My time spent at Bonani was great. When I got there, I also met Rafiba’s three-year-old sister, Nusaiba, and another cousin from my father’s side (my dad’s brother’s daughter), Lina. The three of us spent most of the days either munching, snacking, or chatting about my journey, and our lives, while Nusaiba played around us. Rafiba is getting married in January and the preparations are still ongoing. We became pretty good friends and kind of like sisters, in a short while. They were both very welcoming, friendly, and had been eager to meet me. Rafiba’s brother Zaheen also dropped by every evening so I got to meet him and get to know him too. Rafiba is already studying at a university, but Zaheen will start from the next term this fall. He just finished college a few months back as well as his exams. Lina, meanwhile, is already in medical school.
That’s the thing many will find strange, that once a person starts at a university, he/she jumps right into the area of his/her concentration, whether it be pharmacy, business, medicine, or engineering. Those who start in medical school go directly into a five-year program. Once they complete the program, they’re full-fledged doctors but still have to do a residency.
That Sunday night, the 24th, I met with Adina and another friend, Maleya, for dinner at a sushi restaurant in the Gulshan residential area. Maleya also went to UNI with us and graduated with us, though not at the same time. The three of us were very good friends back in Iowa and always hung out together. After Maleya graduated, she came back to Dhaka with her mom. Her mom had come to Iowa to see her graduate. When Maleya left, neither nor I thought we’d see each other again, unless either she came back to Cedar Falls or I came to Dhaka. It was a great reunion for all three of us, and almost felt like it used to with one exception. Maleya has since gotten married and has a baby son, Zayaaf. He is so cute and looks like his mom.
After that reunion dinner, and after heading to the Sheraton Hotel lobby for some delicious ice-cream, Maleya dropped me back at Bonani. I felt like I was leaving one circle of friends and heading back toward another. I’m close to both sets of friends, but closer to particular people than a particular group.
This ice-cream incident reminds me of another place I went to earlier this week, either the 22nd or 23rd, with Adina and her family. After dinner, we headed for a popular spot well known for its variety of flavors. This is also why so many Westerners who live and work in Dhaka frequent this place. By Westerner, I am referring to Americans, British and other Europeans, and even though, I’m geographically wrong, in one sense of the word, I’m also referring to Australians and New Zealanders. My apologies; I can’t think of the name of this place right now.
After heaping a chocolate caramel and mocha special into a cup, I sat down with Adina’s family to chow down and people watch. I was curious to know what most Western women wear while in Bangladesh. Most there wore either salwar kameez sets or Bengali-designed tops and ankle-length skirts. I watched a group of people from very diverse backgrounds but they were on the other end of the seating areas, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It was still strange and comforting to be there because at that point, I really felt like I was back in the states in probably a more diverse city than Cedar Falls. Chicago, New York, San Antonio, Los Angeles, or Houston, maybe?
Friday, August 29, 2008
Progress!
In twenty years, shopping in Dhaka as I knew it has changed dramatically. Back in the day, people shopped for clothes and other items at open-air stalls at New Market, where crowds gathered like flies at a garbage dump. There were no grocery stores, and no malls. This time, several grocery stores like Nandan and Meena Bazaar and malls such as Bashundhara City and Pink City have been established. In addition, Dhaka now boasts shopping complexes such as Rifle Square in my neck of the woods, at Dhanmondi. What’s more, places like Chandni Chowk and Rapa Plaza have centralized individual clothing and cloth stores into one location. Both are located in buildings with a few stories each. The inside of both are labyrinthine, but one is different from the other in a few ways. Rapa Plaza is smaller but more modern with escalators, and has a parking center next to it. Chandni Chowk is still in aditional setting with staircases tucked in, what seemed to me at the time, towards the center.
I went to my first big mall at Bashundhara City on the 22nd, a Friday afternoon, and got to see how things had really changed. There is a food court on one side of the top floor and a movie theater on the other. Each floor boasts different items with mens clothing being on floor, women’s on another, electronics on the main floor, and jewelry on yet another. Escalators and elevators carry shoppers from one floor to another just as at any other modern mall.
I bought a new Samsung cell phone from a store that day. My mom had bought a Grameen Phone SIM card earlier and gotten it registered with them. When buying it, the clerk put installed the SIM and handed it back to me along with a cell phone charger. My mobile is on the low end of phones, at 3300 taka (the equivalent of just over $47) with just the basic features. At this time, I can’t afford a higher-priced phone.
I stayed with Adina until the next day when a change of plans led me to call my cousin, Rafiba, in Bonani to pick me up and take me to her parents’ house. The plan was to stay with my cousins and go back to Dhanmondi after her parents, my uncle and aunt (my mom’s sister) returned from Singapore. They had flown first to China not just for the Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony but also because my uncle has business interests there, as well as many other places. They then stopped in Singapore because Rafiba’s brother will start college (the equivalent of the 11th and 12th grades in the states) there. His parents went there to see him settled in.
