Paste
Last night I ate cow brains. Or rather, last night I had a small (teaspoon size maybe) taste of cow brains.
Jen and I spent the morning wandering around New Market – probably the largest market/bazaar in 
All the while as we wander about and gawk, the locals gawk back. We are followed the entire time by a small gaggle of children, “mintis” who first want us to pay them to carry our groceries, and when they realize we’re not actually buying anything, then just to be near the spectacle we continually create. At Jen’s urging, I work up the courage to take out the camera – much to everyone’s delight. All the fish dudes want me to take their picture. Then the butcher sees what’s going on and poses for me, holding open the carcass of one of his goats so I can see the fine quality of the meat he’s selling. Some men laugh and talk rapidly. Jen and I look quizzically at Shakil. Oh, they’re just saying how happy they are to have their picture taken by a good looking American, he reports. Cool…
After the market experience, Jen and I part ways with Shakil and go over to Dhanmundi to meet our new friends Tuni and Clay for lunch. We spend the rest of the afternoon running errands with them, stop briefly by their apartment for tea, meet our soon-to-be-new internet providers (twiddlebuggs they call themselves), and then head out to catch the first screening of a film that one of their friends recently made.
After the film, which was preceded by no fewer than six speeches (in Bangla) and which was low budget and loud and also in Bangla (and so not an incredibly great experience for me), we went out to dinner with Tuni and Clay and some of their friends.
The restaurant caters mostly to students. So it was nice and cheap. The meal consisted of lots of small dishes, some vegetables, meats, fishes, etc. that you mix with rice and eat with your hands. As we ate I took note of the dishes I liked and those I didn’t. On the good list: bitter gourd and spices (kind of sour), potatoes and peppers, okra (definitely slimy), mashed potatoes, green banana, green beans, spinach. On the bad list: small fishies, salty fish paste (made from the suspended and stinking fish mentioned earlier)…oh, and cow brains.
Actually the cow brains weren’t so bad. They were ordered at Clay’s request. (Clay, by the way, is a tall read headed dude from Memphis Tennessee who talks about as much as I do and at about the same rate but with a slightly more noticeable southern drawl). He referred to them simply as “a brain fry.” When they arrived I took a teaspoon size helping, mixed it with ample rice, and popped it into my mouth. The flavor was like any mystery meat (think hotdog or spam), the texture soft (what did you expect?) and vaguely chalky (that was a surprise). Well, what do you think Clay asked? Not bad, I replied, I might even eat more if I didn’t know it was brains.
Reason Number 376 Why it Sucks to be a Rickshawalla
The other day Jen and I decided to go out for dinner. This is not unusual. We’ve been sampling the local restaurants with considerable frequency. There’s an excellent Thai restaurant halfway between Gulshan 1 and Gulshan 2. Right next door is a Chinese place that makes excellent soup but lousy tofu. Some blocks away is a Korean restaurant that ranks among Jen’s favorites. For cheaper eats there is an assortment of Bengali restaurants. The unifying theme in all of these is rice - rice and oil.
The other night, partly in an effort to avoid rice and oil and partly just to satisfy our curiosity, we decided to try the local Pizza Hut. We both recalled seeing a Pizza Hut somewhere in the vicinity of Gulshan 1. In fact both of us were pretty convinced that it was somewhere near the Thai place between the two Gulshans. Donny, another Fulbrighter, claimed that it was south of Gulshan 1, which was at odds with my recollection. The point is we didn’t know exactly where we were going. Which, of course, makes it a little more difficult to get there.
Our transportation options typically consist of either a rickshaw (three wheeled human powered vehicle) or a CNG (three wheeled compressed natural gas powered vehicle). Rickshaws are cheaper, quieter, less smelly, and generally nicer. However, they are restricted from traveling on certain big roads except for at certain times. And there always seems to be some confusion about what roads and what times those are. This past Saturday there was some rickshaw traffic between on the big road between Gulshan 1 and Gulshan 2. So we decided to try our luck and hired a rickshaw to take us toward Gulshan 1.
