Happy Thanksgiving!

Yikes. I can't believe it's been at least three weeks since my last post. That's a long time. But my lack of posts is due to lack of inspiration. I have not been up to much in Dhaka lately and I will admit, going to the gym and the spa can get a little old after a while. At the same time, I think my lack of inspiration is due to my own laziness. I could have easily organized a day trip outside of Dhaka or visited a museum or two (For example, I still need to visit the Liberation War Museum that depicts Dhaka's fight for independence.). But I didn't, so it's in part my own fault.

I should be feeling some more inspiration soon, however, as I am traveling to Kathmandu, Nepal tomorrow. I'm very excited to get out of Dhaka and explore a new country. I should have an interesting post, along with interesting pictures, when I return. In the meantime, I'll post some pictures that I've taken over the past few weeks to keep you entertained.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all! You can think of me trekking in the Himalayas while you're eating your turkey and stuffing. (Incidentally, I received about 6 invitations for Thanksgiving. Never fear, the Embassy community takes care of each other.)

My Commute to Work: The Traffic and the Garment Factory Workers


Say No to Drugs, Say Yes to Tacos: Outside El Toro, the only Mexican Restaurant in Dhaka (and I would bet all of Bangladesh). It's actually quite decent food for a Tex-Mex restaurant in Bangladesh.


Baskin Robbins in Banani: Baskin Robbins is my favorite kind of ice cream in the States. It wasn't exactly the same in Dhaka. If someone could explain what a "sublime and benignant" ice cream is that would be great. Also "artisan and aberrant" ice cream? I'm not really sure.


The Bull Outside my Hotel: I'm not quite sure what he's doing here.


The next few pictures are from a day trip I took to Gazipur. A colleague and I went to speak with various people about the upcoming Parliamentary elections, which have now been delayed until Decemebr 29th.

Traffic on the Way to Gazipur


The stuff people are able to put on a rickshaw--Amazing. I just feel bad for the poor rickshaw driver.


Narrow Roads: The roads were very narrow the further away from Dhaka we got. Thank goodness our drivers are great.


Crowds: This was a mass of people that surrounded my colleague and me. It doesn't take long before a crowd will surround me, especially in a smaller village.


Watch out for various traffic obstacles!


A Brick Making "Factory"


A Convenience Store


A Tea Stand (The picture is hazy because of the smoke billowing from the pot of boiling tea.)

It's Thursday!

(Ok, so now it's Friday here, but I started drafting this yesterday, so decided to keep the title.)

For some reason, "It's Thursday!" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "It's Friday!" I thought by now I would be used to working Sunday-Thursday and having the weekend on Friday and Saturday, but I'm beginning to think you never get used to it. It's always strange to watch tv Friday night and realize that financial markets are open in the U.S. and people are going about there regular business day. Not to mention the Sunday-Thursday work week makes it more difficult to connect with Washington. That's probably the hardest part. Due to our different weekends and the time difference, we only overlap with our Washington colleagues on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, making it sometimes tough to get things accomplished in a timely manner.

But our election event went great the other day. Like so many others around the world, the Bangladeshis that I've talked to are EXTREMELY excited about the election of Barack Obama. I think everyone feels that change is in the air and no matter what, it will be an exciting time. I particularly enjoyed reading the first paragraph of Ethan Bronner's NY Times article from November 5, 2008, which I think accurately portrays what people here are thinking of Obama's election: "From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens."

It's also interesting to juxtapose our American elections with the upcoming Bangladeshi Parliamentary elections that will be held on December 18th. Many Bangladeshis are skeptical as to whether elections will even happen in the first place, but if they do happen, the transition from the current Caretaker Government (which came to power in a "quasi-military coup" in 2007 and has attempted to make significant reforms over the past two years, all the while maintaining a State of Emergency) to the next government will not be smooth. As a result, it makes people nervous and anxious as to what the future holds for Bangladesh. Which, makes me grateful that I am from a country where, despite political differences, the transition from a Republican administration to a Democratic administration will be smooth. It's quite an amazing feat when you think about it.