The education system in Bangladesh is based on the old British system, so that students go through kindergarten or 1st grade to 10th, as usual. At the end of the 10th grade, or class 10 as they also call it, students take the O-level exams, also called the metric level exam, and then enter into “college,” or the intermediate level. The scores they get on their O-levels play a big part on what college they can apply for and get admission. At the end of class 12, or their intermediate studies, students take the A-level exams.
Note that two students are taught at two-different mediums: the Bangla (or Bengali) medium school and the English-medium school. Medium refers to the language used in teaching students. Communication between teachers, students, and administrators is also carried out in that language, whether Bengali or English. Many students who want to get into a foreign university, especially in Canada, Australia, or the United Kingdom, take their IELTS exam. Others who want to come to the states may take the SAT but need to take the TOEFL exam. Those who apply to universities in these countries for graduate study also need to take either the IELTS or TOEFL in addition to the graduate exam in question, whether the MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, or GRE. I only mention these details because different people I’ll mention in future posts are at different levels in the Bangladeshi education system and I want no one who reads my posts to get confused.
As for me, because I’d completed both junior high and high school in the states, I didn’t need to take the TOEFL exam. I took the SAT in high school and the GRE afterwards. In fact, every time I applied for graduate school, I was exempt from the TOEFL.
I went to my first big mall at Bashundhara City on the 22nd, a Friday afternoon, and got to see how things had really changed. There is a food court on one side of the top floor and a movie theater on the other. Each floor boasts different items with mens clothing being on floor, women’s on another, electronics on the main floor, and jewelry on yet another. Escalators and elevators carry shoppers from one floor to another just as at any other modern mall.
I bought a new Samsung cell phone from a store that day. My mom had bought a Grameen Phone SIM card earlier and gotten it registered with them. When buying it, the clerk put installed the SIM and handed it back to me along with a cell phone charger. My mobile is on the low end of phones, at 3300 taka (the equivalent of just over $47) with just the basic features. At this time, I can’t afford a higher-priced phone.
I stayed with Adina until the next day when a change of plans led me to call my cousin, Rafiba, in Bonani to pick me up and take me to her parents’ house. The plan was to stay with my cousins and go back to Dhanmondi after her parents, my uncle and aunt (my mom’s sister) returned from Singapore. They had flown first to China not just for the Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony but also because my uncle has business interests there, as well as many other places. They then stopped in Singapore because Rafiba’s brother will start college (the equivalent of the 11th and 12th grades in the states) there. His parents went there to see him settled in.
The education system in Bangladesh is based on the old British system, so that students go through kindergarten or 1st grade to 10th, as usual. At the end of the 10th grade, or class 10 as they also call it, students take the O-level exams, also called the metric level exam, and then enter into “college,” or the intermediate level. The scores they get on their O-levels play a big part on what college they can apply for and get admission. At the end of class 12, or their intermediate studies, students take the A-level exams.
Note that two students are taught at two-different mediums: the Bangla (or Bengali) medium school and the English-medium school. Medium refers to the language used in teaching students. Communication between teachers, students, and administrators is also carried out in that language, whether Bengali or English. Many students who want to get into a foreign university, especially in Canada, Australia, or the United Kingdom, take their IELTS exam. Others who want to come to the states may take the SAT but need to take the TOEFL exam. Those who apply to universities in these countries for graduate study also need to take either the IELTS or TOEFL in addition to the graduate exam in question, whether the MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, or GRE. I only mention these details because different people I’ll mention in future posts are at different levels in the Bangladeshi education system and I want no one who reads my posts to get confused.
As for me, because I’d completed both junior high and high school in the states, I didn’t need to take the TOEFL exam. I took the SAT in high school and the GRE afterwards. In fact, every time I applied for graduate school, I was exempt from the TOEFL.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Welcome to the Third World!
On the day of my last post, my friend Adina and I made plans for me to stay with her and her family in the Gulshan residential area for a few days, and then I’d head back to my grandmother’s that upcoming weekend. On the way home from work, she picked me up. It was so good to see her! Adina and I studied together at UNI (
Staying with her family was completely different than staying at my grandmother’s. Her family is so much more easygoing and open-minded than my family. Also they are really nice and gracious as well. An example, I could walk around wearing my jeans, or if I’d brought a pair, my olive green capris, and a top and no one cares. They live on the fifth floor of an apartment building which occupies one half of that floor. Two other apartments occupy each corner of the other half. Three balconies face each of the three outer sides while the fourth leads out the main entrance to the elevator and the other two apartments.
Thursday led to an interesting event which I may just call my initiation into the third world. After taking a shower, I noticed that the shower area, separate from the rest of the guest bathroom with glass doors, was flooded. The door had been installed wrongly and ran right on top of the drain so that water was unable to recede. At that time, I was under the impression that only the shower area was flooded. Well, I had to get out of there somehow and just hoped that I wouldn’t flood the rest when I opened the door. Big surprise! The whole bathroom was flooded with at least an inch of water. At this time, I was thinking that I hope the water doesn’t seep into the guestroom. So I checked the door to see if water was lapping at it or seeping under. Noticing that the water wasn’t going anywhere, I was glad to note that the door was that solidly sealed.