Traffic was moving along nicely until we came to an intersection where a police officer was waving the rickshaws off the main road. Unbidden by us, our rickshawalla tried to plead his case with the police officer, pointing to the white people on his rickshaw. No exceptions! We were forced to take the side road. Normally this would be fine, except this time we didn’t really know where we were going. So we didn’t know how far down the main road we needed to go before getting off.
The rickshawalla took us around the block and back to the main road. O.k. fine, we probably didn’t miss it yet. We continue down the main road. Ahead there is another cop at an intersection waving the rickshaws off the main road. This time our rickshawalla doesn’t stop in time to make the turn. The police officer yells at him. The rickshawalla pleads his case pointing to his bideshi cargo. No exceptions! But this time we have to turn around a full 180 degrees in order to get back to the side road. The rickshawalla dismounts to make the turn. But he’s not moving fast enough, apparently, because the angry police officer comes over and WHACK! WHACK! with his baton, hits him on the butt. That was totally unnecessary, but Jen and I are both speechless. Nothing comes to mind fast enough to say in the rickshawalla’s defense.
Having turned around, we continue several more blocks down side roads. At this point it seems there’s a fair chance we’ve missed our desired destination. So we take the next opportunity to get back on the main road and dismount. We give the rickshawalla 50 taka (nearly twice the normal rate) for his trouble. That amounts to about 74 cents, and he’s totally psyched.
Post-Cyclone
First of all: Ben and I are fine. Safe and healthy, and as of today our power and Internet are both up – so we can finally contact all our friends and family and let them know we’re okay.
We’d heard word from the State Department that a cyclone was on its way – I have to give them credit; they really do look after their own. So we were prepared for a day or two of no electricity and minor inconveniences. The storm hit Dhaka on the 15th, after we had just finished watching a pirated copy of the movie “Ratatouille” (great fun, except it makes you crave French bread and soft cheese and mushrooms like crazy – none of which are really available here). The wind started to pick up, a sudden crescendo from a dull rumble to a terrifying scream. It beat against the windows so hard I was sure they would shatter under its pressure. Our laundry had been drying on the balcony clothesline before the storm; at about 11:00 I remembered it and got up from bed to see if it was still there. Miraculously, it was – but several socks had fallen to the floor, and the T-shirts were knotted around themselves on the line. With the wind and rain roaring around us we went outside, fiddled with the clothespins, brought in the things that looked most likely to fly away, went back to bed. I lay awake, tossing and turning for a long time – such an awful, heart-wrenching sound, that wind. Then at about 1:30, clever me, I remembered that I had brought along some earplugs. Stuffed them into my ears and slept like a baby.
We woke Friday morning to quiet grayness. Nothing looked particularly amiss – there was no power, but since we are rich and privileged bideshis, we have a generator wired to our ceiling fans and to a few switches and outlets in each room – so we didn’t even have to suffer darkness. The day was cool and drizzly, and we spent most of it inside until we got restless late in the afternoon. The world of the Diplomatic Enclave didn’t look much different – a lot of branches and sludge piled along the sides of the streets, trees with recent wounds, here and there a young one uprooted. The area around Gulshan was dark – no electricity in anyplace without a generator – but our favorite Thai place was open, and we were even able to do a little evening-time marketing. Life as usual, mostly.
It wasn’t until today – Sunday – that I was able to get information on how bad the cyclone actually was. We don’t currently get a newspaper, and all our news comes via our little electronic boxes. So today, with Internet service working at last, I went straight to NPR’s news website. And o what a terrible wrath the storm hath wrought. More than 1700 counted dead so far in the southern part of the country, and many of the small villages are inaccessible to relief workers, so there’s no telling how many more will be found. Hundreds of thousands of refugees – people whose homes were nothing more than a few corrugated tin sheets and bamboo poles, and whose worldly possessions were some baskets of rice and lentils, woven cane sleeping mats, a water jug, a few colorful saris, perhaps a radio. Outside some chickens, a boat and a fishing net. It is so little. It is so much.
