Dhaka to Chittagong

Hi Everybody!

I am currently in my grandma’s house in Chittagong, which is an eight hour drive or a thirty minute plane ride from Dhaka. Luckily, my grandma, my cousin Rohan, and I were scheduled to fly in the afternoon while the rest of the family left by car at dawn (or so I thought, as my journey ended up being pretty close to five hours anyways).

I left work early in order to catch our flight at 4 pm. Dhaka traffic meant we arrived at the airport just before three and then took thirty minutes to go through security (which was no more legitimate than the one in front of my BRAC office, as I walked through the scanner with my purse and no one stopped me). Much to my surprise we boarded the plane on time. However, I should have known better than to get my hopes up that we would actually leave on time, as we sat on the tarmac for half an hour waiting for some VIP. Of course the only thing discerning this VIP from the rest of us is the fact that he had a secretary by his side and the airport servants carrying his bags for him. As to how important he really is, I am not sure, but I do know that he wasn’t worth holding the plane and delaying the 75 people on our flight.

The cabin crew finally began preparing for takeoff and gave all the announcements in English (which was stupid because no one but me spoke English on the flight, and even then I had a hard time understanding what they were saying). They closed the doors and started to be taxied to the runway when a servant comes frantically running to the front of the plane, demanding to be let off (he was helping stow the VIP guy’s bags in the back of the plane). The stewardess was not happy, and began yelling at him, asking why he didn’t say anything when they announced doors closing (Well no duh he didn’t say anything when you announced doors closing, he doesn’t speak English! Nor does anyone else on this plane. So how do you expect him to know what you’re saying?). They had to taxi the plane back to the staircase and let the servant off, which took another half an hour of our time. Their logic fails me, as it would have been quite simple to put the guy on a plane back to Dhaka, as they run every 10 minutes. But, then again, maybe there is some rule that I am just unaware of…

Finally we were airborne and made it to Chittagong in a record time of 20 minutes, but the plane had to wait in the air for 15 minutes because the landing wasn’t clear, as we were so off schedule. Things went pretty smoothly from there, we collected our bags with minimal hassle and loaded the car to head home, that is until we got on the main road. I love my grandmother dearly, but something about her being in her home town brings out another whole side of her I don’t see, nor like, very much. She decided that sometime on our plane ride over she had gotten her driving license, and proceeded to boss around our driver the entire trip over. 

Let me explain why this was so detrimental to our travels. When we got in the car it was one and a half hours to sunset, this is ultimately the worst traffic you will ever experience in your life. Everyone from the driver to pedestrians has a serious case of hangry and just wants to go home to break their fast – this translates into serious road rage from taxi cabs, cng, private cars, rickshaws….and well you get the point. The only way to get out of this gridlock of traffic, is to be gutsier than everyone else in front of you, if not, well then you just sit there and don’t move. 

My grandma, of course, decided that aggressive driving was unacceptable, and kept telling our driver to go slower or not to pass the overloaded trucks in the classic Bangladeshi road game of chicken. Because she was the eldest person in our car, he had to listen to her, whether he liked it or not. Being my sassy self, I finally turned to my grandma and asked her when the last time she drove was? and then asked the driver to please ignore her orders and to drive in any way that would get us home faster. I thought I would get a scolding in the worst case scenario, but who would have thought that I held some power in these decisions?! I was shocked when the driver actually listened to what I said!

We were forty minutes away from home now and I was thrilled. My bold and assertive behaviour had been rewarded with a quick travel time. But alas, I should have known the karmic world would catch up with me for being slightly rude to my grandma because ten minutes from home, a CNG rear ended our car. Everyone was okay, but the car’s taillight was smashed and the CNG dented.

We spent the next hour arguing with the CNG driver to get his license and information. Unfortunately there really isn’t insurance here, so the way these accidents are handled is privately. Which translates into a lot of loud voices, big gestures, and exaggerated facts, but never anything productive. My grandma took this moment to blame me for it all, and claimed that if they had been driving the way she said, this wouldn’t have happened. I just sat there silent. Talk about dumb luck.

We finally made it home, and after a quick dinner, I went to bed. Hopefully this trip will turn around, as this first day was nothing short of exhausting. I’ll keep you posted!

Much love,

Carolyn

  

Culture Shock

This weekend my apu surprised my with an impromptu trip to the movie theatres! We went to see A Fault in Our Stars…I know it’s some sappy teenage romance, but to be honest I really didn’t have much of a choice. Besides it was one of the only English movies playing in the theatre and I went with my apu’s nieces, who were both still in high school.