My only option at the time was to close the shower door, keeping as much water out as possible, and soaking up the rest in the bathroom. With the tank top that I’d been sleeping in, and having no rags handy, I began soaking up the water with it, and squeezing it out in the sink. This whole process took a good hour. Meanwhile, when both Adina and her sister stopped at the door to see what was going on, I told them to move the furniture and entertainment center away from the bathroom door, and anything else around in case the room flooded when I opened the door.
After I finally sopped up most of the water so that only a dry rug would be needed to wipe the rest up, and after I moved the rug out of the way and left it dripping into the sink, I opened the door only to discover what really kept the water from flooding the guestroom: a raised doorstep. I felt a little silly but relieved too that the water was trapped in the bathroom and couldn’t have spread.
The maids at her house, used to cleaning up all kinds of spills, were so surprised that I’d put the effort into cleaning up instead of calling them, that they called me out for it. Some comments on the occasion of discovering what I was really up to in the bathroom: “What are you doing?! Why go through all that trouble when they can do it?” My favorite comment was “Well, you got your workout done for the day.” Well, I did leave the entire shower area for them if they really were that eager to clean up.
Actually they’re not, (who would be?!?) but that’s the way things are here. People do what little they can, leaving the maids and menservants to do the “dirty work.” These servants expect that they will be given the work to do because that work is their job, whether it’s cooking, cleaning, ironing, mowing, washing clothes, and drying them on the clothesline, sweeping and dusting, etc.
In any case, I got a taste for how tough cleaning up is in
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A private haven is heavenly.
As mentioned before, I ended up sharing the bed with my mom that first night and the next night too. That first night, she’d mentioned that the room above the garage, which is separate from the house and half a floor above, was recently renovated and a bathroom was newly built with it. I could move in there and live there if I wanted or I could stay with her. If I moved into that room, I’d still go downstairs for meals but I could live somewhat independently and come and go as I please. I jumped at the chance but couldn’t move in until Sunday night because it and its bathroom had to be dusted, mopped, and the bed sheets cleaned and changed as well. Also, locks had to be placed on the inside front door as well as the bathroom door on both sides, and a mosquito net set up around the bed. Once the room was cleaned, and prepared, I moved my things in there. I still don’t have a wardrobe or dresser so I’m still living out of bags and suitcases. This is nothing new for me since I’d been doing that the past two years in the states.
My room has a queen-size bed with beautiful black and black gold bed frames, headboard, and footboard. It has large windows on two sides of the room, one facing the driveway down to the gated entryway, and the other on its left facing the School of Dentistry building. The windows have metal frames and nets to keep bugs and burglars out. The red and gold curtains running down to the bottom have been there since the renovations, and a shower was installed in the bathroom.
I can hear chitchat coming from the Dentistry canteen on the ground floor while I’m in here. If I keep the bathroom window and door open, a beautiful breeze flows straight through one bedroom window and out the bathroom window…sweet when it’s the only way I get any air, since blackouts are so common. All lights and the fan in my room are all electric and when the power goes out…well, you get the idea.
I think of myself as more open-minded and more liberal than everyone around me. That leaves me feeling like more of an outsider among my immediate family. Maybe I won’t feel as much around my other cousins. I won’t know until I meet them.
I ended up spending more time in my room than in the house, though I’d go down for meals and to hang out with my family. The fact is, I feel trapped but incapable of doing anything on my own. Everything’s so entirely different than it was in the states that I have trouble with the littlest things, from just knowing what to say to how to say it, what to not say, how not to say it, what non-verbal communication is appropriate and what’s not, and what to do and how to do it, and what not to do, just the littlest things.
It’s not that I’m not getting the hang of it, but it’s that I try to stay true to myself, to who and how I am. In a way, I am trying to remain honest, but to adjust and get along with the society in which I’ll live, I have to change some things about myself or tweak them instead. All I can do is try to remain coolheaded and compromising. It’s hard but I got to do what I got to do to get through these two years and more so, to just get along with everyone.
My room has a queen-size bed with beautiful black and black gold bed frames, headboard, and footboard. It has large windows on two sides of the room, one facing the driveway down to the gated entryway, and the other on its left facing the School of Dentistry building. The windows have metal frames and nets to keep bugs and burglars out. The red and gold curtains running down to the bottom have been there since the renovations, and a shower was installed in the bathroom.
I can hear chitchat coming from the Dentistry canteen on the ground floor while I’m in here. If I keep the bathroom window and door open, a beautiful breeze flows straight through one bedroom window and out the bathroom window…sweet when it’s the only way I get any air, since blackouts are so common. All lights and the fan in my room are all electric and when the power goes out…well, you get the idea.