And here I sit, typing away on my little electronic box, in the comfort of my air-conditioned three-bedroom concrete flat, far away in the Diplomatic Enclave where all the bideshis live. And soon our dinner will be ready, and our cook will come to the door and knock softly, and we will eat until we are full and he will clean up the mess, and we will go peacefully to sleep, and all around us nothing will be different.
We’d heard word from the State Department that a cyclone was on its way – I have to give them credit; they really do look after their own. So we were prepared for a day or two of no electricity and minor inconveniences. The storm hit Dhaka on the 15th, after we had just finished watching a pirated copy of the movie “Ratatouille” (great fun, except it makes you crave French bread and soft cheese and mushrooms like crazy – none of which are really available here). The wind started to pick up, a sudden crescendo from a dull rumble to a terrifying scream. It beat against the windows so hard I was sure they would shatter under its pressure. Our laundry had been drying on the balcony clothesline before the storm; at about 11:00 I remembered it and got up from bed to see if it was still there. Miraculously, it was – but several socks had fallen to the floor, and the T-shirts were knotted around themselves on the line. With the wind and rain roaring around us we went outside, fiddled with the clothespins, brought in the things that looked most likely to fly away, went back to bed. I lay awake, tossing and turning for a long time – such an awful, heart-wrenching sound, that wind. Then at about 1:30, clever me, I remembered that I had brought along some earplugs. Stuffed them into my ears and slept like a baby.
We woke Friday morning to quiet grayness. Nothing looked particularly amiss – there was no power, but since we are rich and privileged bideshis, we have a generator wired to our ceiling fans and to a few switches and outlets in each room – so we didn’t even have to suffer darkness. The day was cool and drizzly, and we spent most of it inside until we got restless late in the afternoon. The world of the Diplomatic Enclave didn’t look much different – a lot of branches and sludge piled along the sides of the streets, trees with recent wounds, here and there a young one uprooted. The area around Gulshan was dark – no electricity in anyplace without a generator – but our favorite Thai place was open, and we were even able to do a little evening-time marketing. Life as usual, mostly.
It wasn’t until today – Sunday – that I was able to get information on how bad the cyclone actually was. We don’t currently get a newspaper, and all our news comes via our little electronic boxes. So today, with Internet service working at last, I went straight to NPR’s news website. And o what a terrible wrath the storm hath wrought. More than 1700 counted dead so far in the southern part of the country, and many of the small villages are inaccessible to relief workers, so there’s no telling how many more will be found. Hundreds of thousands of refugees – people whose homes were nothing more than a few corrugated tin sheets and bamboo poles, and whose worldly possessions were some baskets of rice and lentils, woven cane sleeping mats, a water jug, a few colorful saris, perhaps a radio. Outside some chickens, a boat and a fishing net. It is so little. It is so much.
And here I sit, typing away on my little electronic box, in the comfort of my air-conditioned three-bedroom concrete flat, far away in the Diplomatic Enclave where all the bideshis live. And soon our dinner will be ready, and our cook will come to the door and knock softly, and we will eat until we are full and he will clean up the mess, and we will go peacefully to sleep, and all around us nothing will be different.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Brick Hauling, Deshi Style
I’ve been taking language classes at the
Friday, November 9, 2007
How to draw a crowd in Dhaka in 2.5 seconds or less
Buying sweets was Ben's idea. Earlier in the day he had passed several vendors selling assorted candies by the side of the road, but he didn't have any small change at the time so his curiosity went unsatisfied. But when we found ourselves with nothing better to do on Thursday afternoon, he suggested that we go back to Bonani and do some reconnaisance.Most of the vendors had cleared out by the time we arrived, but one tenacious seller remained, calling out to passers-by and waving off the flies that flitted and buzzed around his wares.