Dhaka's Simple Pleasures

In an attempt to avoid watching CNN International for, oh, about the next 17 hours as we await with bated breathe the election of our new President, I decided to blog. (Incidentally, we are having a pretty bag bash tomorrow morning [since that's when polls will close in the U.S.] so that 800 of our closest Bangladeshi friends can watch the election returns with us and recognize the importance of voting. Perhaps I'll have more interesting anecdotes on that tomorrow.)

I've been meaning to blog about some of the other things I really enjoy about living here. They are small things, but always make me smile and make me thankful that I'm here experiencing a different culture and country.

1. The Call to Prayer. There's something very soothing about hearing the call to prayer a few times a day. While I typically don't hear calls during my day since I'm usually inside working, when I do hear it I try to relish the moment and pause for a few seconds. As my colleague Bob said, hearing the call five times a day is a great little reminder to be thankful for what you have and say a prayer (or at least think good thoughts) for family and friends. (I will admit though that, for obvious reasons, I could do without the 4:30 a.m. call to prayer. Fortunately, I usually don't hear that one.)

2. The Oodles of Sari Stores. While I'd heard that South Asia is full of beautiful cloth, I wasn't prepared for the inordinate amount of saris. There are entire stores--big stores--dedicated to saris and there are tons of shopping malls with one, two or three levels devoted entirely to saris. Each store will have a myriad of saris lined along the wall in what are basically bookshelves. When you enter the stores, barefoot men sitting on an elevated, padded bench will ask you which sari you want to see and they will pull out sari after sari from the shelf until you are satisfied. Plus, they'll even try it on so you can see what it looks like! Frankly, the number of choices are overwhelming and I have yet to buy a sari. But I am getting more confident in shopping for one, which makes the epxerience all the more enjoyable and, simply, makes me happy. I'll try to snag a picture of one of these stores soon so you can see better picture what I'm talking about, but in the meantime, check out one of my colleague's posts' on her sari shopping experience. It's much more eloquent than my account.

3. People Singing on the Street. Perhaps Bangladeshis are just more uninhibited than Americans? Probably not, but it is true when it comes to singing in public places. I often pass by men randomly singing to themselves while carrying a load of fruit on their head or rickshaw wallahs singing to pass the time before they get another fare. I appreciate this attitude of not caring who hears them and wish we could import this to the States (perhaps this is because I like to sing?). If only I could understand what they were singing, I'm sure I would enjoy it even more.

4. Splash (at the Westin). Ok, ok. So this is actually a Western import to Dhaka, but I find this cafe that sits by the pool extremely relaxing. There's a great waterfall and lots of plants, not to mention the food is pretty darn good, if expensive, particulalry by Dhaka standards. I only just discovered Splash, so perhaps the novelty of it is why I'm including it in this entry. But still, I haven't found many cafes in the States that are as enjoyable. Although, really, let's be honest, that's probably because I wouldn't be able to afford going to a place like this in the States! But, hey, at least I recognize number 4 as an elitist, Western simple pleasure.

I'm sure there are other simple pleasures that I'm missing. As I think of them, I'll let you know what they are, but for now, back to watching CNN!

A Weekend of Culture

So I haven't posted in a while because, frankly, not too much has been going on. Life is well--full of squash, swimming, dinners with friends, but nothing majorly exciting. But, this weekend was full of culture.

Friday, I went to the studio/apartment of Kalidas Karmakar, a fairly well-known Bangladeshi artist. A few of his pieces are at the Embassy and I've really admired his work, so I lucked out when my boss organized an outing so we could check out some of his art. Frankly, I was hoping for a free piece of art, but I knew that was wishful thinking. Instead, I got a cool poster featuring one of his works, a booklet of some of his pieces, and a tasty Bengali lunch with nice company and good conversation.