I think of myself as more open-minded and more liberal than everyone around me. That leaves me feeling like more of an outsider among my immediate family. Maybe I won’t feel as much around my other cousins. I won’t know until I meet them.
I ended up spending more time in my room than in the house, though I’d go down for meals and to hang out with my family. The fact is, I feel trapped but incapable of doing anything on my own. Everything’s so entirely different than it was in the states that I have trouble with the littlest things, from just knowing what to say to how to say it, what to not say, how not to say it, what non-verbal communication is appropriate and what’s not, and what to do and how to do it, and what not to do, just the littlest things.
It’s not that I’m not getting the hang of it, but it’s that I try to stay true to myself, to who and how I am. In a way, I am trying to remain honest, but to adjust and get along with the society in which I’ll live, I have to change some things about myself or tweak them instead. All I can do is try to remain coolheaded and compromising. It’s hard but I got to do what I got to do to get through these two years and more so, to just get along with everyone.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Day two and my first rickshaw ride
The first couple of days were spent just being around the house, talking to my family, my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandmother, and just getting an idea of what it’s like there. My family is nice and essentially good-hearted, and my cousins are fun to hang around and chat with. Zul played his guitar for me, mostly riffs from recent and popular Bangla songs as well as riffs from a Hindi song. He also showed me videos and played other songs. Sadia joined us and then we all talked. It was really fun just hanging out with them.
I didn’t go out until the second day, a Sunday. My mom had to buy supplies for her classes the next day. She’s a 4th and 5th grade math teacher at a school a few streets down from our house. On Sunday, she was off from work for a three-day weekend: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Unlike the states, where weekends are on a Saturday and Sunday because Sunday’s the “day of rest” in Christianity, here in Bangladesh, Friday and Saturday make up the weekend. Friday is the day of the Jumma prayer so it was made part of the weekend. For this weekend though, Sunday was made a religious holiday because of Shobe Barat, which falls 15 days or so before the next new moon and Ramadan, the month of fasting in the Islamic calendar. So, all offices and schools were closed that Sunday.
My mom and I caught a rickshaw to take us to the school supplies and crafts store. Because I was wearing a salwar-kameez set and sandals, and the seat was so much higher than I expected, I had a trickier time climbing onto it than I thought I would. One is seated on what really is a 14 inch or so cushion-covered bench about 2 and a half feet long that just holds two people. It’s a little tight and there really isn’t anything to which one can hold on even if the hood is put down. Then, one usually holds onto the slim wooden bars of the hood’s structure. The seating area with the hood, which sits on a back wheels, is attached to the front half which looks like the front of a large bicycle. The driver pulls the rickshaw by riding the bike. Our ride to the stores and then back home were both really rickety more so because of the broken asphalt and potholes from the rains of the current monsoon season. It should be ending sometime in early September. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
When done with buying school supplies, we stopped at a grocery store, one of the newest developments since I’ve been back. In the past, people shopped at open-air markets where each vendor sold a variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and other items. In the past ten-fifteen years, air-conditioned grocery stores have been built as well as malls. This was my first time seeing the inside of one of these stores of which I’d heard from my uncles and aunts who’d lived in and visited over the years. These stores are more crowded than the average American grocery store, but keep in mind that Dhaka is very very crowded, and that Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries, if not still the most densely populated country in the world. As for the current traffic situation, it needs its own post.
I didn’t go out until the second day, a Sunday. My mom had to buy supplies for her classes the next day. She’s a 4th and 5th grade math teacher at a school a few streets down from our house. On Sunday, she was off from work for a three-day weekend: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Unlike the states, where weekends are on a Saturday and Sunday because Sunday’s the “day of rest” in Christianity, here in Bangladesh, Friday and Saturday make up the weekend. Friday is the day of the Jumma prayer so it was made part of the weekend. For this weekend though, Sunday was made a religious holiday because of Shobe Barat, which falls 15 days or so before the next new moon and Ramadan, the month of fasting in the Islamic calendar. So, all offices and schools were closed that Sunday.
My mom and I caught a rickshaw to take us to the school supplies and crafts store. Because I was wearing a salwar-kameez set and sandals, and the seat was so much higher than I expected, I had a trickier time climbing onto it than I thought I would. One is seated on what really is a 14 inch or so cushion-covered bench about 2 and a half feet long that just holds two people. It’s a little tight and there really isn’t anything to which one can hold on even if the hood is put down. Then, one usually holds onto the slim wooden bars of the hood’s structure. The seating area with the hood, which sits on a back wheels, is attached to the front half which looks like the front of a large bicycle. The driver pulls the rickshaw by riding the bike. Our ride to the stores and then back home were both really rickety more so because of the broken asphalt and potholes from the rains of the current monsoon season. It should be ending sometime in early September. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
When done with buying school supplies, we stopped at a grocery store, one of the newest developments since I’ve been back. In the past, people shopped at open-air markets where each vendor sold a variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, and other items. In the past ten-fifteen years, air-conditioned grocery stores have been built as well as malls. This was my first time seeing the inside of one of these stores of which I’d heard from my uncles and aunts who’d lived in and visited over the years. These stores are more crowded than the average American grocery store, but keep in mind that Dhaka is very very crowded, and that Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries, if not still the most densely populated country in the world. As for the current traffic situation, it needs its own post.