"Eigulo ki?" I said to him - "what are these?"He grinned. "Sweets."
"What are their names?"
I pointed and he recited.
"Wait, I want to write these down. One minute." I fished my little notebook out of my bag. "Will you say them again?"
He dictated once more.
"Bagami." He pointed to a little pile of what looked like (and turned out to be) peanut brittle. In my notebook, with my best Bangla handwriting, I wrote "ba ga mi." The vendor regarded me with something between awe and glee.
He pointed to a mound of rock candy.
"Tal mishti."
I wrote this, too, and looked up when I'd finished to find that at least five or six men who'd been walking by had stopped to watch and were now craning their necks toward my notebook."And that?" I pointed to a chunk of candied fruit.
"Moroba."
I scrawled. The crowd grew.
"And this here?"
"Shondesh."
Completely self-conscious now, I closed my notebook and looked up to find no fewer than a dozen men gathered around us.
"Thirty taka."
"I'll give you twenty," I said, and the bystanders chuckled. The vendor gave a sideways head-nod and a grin, and we waved and went on our way, munching, as the crowd dispersed behind us.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The Problem of Space
Bangladeshis do not have the same perception of personal space that Americans do. Yesterday evening Bideshi 1 and I had some time to kill in Gulshan 2 while waiting for Tuni and Clay (the fulbrighter couple whose apartment we will be taking over in December) to meet us for dinner. Jen likes pretty fabric. So we went into a nice sari store to browse. Inside the store we were greeted with a polite nod from a salesman. No words were exchanged. Jen and I started to browse. We took a few steps down one aisle. About six feet back, the salesman took a few steps in our direction. Jen stroked some saris and exclaimed over the colors and the workmanship. I glanced nervously over my shoulder. The salesman smiled and nodded. We took a few steps further down the aisle. The salesman took a few steps behind us. Jen fondled some more pretty fabric - Oh isn’t this lovely - Look at the embroidery – Can you believe that this is all hand made, fishing for some response from me. I cast more furtive glances behind me at the salesman. Why is he following us? He hasn’t said anything. Does he speak English? Can he follow our conversation? I wish he would just go back to the counter or something. Jen turns down another aisle. I follow. The salesman follows six feet behind. This is really starting to bug me. Jen exclaims over more fabric. Grumpy now and preoccupied, I don’t respond. She says, o look this is Georgette. The salesman says that is muslin this here is Georgette. So he does speak English and he is listening to our conversation. Aaaaaa now I’m really uncomfortable. Jen notices my sour face. What’s the matter? Do you want to leave? Are you unhappy here? This is her big fear. That I will be unhappy here and that somehow I’ll blame her. This is fine, I say. Damn that damn salesman. Why won’t he leave us alone? Why does it bother me? It shouldn’t bother me. He’s there to be helpful, to answer our questions. He’s happy to have us in his shop. Arrg, I just wish he would stop following me. After a twenty minute eternity I finally admit to Jen that I’d like to leave. We exit the shop back out into the hustle and bustle and stench of the street. Let’s go to Coffee Eleven and wait there for Tuni and Clay, I suggest. Coffee Eleven is a chique little coffee shop that could be in any college town in
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Bideshi 1 checks in
I figured it was finally time for Bideshi 1 to get going on this blog thing – so here we go.
Bangladesh.
Where to begin?
This is my third trip to Dhaka, and I have spent enough time here by now that what I see is mostly what I expect to see. The haze, the lush green, the bright colors of the rickshaws and their drivers and passengers, the markets full of all sorts of produce and carcasses, the brick-breaking and hauling, the gimcracked shanties and jerry-rigged electrical wiring. It is a noisy chaos: endless blaring of horns, ringing of bells, calls of beggars and children, loud salaams as neighbors greet one another in the streets; as we walk past Bangladeshi men, we inevitably hear small choruses of “helohwaryu.” The shirtless children are a little more hip – they chirp ‘hi’ and beam thousand-watt smiles at us.