Continuing my culural weekend, my colleague and friend David and I checked out an event at the Lalbagh Fort hosted by the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was an evening of "Sound and Light" and ended up being pretty cool. The Fort is in Old Dhaka, and while I haven't seen it during the day, it was impressive surrounded by lights and all set up for this big event. A brief sound and light show depicting Dhaka's 400 year history started the night and then that was followed by...a fashion show! That's right, a fashion show. You can check out a picture of it here. It was the first fashion show I've ever been to and I felt very Project Runway/America's Next Top Model-esque. The show portrayed various fashion in Dhaka throughout the years--the Mughal influence, the British influence, post-1947 Dhaka, and post-independence Dhaka. It was definitely cool, although it went on a little long. So long, in fact, that we skipped out on dinner and went to Pizza Hut, where we knew what kind of food we'd be getting and wouldn't have to stand in a long buffet line.

Here's David and me with one of the "guards" for the evening. Incidentally, another "guard" offered to take our picture, we had to kindly turn the camera around for him since he had no idea which way the camera should face. Oops!


I topped off my weekend with a shopping trip to Dhanmondi with a few girls from work, where we visited the the Bengal Gallery of Fine Art. A weekend full of art and culture...in Dhaka.

Backtracking: Durga Puja and Cox's Bazar

I was a little bit run down with a cold this week after my trip to Cox's Bazar, so am now playing catch up with my posts. I'll try to wrap them up and get back on track.

Durga Puja
Durga Puja was great fun. From Dhaka, it took us about an hour and a half to travel to the Kumudini Trust in Dhamrai where we watched the festival. Unfortunately, most of my pictures did not turn out so well, but in this one of my friends Katie, Sydnee and me you can see the elaborate set-up of the goddess Durga in the background and us wearing our teeps (or, in Hindi, bindis)--the little dots in the middle of our foreheads.

After the ceremony, the owners of Kumudini invited us into their home and below are a couple of shots of the kicthen--it was huge and as usual, this woman was very proud to have her picture taken.










Cox's Bazar

The day after the Durga Puja ceremony, I flew to Cox's Bazar in the southeast cordner of Bangladesh. It was a nice break from Dhaka and I enjoyed seeing more rural areas of Bangladesh, which are still full of people, but at least there is a lot more green than Dhaka. As I wasn't in Cox's Bazar for vacation, I didn't get to see too much of the beach. But I did love seeing people swimming in their clothes. I can only imagine the stares I would have gotten if I'd stripped down to a bathing suit and jumped in the Bay of Bengal.

The purpose of my visit to Cox's Bazar was to visit two Rohyinga refugee camps, Kutupalong and Nyapara. Since 1992, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has run these camps for the Rohyinga, who are Muslim migrants from the northern Rakhine state of Burma. Many Rohyinga fled persecution from the Myanmar government to Bangladesh, although Bangladesh has not necessarily treated them much better as the majority have not received citizenship and they remain a stateless population trapped in the camps. As it was my first visit to a refugee camp I wasn't sure what to expect, but it really was an interesting experience. Apparently conditions in the camps have significantly improved over the last few years and many of the NGOs we visited with are doing great work there, including Austcare and Handicap International. I was amazed at how close we were to Burma, too--only about six kilometers.

The women in this picture motioned to me that
they were hungry, but supposedly only a few
people of the 10,000 that live in each camp suffer from severe malnutrition.

These children look so proud and loved having their picture taken.
















And finally, Cox's Bazar from the plane. It's amazing to see how much water truly surrounds this country.

Back in Dhaka: the Bihari, or the minority Urdu-speaking Bangladeshis
Back in Dhaka, we visited one more site where the Bihari, or more correctly, Bangladesh's Urdu-speaking minority, live. The Bihari have been stateless since the founding of Bangladesh in 1971 and it has only been over the past year that they were allowed to register for id cards in Bangladesh, which basically means they are now citizens. The Bihari still have a long way to go, as the conditions we saw at Mirpur camp were deplorable. (Really so terrible I've never even imagined such conditions.) But al Falah, an NGO working in the camps, advocates on behalf of the Bihari to improve conditions and are making some important strides. Surprisingly, most of the people we spoke to are employed, but their poverty is so great it's difficult to save much to improve their lot. This man works six days a week for 12 hours a day. He can make about two saris a week and then sells them to a middleman for about 1000 taka, approximately $14. For Bangladesh, this is actually a fairly decent wage, but again, the poverty is so great it makes it difficult to end the cycle.
- - - -

Ok, that about wraps up last week. This past week was also eventful--I went to a birthday party for my friend Khaled's daughter and son. It wasn't so different from American kids' birthday parties, but it was fun soaking up all of the liveliness and meeting new people. And to top off the week, last night I went to Dandiya, a Hindu festival celebrating something (what that something is, I guess I'm not really sure) where we danced a lot with sticks. I had a great time, but learned that I am terribly uncoordinated when it comes to dancing and hitting sticks at the same time.