First night...first day.
My first night was spent recounting, on the drive home and then in my grandmother’s house, the highlights of my journey and what the flight from Malaysia was like, jam-packed and loud. I also met my cousins Sadia and Zul (sounds like Jewel), my aunt and the maids who live and work in that house. The rest of the time that night was spent preparing to sleep. Part of that included getting out of my jeans and cotton blouse and into a cotton salwar kameez set with a dupatta, a kind of long scarf hanging over the shoulders, or worn around the neck, and almost always covering the chest area.
In case you don’t know what a salwar and kameez are, the salwar is like a pair of pajamas with or without a drawstring, depending on the design. The kameez is like a dress with slits on each side, and can be any length from just past the hip level to just past the calf muscles. They’re decorated in all kinds of colors, laces, tiny mirrors, multi-colored or single-colored beads, or colored threads.
I was too exhausted and just wanted to sleep but everyone around me, especially my grandmother, my mom, and aunt were supportive of me changing into a salwar/kameez set and, what seemed to me at the time, a little too insistent about it. I’m sure they were only thinking of my being more comfortable because they are too, but I’ve always felt a little wrapped up and confined in those clothes. I had only worn salwar kameez sets at dinner parties and special occasions, not everyday and certainly not at home. To me, wearing jeans are like wearing pajamas. I’m extremely comfortable in them. Sadly, I couldn’t say no to my family. After trying to question it, and getting surprised looks with a firm ‘of course you will,’ I just went with it but felt uneasy.
Dhaka City and Bangladesh in general, being right at the Tropic of Cancer, is so hot and terribly humid in the summer that one sweats everyday. Also, the city is so dusty that one just has to shower everyday to avoid feeling icky. In that salwar kameez set, I was feeling stuffed and hot, even though the set was made with cotton.
In looking back it was an automatic reaction, and I understand why they did as they did, being more conservative than me. In fact, a friend of mine told me later that she always wears a salwar kameez set when coming to my Dhanmondi residential area. People around this area are still uncomfortable with woman wearing jeans or anything modern or “Western.” They’re still conservative and dress accordingly. While I’m in Dhanmondi, so do I. If I go to the Gulshan or the Bonani residential areas where those who are well off live, I’ll wear jeans. This is where the well-off and/or foreigners and diplomats live and work. Near these areas are the foreign embassies, schools, World Bank, UN and other organizations’ offices.
After many years of sleeping without a mosquito net around my bed, I have to start getting used to putting one around my bed and then sleeping under it. By the time the sun starts to set, the mosquitoes are out in full force. I’ve gotten plenty of mosquito bites already…but I’m safe under the mosquito net at night, as long as none sneak in.
As I found out the next day when I explored the house, the main porch that wraps around the house is netted so that mosquitoes find it hard to squeeze in other than through an open door or a hole in the net. We keep the doors closed to keep the bugs out. The part of the wraparound porch around the side and corner of the house is not netted so many mosquitoes tend to fly around there. As I also found out this day, Sadia has a little kitten, Cooper, that’s an orphan. It’s about 3 months old and growing fast. Such a cutie and so soft! Sometimes it mews so plaintively, that I just can’t help feeling bad for it. Poor thing!
In case you don’t know what a salwar and kameez are, the salwar is like a pair of pajamas with or without a drawstring, depending on the design. The kameez is like a dress with slits on each side, and can be any length from just past the hip level to just past the calf muscles. They’re decorated in all kinds of colors, laces, tiny mirrors, multi-colored or single-colored beads, or colored threads.
I was too exhausted and just wanted to sleep but everyone around me, especially my grandmother, my mom, and aunt were supportive of me changing into a salwar/kameez set and, what seemed to me at the time, a little too insistent about it. I’m sure they were only thinking of my being more comfortable because they are too, but I’ve always felt a little wrapped up and confined in those clothes. I had only worn salwar kameez sets at dinner parties and special occasions, not everyday and certainly not at home. To me, wearing jeans are like wearing pajamas. I’m extremely comfortable in them. Sadly, I couldn’t say no to my family. After trying to question it, and getting surprised looks with a firm ‘of course you will,’ I just went with it but felt uneasy.
Dhaka City and Bangladesh in general, being right at the Tropic of Cancer, is so hot and terribly humid in the summer that one sweats everyday. Also, the city is so dusty that one just has to shower everyday to avoid feeling icky. In that salwar kameez set, I was feeling stuffed and hot, even though the set was made with cotton.