I was expecting the worst, sticky floors, cockroaches, and seats from the 1920s. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked into lower quality version of the Arcadia mall. There were eight floors with miles of little shops, selling everything from western miniskirts to traditional salwaar kameezes (I know, I couldn't believe it myself, this is a country that shut down everyone's access to youtube for a whole month!). The mall is attached to a park decked out with everything from a roller coaster to a double decker merry-go-round (I think they were a little confused as to what a “mall” really means, but it's the one percent building this complex and you only build lavishly in this country because you're trying to attract a very limited middle/upper class). The teenagers milling about the mall were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. 

I've been in Bangladesh for about a month and a half, and I'd like to say that beyond a mild shock in the beginning at the work environment, I basically knew what to expect. But nothing prepared me for this wannabe western scenario. I jut couldn't believe what I was seeing! This is a country where I get endless stares if I so much as forget to wear my scarf when going out (it's so hot that I take it off in the car and once I forgot to put it back on. Didn't make that mistake again). Yet here I was walking around an environment that could have been in the US. It was weird. 

There weren't any signs, nor was there a directory, so we had to amble around the eight flights looking for the theatre (which of course was on the top floor). By then it was 3:00, but the movie didn't officially start until 3:00 so we we're fine. No that's not a typo, this country seems to permanently run thirty minutes late, so if a movie says it starts at three, it means the trailers and everything start at half past three. When we got to the counter they said they couldn't sell us tickets because we weren't part of the fan club and this was the first time the movie was playing, so it was supposedly "sold out". I immediately began brainstorming other things to do instead of watching the movie, but my apu and her nieces just laughed and told me to be patient. 

Half an hour later we  bought four tickets to a "sold out movie." The movie theatre, as it turned out, was only half full when we walked in (the guys must have realized that losing four ticket sales wasn't worth the exclusivity of the membership). It cost us BTK 400 each, which is about $5 per person. Out of context that seems cheap for a nice movie theater, with 2014 seats that lean way back, and an expensive Asian screen and sound system. But over here that BTK 400 is worth just as much as our $25+ movie tickets. You see, cafeteria lunch at work, a heaping plate of rice, some lentils, and a curried meat (usually chicken), costs BTK 40 or around 50 US cents. My three night stay in Baniachong, with breakfast, Iftar, tea time, and full room cleaning, came to a total of BTK 400. That being said, going to the movies is a luxury that many people can't afford. 

The film was, as predicted, an over the top sappy romance just like the many others Nayyirah has managed to drag me off to see over the years (a number which suspiciously increased dramatically once I learned to drive haha). But what I wasn't expecting was how uncomfortable I felt if two characters so much as pecked on the cheek. Over here PDA is a big taboo and friends are more affectionate than married couples. For instance it wouldn't be unusual to see two guys holding hands while walking down the street, or two girls with their arms linked...trust me when I say they are just friends hanging out. But, you will never see a couple so much as sitting close to another, even if they were married for 75 years. It's odd, I know, but that's just how the country works. 

Overall the day was exciting and new, but I couldn't really shake the feeling of being so out of my element afterwards. Even now I can't believe how different things were and how westernized it all was. While I may not agree with much of the Bangladeshi culture, such as the general lack of gender equality, I don't want a carbon copy of the western world here. I think a happy medium is necessary for Bangladesh to move forward without completely losing its identity. I know, easier said than done, right? On thing is for sure though, I've definitely become more attentive to this unspoken divide between the traditional and modern Bangladeshis and fully intend to explore this idea further with my friends. I'll keep you posted!

Much love,

Carolyn

P.s. I brought up the boys of Baniachong post with my supervisor today and he had some interesting facts and theories I will share with you tomorrow!

The Boys of Baniachang

Hello Everyone!!!

Work has finally decided to give me lots of things to do, and all of a sudden I find myself swamped! I knew this was going to happen. My life has reached a lull of permanently editing documents for my coworkers, so things haven't been too exciting. As a solution, I've posted a collection of pictures from my trip to the fisheries below. 

Baniachang has a unique situation with schools because within the poor and ultra poor classes, more girls attend classes than boys. Unfortunately this isn't a testament to gender equality in the most rural regions of the country, but rather a reflection of child labour opportunities. In and around the cities, garment factories are one of the largest sources of female income generation. Therefore, the urban areas follow the more typical developing country model of families sending girls to work and boys to school.

In the haor areas, the flooding creates seasonal occupations, such as boatmen and fish farmers (which are male only jobs). Children already have a hard time attending school regularly during monsoon because they can no longer walk to class and cannot afford to rent a boat. Male students especially have high dropout rates during monsoon, as an increase in the job market is conducive to poor attendance. The family benefits from the extra income and pushes the child to go to work, the child misses school and falls behind in his/her studies, rather than catching up on six months material the child continues to work as a labourer, jumping from one job opportunity to the next.