We are a spectacle. Ben with his green eyes, me with my short, rather unkempt hair and un-made-up face. The weather is cool enough that I can wear jeans fairly comfortably, but while I prefer them infinitely to the huge baggy cotton pants of salwaar kameez, I feel conspicuous wearing them in public. I’ve seen only a few of the most elite, modern, wealthy Bangladeshi women wearing jeans – so it feels like wearing a signboard that says “HEY! Check this out! I am rich, liberal, and SEXY!” But jeans will only be an option for a few months out of the year – I plan to wear them while I can. I wear the long top without too much complaint, and of course the obligatory orna – the wide scarf-shawl worn to cover a woman’s chest. So all in all, I’m probably marginally respectable (at least as far as a western woman is concerned).
We walk side by side and talk as we go. Sometimes I want to reach for his hand, because he’s my husband and because I’m happy to have him beside me – but I don’t, because men and women do not hold hands here. Not unless they are hiding in the shadowed groves of a public park, in which case the rule seems not to apply – they can hold hands and flirt and sit with their thighs touching and be generally scandalous. So I suppose if Ben and I really wanted to hold hands, we could search out a place to do it – but it just seems easier to resist the urge and go home instead.
Home right now is the same apartment where I’ve spent that last two summers: a vast echoing 3-bedroom cavern in the diplomatic enclave of northern Dhaka. Two other Fulbrighters are occupying the other two bedrooms. Ours is as comfortable as we could make it under the circumstances – over the summer I acquired a floor mat, a rug, a collection of floor pillows, a little glass-topped coffee table (which I actually had made to order – an excellent language-learning exercise, since it involved not only giving specs in Bangla, but calling to change the order once I’d submitted it. It turned out quite nicely, and I am inordinately proud of it.). My set of tabla drums is in one corner, and there’s a nice bright spread on our lumpy bed. Overall, quite homey. Our arrangement here is a temporary boarding-house sort of deal; we have a cook who keeps track of our meals and costs, and we pay him whenever it’s time for more groceries. Our food so far has been edible, but it contains so much oil that I can’t bear to eat it more than once a day – but restaurants are cheap, so as my guts adjust we can find lots of other alternatives. So far we’re making do just fine.
But we are very much looking forward to a time when we’ll have a kitchen of our very own, and a cozy living room where we can stretch out and relax. We’ve found the perfect place – a large apartment in central Dhaka, in a place called Rajabazaar. It’s currently occupied by another married couple – also Fulbrighters – who will be moving out at the beginning of December and who will be able to pass on all their appliances and furniture to boot. The place is fantastic, with a beautiful view of some coconut trees from the living room, windows in every room, balconies off each of the three bedrooms (Ben and I can each have our own Playroom!), in a pretty neighborhood that is 100% authentic Bangladeshi. (As opposed to the diplomatic enclave, that is – which I estimate to be between 0 and 5% authentic Bangladeshi.) The kitchen is small but adequate, and we’ll have a refrigerator and cookstove (no oven). Internet is already sorted out, as are other conveniences such as newspaper and fresh milk delivery. Besides that, it’s in a great situation for my research – just a short walk to several markets of various types and sizes. We’re already counting down the days till we can move in – just three weeks and some change until Dec. 1, when we can start cooking for ourselves!
Which, come to think of it, will be a bit of an adventure – I know next to nothing about the various fruits and vegetables in the bazaar, and there are scads of kinds of rice and lentils to choose from. And the spices! And the dried fish! And the live fish! So perhaps our readership can help us out. I propose that once we’re settled in the new place, B and I should initiate a weekly Market Challenge, in which we provide a photograph and a name of a particular foodstuff, and Our Dear Readers can send us suggestions for what to do with it. Results will be duly reported. (We suggest this in honor of our friends the SpokaFocas, whose Use-It-Or-Lose-It Challenge has produced some very tasty meals.) But speaking of food – I think Sujit, our kindly cook, has an oily and heavily spiced lunch ready for us. I’ll go slurp it down, followed immediately by another dose of Ranitidine - which already looks like it will be an indispensable wonder-drug over the next 3+ weeks!