In looking back it was an automatic reaction, and I understand why they did as they did, being more conservative than me. In fact, a friend of mine told me later that she always wears a salwar kameez set when coming to my Dhanmondi residential area. People around this area are still uncomfortable with woman wearing jeans or anything modern or “Western.” They’re still conservative and dress accordingly. While I’m in Dhanmondi, so do I. If I go to the Gulshan or the Bonani residential areas where those who are well off live, I’ll wear jeans. This is where the well-off and/or foreigners and diplomats live and work. Near these areas are the foreign embassies, schools, World Bank, UN and other organizations’ offices.
After many years of sleeping without a mosquito net around my bed, I have to start getting used to putting one around my bed and then sleeping under it. By the time the sun starts to set, the mosquitoes are out in full force. I’ve gotten plenty of mosquito bites already…but I’m safe under the mosquito net at night, as long as none sneak in.
As I found out the next day when I explored the house, the main porch that wraps around the house is netted so that mosquitoes find it hard to squeeze in other than through an open door or a hole in the net. We keep the doors closed to keep the bugs out. The part of the wraparound porch around the side and corner of the house is not netted so many mosquitoes tend to fly around there. As I also found out this day, Sadia has a little kitten, Cooper, that’s an orphan. It’s about 3 months old and growing fast. Such a cutie and so soft! Sometimes it mews so plaintively, that I just can’t help feeling bad for it. Poor thing!
In the skies; then back on the ground.
During my layover in Kuala Lumpur, I stayed at the airport terminal because I didn 't have a visa to the country. Somehow I made the 11 hours go by...kept myself busy writing drafts of my travels (a total of 7 so far!), napped in a seating area upstairs which overlooks more seating areas, watched the last 20 minutes of a Liverpool vs. Arsenal football game, an Olympic women’s weight-lifting competition, and a Malaysian news program, and wandered around window-shopping.
When I checked the monitors for a listing of flights, I noticed that only about three hours worth of flights are displayed at a time. So, I had to wait quire a few hours before my flight was included among them. This is how I came to know, about two hours before my 10:20 p.m. flight, that my gate number had changed. Incidentally, a flight to Hyderabad, India was switched with my flight, so that my flight would leave from that India flight’s original gate.
The gate was in another part of the airport so after I arrived there by train, I saw a whole crowd of Bangladeshis already waiting for the flight, all men. I tried to not care because as the first Bangladeshi young woman arriving at the gate, everyone was looking at me. Instead I went for a stroll, continued walking past the remainder of the gates and then turned back at the end.
Bangladeshis are naturally curious and feel kinships with people. They try to get to know people and try to maintain relationships with people. Because of the way they grew up, living with extended family and always being with each other, many just haven’t developed the sense of personal space or privacy that say, people in the West have. Individualism is more prevalent while community, society, and family are the main themes in the lives of Bangladeshis, and actually, most Easterners.
From my perspective, I always get the feeling that over the years, more Bangladeshis have come to understand this need for independence, privacy and personal space, and don’t ask too many questions, but few feel the need to not be, as some would put it, inquisitive. Consider a conversation I had on the plane with an old woman in the seat next to mine. I was kind enough to let her keep her glass of water on my food tray. I didn’t mind because I’d kept mine on there anyway. That was an opener for the following [my explanations are in brackets and are not part of the conversation]:
She: Thank you. Where are you flying from?
Me: The United States.
She: What were you doing there? Your Ph.D.?
Me: No, my Masters.
She: Oh, in what subject?
Me: English.
She: Where’s your family home? [Incidentally, this is a common question and refers to my paternal grandfather’s birthplace.]
Me: In Shilaigara [This is a village beside the port town of Chittagong].
She: Where are you going to?
Me: Dhaka.
She: Where in Dhaka?
Me: Dhanmondi [Residential area]
She: Oh, where in Dhanmondi do you live?
By this point, I was feeling like she was getting too inquisitive and failed to answer her. Instead, I pretended to watch the movie on the big screen. She got the hint because she didn’t repeat her question again. I didn’t want to come off as mean or rude, but I may have seemed like it ignoring her like that. I can’t just tell her to stop asking me questions because that would be rude; direct, yes, but rude.
It’s just uncomfortable for me to be that open to strangers. I felt like she was asking for my address and she’s a total stranger. I don’t care about telling her what I already had. Everyone asks those questions anyway. Plenty of Bangladeshi students and graduates come back from studying overseas, whether Europe, or Australia, the U.K., or the United States. I was just one of those many. I just had this feeling that she’d crossed the “personal space” line. Of course she didn’t look at it that way but at least did realize that I was getting uncomfortable.
We didn’t converse again, but just before landing in Dhaka, I’d asked her if she wanted her cup. She didn’t want it, so I gave away it and my cup to the flight attendant. Soon after, I landed and went through immigration, got my brand-new passport stamped, stood by the baggage area, among the crowd, to get my luggage (I’d brought a carry-on, my purse, my coat, and two suitcases) and then met my uncle outside in the visitor area, and then, met my grandmother and mother near the car. Tired of dragging and carrying my luggage, when they all wanted to share the load and carry something, I promptly answered their request and handed one to each person. Freeee…as a bird!