Happy Durga Puja

This week we have yet another short week (yes!) thanks to Durga Puja. It's a holiday that's primarily celebrated by Bengali Hindus that celebrates the return of the goddess Durga to her birthplace. It typically lasts about nine days, but in our case, we only get one day off--rats. But I'll be going to a predominantly Hindu village just outside of Dhaka tomorrow to celebrate Durga Puja and I'll be sure to report what goes on at the party. I won't be getting home until late though and am then I'm headed off to Cox's Bazar, which is in southeast Bangladesh near Burma. Cox's Bazar claims to have the longest sandy beach in the world, so I'm eager to see this classic Bangladeshi honeymoon spot.

In the meantime, I'm trying to convince my sister to start a blog, too. She's already famous in Richmond and I think she should expand her popularity by starting a blog of her own. She's got some interesting ideas and I know she'd be great at blogging. If you know her, you should try to encourage her, too. :)

Fletcher Nostalgia

I got together with two Fletcher friends today at Coffee World, another hip and trendy chain in Dhaka. It was great. We reminisced about Fletcher and the good times we all had living in Blakeley, Fletcher's grad student dorm. I met both of them my first week at Fletcher and one of them I met while sitting next to him at a Red Sox game--I had to explain the rules of baseball to the best of my ability, which was surprisingly waaaay more difficult than I thought. I also reminded my friend Ashirul that it took me FOREVER to remember his name, which is pretty atypical for me. But I literally had to ask him his name four or five times. This is a common occurrence for me here and while I'm getting better at remembering names as I become more familiar with them, it's still going to take me longer than it did for me to remember Balkan names. Guess I just have to keep trying.

My friend Ashirul is from Dhaka, but lives in the States so is just visiting his family for a couple months. My other friend Jabed works at the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry. They were of course typically Bangladeshi, with Ash picking up the check for us and Jabed offering to take me on a personal tour of Dhaka whenever I'd like. Such hospitality. Jabed and I will soon try to plan a Fletcher get-together for those of us living and working in Dhaka.

Our other Fletcher friend in Dhaka couldn't get together tonight. But she has also been amazing about showing me around Dhaka. Nermeen took me Eid shopping last week and she and her husband Kamal earlier treated me to a very nice dinner.

You should check out the company that Kamal founded--Cell Bazaar. It's kind of like the Bangladeshi version of Craigslist, except people use their cell phones to buy and sell goods. Like many developing countries, Bangladesh has skipped a technological step. Most people have never had a land line phone, but millions now have cell phones. Grameenphone is probably the most popular (at least anecdotally). You can find people selling i-pods, but more commonly people sell goods like rice, potatoes and dal (lentils).

While this get together was probably the highlight of my week, life in Dhaka is still going well. I spent the rest of my Eid holiday weekend playing squash at the American Club (I am slowly, but surely getting better...at least that's what my marker, Syeed, tells me.), swimming at the American School, eating ice cream at the Westin and getting a facial at Avera, one of the many spas in town. Rough life I'm leading here in Dhaka. Which is one of the reasons it bothers me so much when I hear Westerns complaining about how much they don't like it here. Of course there are things to gripe about and believe me, I'm sure I'll do my share, but really, life here is pretty good and I don't have too many complaints.

And for now, I'll leave you with one of my latest favorite pictures from Dhaka. It's amazing the things you see people carry on rickshaws or CNG's. I just wish I could capture more of these crazy photos (and wish this one was bigger--still trying to figure out how to edit photos on the computer).