Bangladesh.
Where to begin?
This is my third trip to Dhaka, and I have spent enough time here by now that what I see is mostly what I expect to see. The haze, the lush green, the bright colors of the rickshaws and their drivers and passengers, the markets full of all sorts of produce and carcasses, the brick-breaking and hauling, the gimcracked shanties and jerry-rigged electrical wiring. It is a noisy chaos: endless blaring of horns, ringing of bells, calls of beggars and children, loud salaams as neighbors greet one another in the streets; as we walk past Bangladeshi men, we inevitably hear small choruses of “helohwaryu.” The shirtless children are a little more hip – they chirp ‘hi’ and beam thousand-watt smiles at us.
We are a spectacle. Ben with his green eyes, me with my short, rather unkempt hair and un-made-up face. The weather is cool enough that I can wear jeans fairly comfortably, but while I prefer them infinitely to the huge baggy cotton pants of salwaar kameez, I feel conspicuous wearing them in public. I’ve seen only a few of the most elite, modern, wealthy Bangladeshi women wearing jeans – so it feels like wearing a signboard that says “HEY! Check this out! I am rich, liberal, and SEXY!” But jeans will only be an option for a few months out of the year – I plan to wear them while I can. I wear the long top without too much complaint, and of course the obligatory orna – the wide scarf-shawl worn to cover a woman’s chest. So all in all, I’m probably marginally respectable (at least as far as a western woman is concerned).
We walk side by side and talk as we go. Sometimes I want to reach for his hand, because he’s my husband and because I’m happy to have him beside me – but I don’t, because men and women do not hold hands here. Not unless they are hiding in the shadowed groves of a public park, in which case the rule seems not to apply – they can hold hands and flirt and sit with their thighs touching and be generally scandalous. So I suppose if Ben and I really wanted to hold hands, we could search out a place to do it – but it just seems easier to resist the urge and go home instead.
Home right now is the same apartment where I’ve spent that last two summers: a vast echoing 3-bedroom cavern in the diplomatic enclave of northern Dhaka. Two other Fulbrighters are occupying the other two bedrooms. Ours is as comfortable as we could make it under the circumstances – over the summer I acquired a floor mat, a rug, a collection of floor pillows, a little glass-topped coffee table (which I actually had made to order – an excellent language-learning exercise, since it involved not only giving specs in Bangla, but calling to change the order once I’d submitted it. It turned out quite nicely, and I am inordinately proud of it.). My set of tabla drums is in one corner, and there’s a nice bright spread on our lumpy bed. Overall, quite homey. Our arrangement here is a temporary boarding-house sort of deal; we have a cook who keeps track of our meals and costs, and we pay him whenever it’s time for more groceries. Our food so far has been edible, but it contains so much oil that I can’t bear to eat it more than once a day – but restaurants are cheap, so as my guts adjust we can find lots of other alternatives. So far we’re making do just fine.
But we are very much looking forward to a time when we’ll have a kitchen of our very own, and a cozy living room where we can stretch out and relax. We’ve found the perfect place – a large apartment in central Dhaka, in a place called Rajabazaar. It’s currently occupied by another married couple – also Fulbrighters – who will be moving out at the beginning of December and who will be able to pass on all their appliances and furniture to boot. The place is fantastic, with a beautiful view of some coconut trees from the living room, windows in every room, balconies off each of the three bedrooms (Ben and I can each have our own Playroom!), in a pretty neighborhood that is 100% authentic Bangladeshi. (As opposed to the diplomatic enclave, that is – which I estimate to be between 0 and 5% authentic Bangladeshi.) The kitchen is small but adequate, and we’ll have a refrigerator and cookstove (no oven). Internet is already sorted out, as are other conveniences such as newspaper and fresh milk delivery. Besides that, it’s in a great situation for my research – just a short walk to several markets of various types and sizes. We’re already counting down the days till we can move in – just three weeks and some change until Dec. 1, when we can start cooking for ourselves!