When I checked the monitors for a listing of flights, I noticed that only about three hours worth of flights are displayed at a time. So, I had to wait quire a few hours before my flight was included among them. This is how I came to know, about two hours before my 10:20 p.m. flight, that my gate number had changed. Incidentally, a flight to Hyderabad, India was switched with my flight, so that my flight would leave from that India flight’s original gate.
The gate was in another part of the airport so after I arrived there by train, I saw a whole crowd of Bangladeshis already waiting for the flight, all men. I tried to not care because as the first Bangladeshi young woman arriving at the gate, everyone was looking at me. Instead I went for a stroll, continued walking past the remainder of the gates and then turned back at the end.
Bangladeshis are naturally curious and feel kinships with people. They try to get to know people and try to maintain relationships with people. Because of the way they grew up, living with extended family and always being with each other, many just haven’t developed the sense of personal space or privacy that say, people in the West have. Individualism is more prevalent while community, society, and family are the main themes in the lives of Bangladeshis, and actually, most Easterners.
From my perspective, I always get the feeling that over the years, more Bangladeshis have come to understand this need for independence, privacy and personal space, and don’t ask too many questions, but few feel the need to not be, as some would put it, inquisitive. Consider a conversation I had on the plane with an old woman in the seat next to mine. I was kind enough to let her keep her glass of water on my food tray. I didn’t mind because I’d kept mine on there anyway. That was an opener for the following [my explanations are in brackets and are not part of the conversation]:
She: Thank you. Where are you flying from?
Me: The United States.
She: What were you doing there? Your Ph.D.?
Me: No, my Masters.
She: Oh, in what subject?
Me: English.
She: Where’s your family home? [Incidentally, this is a common question and refers to my paternal grandfather’s birthplace.]
Me: In Shilaigara [This is a village beside the port town of Chittagong].
She: Where are you going to?
Me: Dhaka.
She: Where in Dhaka?
Me: Dhanmondi [Residential area]
She: Oh, where in Dhanmondi do you live?
By this point, I was feeling like she was getting too inquisitive and failed to answer her. Instead, I pretended to watch the movie on the big screen. She got the hint because she didn’t repeat her question again. I didn’t want to come off as mean or rude, but I may have seemed like it ignoring her like that. I can’t just tell her to stop asking me questions because that would be rude; direct, yes, but rude.
It’s just uncomfortable for me to be that open to strangers. I felt like she was asking for my address and she’s a total stranger. I don’t care about telling her what I already had. Everyone asks those questions anyway. Plenty of Bangladeshi students and graduates come back from studying overseas, whether Europe, or Australia, the U.K., or the United States. I was just one of those many. I just had this feeling that she’d crossed the “personal space” line. Of course she didn’t look at it that way but at least did realize that I was getting uncomfortable.
We didn’t converse again, but just before landing in Dhaka, I’d asked her if she wanted her cup. She didn’t want it, so I gave away it and my cup to the flight attendant. Soon after, I landed and went through immigration, got my brand-new passport stamped, stood by the baggage area, among the crowd, to get my luggage (I’d brought a carry-on, my purse, my coat, and two suitcases) and then met my uncle outside in the visitor area, and then, met my grandmother and mother near the car. Tired of dragging and carrying my luggage, when they all wanted to share the load and carry something, I promptly answered their request and handed one to each person. Freeee…as a bird!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Clouds over the Pacific
A few things I forgot to mention in previous posts:
- The passengers at Waterloo Airport didn't go through security checkpoint until about 20 minutes before the flight, and then didn't begin seating until 10 minutes later. Such an easy-going airport for a laid-back town. Still, the plane was small and carried no more than 30 or so passengers.
- The flight to Minneapolis from Waterloo, Iowa was a mere 50 minutes.
- Storms were raging during the flight from Minneapolis to L.A. leading to some turbulence; the lightning "show" was spectacular though!
- My first sight of Taiwan: two colossal mountainous masses jutting up from the Pacific, charcoal gray in the early morning mist. Postcard perfect.
Onward!
I finally went to the clinic to get my travel shots the week before I left. With the slight sting of the first injection penetrating my skin, it hit me. This was no dream and I really was leaving the States.
Though I wasn’t teary on the outside, not even when saying goodbye to Shajia, my sister, or my good friend, Raji, who’d come with her sons to see me off at the airport, I missed them and everyone who I wished was there but couldn’t make it. You know who you are.
Even during my flights, I was too busy concentrating on what my next step would be (where I should go, what I should do, should I buy a water bottle now or refill the one I have or would that be a waste because I have to chuck it before going through a security checkpoint) to enjoy the journey.