I was shocked myself to walk into a school and see that 90% of the kids were girls. Normally it's the reverse and it was most refreshing to see that girls were finally the ones getting an education for a change. However, I realised that most programmes were targeting the wrong audience regarding child labour because they did not adjust their model to the unique situation in these villages. While I'm sure they recognised the situation, the reality is that donors don't want to fund a programme that will increase male class attendance in some of the most hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh. But, if you say 27 out of 30 students in BRAC's primary school are female, you've created an eligible programme that will recieve lots of funding, even if it doesn't address the real problem.

My coworkers are appalled when I tell them that I probably won't go into the non-profit sector as a permanent occupation, and scoff at the idea of entering the corporate world with a social mission. They feel that large corporations are all about money, and yet if they just took a second to evaluate their organisation, they would realise 99% of their job is fundraising (don't worry, I won't tell them because I am fairly certain my entire department would have a heart attack after hearing such blasphemy). Nevertheless, after I submit my edits to their boat school research proposal, I intend to bring up the subject about male student attendance and see what their response is. If I'm lucky, maybe it will be jarring enough to create some programme changes.

Cinderella

Working here at BRAC has introduced me to a world of theatrically fake formalities. For instance, every morning we go through a security scanner and bag check. Which would be fine, except for the fact that none of the security guards actually open your bags and the scanner beeps every time a person walks through, but no one asks you to go through it again (I've just started walking through the scanner with my phone in my hands...it's that pointless).

This morning, as is the case with most of my workdays here, I was on the phone with my family. However, not even ten minutes into the call, the office manager came by my desk and asked that I go outside to take the call because everyone here was busy "working." Which was fine, except for the fact that she sent me to the servants stairwell which didn't have a doorknob on the other end and the "work" she was talking about was the entire floor chitchatting about the final world cup game. Hahaha, I was a twenty-year-old on a timeout at work. It had to be one of the funniest things that ever happened to me here in Bangladesh. Of course I was unperturbed and proceeded to spend the next two hours just making calls because I have nothing better to do here. The irony of it all is that as soon as I returned, my cubicle mate got on the phone and literally started screaming for the next half an hour. No one sent him into the servant's stairwell...

A Series of (Un)Fortunate Events

Okay so I owe you guys, big time. I was really scared to post something new because my last post was just so personal to me that I thought there was no way I could ever duplicate it. But finally common sense kicked in at about 3 am last night, and I realized that you all would probably much rather hear about my time here than have an overworked and worried post. So, without further ado, here’s a glimpse into my life for the past week and a half.

A Very American Fourth of July

The American Club was throwing a party, fireworks and all for all American (and Canadian) passport holders, however I decided to celebrate my holiday in a true melting pot kind of way. I met up with friends at the local coffee shop and retold the events of my field visit. I’m pretty sure we sat there for five hours just chatting away. The four of us discussed everything from Bangladesh’s pre-industrial stage to available medication US vs UK. Then we proceeded to a North Korean restaurant (with an entire North Korean restaurant crew :O) and met up with other Europeans for dinner. The food was delicious and they had special entertainment that night. Yours truly got pulled up on stage to sing an Asian-fied version of Dancing Queen by ABBA. My friends are still laughing about that one....So you see? Our table was a mixture of all cultures, races, and ethnicities...it just doesn’t get any more American than that.

Mother Always Knows...(even if she is 8,013 miles away)

I went over to Jes’ apartment with the intention of cooking tacos for dinner (which bordered Mission Impossible). After a relatively successful grocery store run, in which we abandoned all hope of finding avocados and substituted cucumbers for lettuce, she and I got started with the preparations. Although it was a twenty minute recipe, we started three hours early (and a good thing too! as the food just barely finished cooking in time for Iftar). While cooking, we started teaching each other colloquial words of the US and UK, lessons which quickly turned to modernized version of the scene from My Fair Lady where Mr. Higgins has Eliza repeat her “a” vowel over and over again. Except, instead of vowels we were practicing with local swear words. Alas, I should have known better because we were in for quite a karmic surprise. As we sat down for Iftar I broke my fast with a bite of taco, and then turned to watch Jes’ reaction in which she said “It tastes like dish soap!” We proceeded to try all of the toppings separately in effort to locate the source of the soapy flavour but our efforts were in vain. It seems that even though our mums weren’t there to personally chastise us for swearing, they still managed to wash our mouths out with a soapy dinner. Moral of the story: beware of super motherly powers, they’ll get you every time.

 

Seven to One

Dear Brazil,

I wanted you to lose but that was just embarrassing. I can’t believe I stayed up all night to watch that game at 2 am. Please re-evaluate your career choice.

Xo,

Carolyn

P.S. Commentators are the best – “If your last name starts with K, you will probably score a goal in this game”