Tuesday, June 25, 2013

My Introduction to Dhaka or OMG I Love Goats(!!!)

06/25/13

Walking down a street in Bashundarah (our neighborhood)

The plane touched down in Dhaka so smoothly that I almost did not realize we had landed. As we coasted along the runway, I looked out over a lush, green landscape, full of tall grass and the occasional palm tree. It was 5:30 in the morning, but I could already feel the strength of the sun. It had been two uneventful flights—I slept through almost all of both of them—though I was embarrassingly awkward sitting next to a Bangladeshi man for the second flight. I had forgotten how difficult it is to know how to behave in a public that is populated mainly by men. I had forgotten, too, the South Asian disregard for lines—a disregard the anarchist in me grudgingly respects—until I watched the shoving competition between passengers as they rushed to be the first out of their seats and to the front of the plane before we had even stopped moving. None of the flight attendants batted an eye at the fact that the fasten seat belt sign was still on and I found myself giggling quietly at this moment of delightful chaos.
My next reminder that I was in South Asia came when I stopped to use the restroom in the terminal before waiting in the passport control line; a squat toilet sans toilet paper but with a small bucket and a hose for post-urination cleaning greeted me (if you are as awkward with the hose as I am, you will just carry a packet of tissues absolutely everywhere). Plus a woman lying on the ground next to the sink (possibly spending the night in the bathroom…unclear). After making it through passport control, we stepped out into an already-humid summer morning. We passed our luggage to the bus-driver through the back windows, and boarded a bus that would take us to our apartment building. Dhaka traffic, our teachers warn us, is the worst you will ever see. It can take 2 hours to go 10 kilometers. Certainly, the drive from the airport consisted of many stops and starts, along with some clever maneuvering on the part of our driver into spaces that seemed too small to fit the entire bus. There are two kinds of public bus, the buses named by route (these are the good ones) and the numbered or “tin-can” buses (these are the ones that regularly kill people). The tin-can buses look like they have tried a few too many times to fit into narrow spaces in traffic, their sides beat up with scrapes and scratches.

A block from our apartment building

I am used to living accommodations in South Asia that are less than stellar. My first home, in Jaipur, was a steamy room over my host-mother’s garage. It had no air conditioning in the 100 degree summer heat, holes in the windows that let in—among other unpleasant creatures—a giant rat , and a shower that regularly gave me mild electric shocks. My host-mother also purposefully served us unfiltered water. Perhaps I don’t need to say that most study abroad experiences are going to be better than that one? Our apartment building is one of a multitude of brick towers coated in concrete. The rooms are spacious, clean, air conditioned (!). I have my own room and my own bathroom. We are fed two meals a day by cooks who genuinely seem to like us and want to feed us tasty things we will enjoy. We have cleaning people who come daily and a laundry person who comes twice a week to wash our clothes. We also have a “Resident Director” which seems to mean an American guy who speaks amazing Bangla and knows Dhaka well and who is there to make sure everything is going alright in school, the apartments, and daily life. I feel so ridiculously spoiled!
After 24 hours of travel time, our early morning arrival meant that we somehow had to stay awake through another entire day in order to avoid the worst of the jetlag. We were fed breakfast, given a quick housing orientation, and taken on a walking tour of the neighborhood during the hottest time of the day. I was dripping sweat the moment I stepped out the front door. We walked through disgustingly filthy streets with garbage, sewage, and huge puddles of brackish water everywhere. This may sound completely miserable, and there are moments where I find it distasteful, but for the most part, it becomes a part of the background experience of living my day-to-day life. It’s not exactly getting used to it. I always notice. It’s more like I stop caring enough about it to be noticeably bothered by the situation.




I have always struggled to describe how I experience my surroundings in South Asia because it is just so different from anything we see on a daily basis in the “west”. But I’m trying anyway. Our neighborhood is on the outskirts of the city and while there are massive amounts of construction everywhere I have been, there are extra-massive amounts in our immediate surroundings. Every other building seems to be in the midst of being built, with sticks propping up each level and workers swarming the front yards cutting pipe and laying brick. At the same time, there are small open plots of land covered in grass, (adorable) baby goats and (slightly scarier) adult goats roaming free, dogs everywhere (that most Bangladeshis see the way we see rats) and unpaved dirt roads. There are luxurious mansions that could be in any Hollywood film and tin shacks sharing the same space. And there are people EVERYWHERE. So many people. I am so excited to start roaming the city, but so exhausted even thinking about the amount of energy needed to navigate this many people and this many contrasting stimuli.

How cute is this goat?!

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