Which, come to think of it, will be a bit of an adventure – I know next to nothing about the various fruits and vegetables in the bazaar, and there are scads of kinds of rice and lentils to choose from. And the spices! And the dried fish! And the live fish! So perhaps our readership can help us out. I propose that once we’re settled in the new place, B and I should initiate a weekly Market Challenge, in which we provide a photograph and a name of a particular foodstuff, and Our Dear Readers can send us suggestions for what to do with it. Results will be duly reported. (We suggest this in honor of our friends the SpokaFocas, whose Use-It-Or-Lose-It Challenge has produced some very tasty meals.) But speaking of food – I think Sujit, our kindly cook, has an oily and heavily spiced lunch ready for us. I’ll go slurp it down, followed immediately by another dose of Ranitidine - which already looks like it will be an indispensable wonder-drug over the next 3+ weeks!
What to Pay a Rickshawalla?
In the two days that we’ve been here we’ve hired six or eight rickshawallas to give us rides into Gulshan 2, the perpetual traffic jam/market area where most of the Baridhara neighborhood residents do their shopping. The ride one way takes 10-15 minutes during which some 80 lb bean pole of a Bangladeshi is pumping the pedals for all he’s worth while dodging oncoming cars and busses and rickshaws and soldiers with guns and trying not to fall into the crater sized potholes in the pavement or run over the beggar with his elephantitis afflicted legs sticking out into the street or get to close to the reeking heap of garbage with the little kid picking through it. When we reach our destination the inevitable question arises, what do we pay him? What is the ride worth? The going rate seems to be about 10 taka. That’s what Sujit our housekeeper or Shakil Jen’s language teacher/assistant would pay, which amounts to approximately 14 cents. But what if there are two people on the rickshaw? Or three? Should you pay more? How much more? What if you change your mind about where you’re going partway through the ride and cause the rickshawalla to take a slightly longer route than he would have chosen? Taking all these things into consideration we’ve paid anywhere from 10-60 taka. Every time we pay, the rickshawalla looks at us like we’ve just broken his balls. How could we give him so little? He had to take us the long way round, he got hassled by a cop on our behalf for taking an illegal shortcut, the ride was sooo long… Each time I feel his pain. He does have it hard. Harder than Jen or I will likely ever be able to relate to. Neither of us would work so hard for so little. But if the going rate is 10 taka, are we displaying our social incompetence by paying more? Shakil told us this afternoon, “never pay more than fifteen.” Fifteen is an awkward number for us. We have 10’s and 20’s but no 5’s yet. So we’ve basically settled on 20 taka per ride or 1.4 cents per minute per person.
We've Arrived
We’ve arrived. The journey here was uneventful and from my perspective not even very painful since I managed to sleep through most of both long flights. We were met at the airport by a guy named Hasan from the
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Heads of State
Bideshi 2 writes –
Here it is T minus 42 hours and change until departure and I’m concerned because today on the train to the National Gallery to see the Edward Hopper exhibit, the Examiner (a freebee paper which I found lying on the seat) brought to my attention the fact that I did not know who Nicolas Sarkozy was. I exposed my ignorance to Bideshi 1 and she graciously explained that he was the president of
So in the interest of postponing the display of my American ignorance at least two rounds in an exchange of small talk I decided that I should learn the names of six or eight foreign heads of state. Here goes:
Nicolas Sarkozy, France
Angela Merkel,
Gordon Brown,
Stephen Harper,
Kim
Okay that’s a start anyway. The fact is though (it now occurs to me) in
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