I left at just past 7 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, arrived at about 8 p.m. in Minneapolis and had an hour to catch my next flight to Los Angeles. While in L.A., I had to exit the airport entirely and check back in again through their international terminal, another long process. It’s funny how the walk to the terminal really was the last time I’d see an American street from the ground point of view. Of course, I wasn’t thinking of that at the time, but just trying to get to my next destination on time and not miss any flights.
Then a 14 hour flight to Taipei followed a 2 hour wait at the airport. The flight continued to Kuala Lumpur and was three hours long. The longest wait came at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, over 11 hours long. I was supposed to wait for 10 and half hours but my last flight, to Zia International Airport in Dhaka, was about an hour late leaving.
It wasn’t necessarily an emotional journey (I didn’t bawl anytime during it) though I did have a lot of time to think, and to try not to think. I slept long hours and watched movies and shows on my Malaysian flight. All passengers could use the built-in TV screen and choose among several including Iron Man, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and even MythBusters.
Interestingly enough, I was standing next to my seat-mate when we were both boarding our Malay flight from L.A. and started talking while in line. What else but the heat and humidity! Because I couldn’t pack it in my suitcase, and because I didn’t want airport and flight personnel to consider it as an extra personal item, I wore my gray wool coat when boarding. Ridiculous, I know…but useful too, in the long run. Works great as a blanket and keeps me from getting chills in the airport. I never used any of the plane’s blankets…was just fine with my coat.
Anyway, my seat-mate, Marie, is French-Canadian and partly Filipino. She’s from Appleton, Wisconsin and was flying to the Philippines for a family member’s funeral. We talked about the Midwest, our journeys, lives, families, and eventually parted in Taipei. While at the Taipei airport, we came across an interesting water fountain with a tap and soft paper bags that one would, at first glance, imagine them to be porous. Not so! Marie took pictures and I’ll post them here or in a future post after she emails them to me.
I didn’t see the Pacific Ocean until Friday morning. Having crossed the International Date Line sometime during the night before, I never realized when Thursday slipped into Friday. I’d stopped wearing a watch years before and had begun relying on my cell phone to check the time. This time though, since I left my phone with Shajia, I had to wear a watch. However, my watch died mid-flight and I had been checking clocks constantly. Time marches on…more later.
Though I wasn’t teary on the outside, not even when saying goodbye to Shajia, my sister, or my good friend, Raji, who’d come with her sons to see me off at the airport, I missed them and everyone who I wished was there but couldn’t make it. You know who you are.
Even during my flights, I was too busy concentrating on what my next step would be (where I should go, what I should do, should I buy a water bottle now or refill the one I have or would that be a waste because I have to chuck it before going through a security checkpoint) to enjoy the journey.
I left at just past 7 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, arrived at about 8 p.m. in Minneapolis and had an hour to catch my next flight to Los Angeles. While in L.A., I had to exit the airport entirely and check back in again through their international terminal, another long process. It’s funny how the walk to the terminal really was the last time I’d see an American street from the ground point of view. Of course, I wasn’t thinking of that at the time, but just trying to get to my next destination on time and not miss any flights.
Then a 14 hour flight to Taipei followed a 2 hour wait at the airport. The flight continued to Kuala Lumpur and was three hours long. The longest wait came at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, over 11 hours long. I was supposed to wait for 10 and half hours but my last flight, to Zia International Airport in Dhaka, was about an hour late leaving.
It wasn’t necessarily an emotional journey (I didn’t bawl anytime during it) though I did have a lot of time to think, and to try not to think. I slept long hours and watched movies and shows on my Malaysian flight. All passengers could use the built-in TV screen and choose among several including Iron Man, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and even MythBusters.
Interestingly enough, I was standing next to my seat-mate when we were both boarding our Malay flight from L.A. and started talking while in line. What else but the heat and humidity! Because I couldn’t pack it in my suitcase, and because I didn’t want airport and flight personnel to consider it as an extra personal item, I wore my gray wool coat when boarding. Ridiculous, I know…but useful too, in the long run. Works great as a blanket and keeps me from getting chills in the airport. I never used any of the plane’s blankets…was just fine with my coat.
Anyway, my seat-mate, Marie, is French-Canadian and partly Filipino. She’s from Appleton, Wisconsin and was flying to the Philippines for a family member’s funeral. We talked about the Midwest, our journeys, lives, families, and eventually parted in Taipei. While at the Taipei airport, we came across an interesting water fountain with a tap and soft paper bags that one would, at first glance, imagine them to be porous. Not so! Marie took pictures and I’ll post them here or in a future post after she emails them to me.
I didn’t see the Pacific Ocean until Friday morning. Having crossed the International Date Line sometime during the night before, I never realized when Thursday slipped into Friday. I’d stopped wearing a watch years before and had begun relying on my cell phone to check the time. This time though, since I left my phone with Shajia, I had to wear a watch. However, my watch died mid-flight and I had been checking clocks constantly. Time marches on…more later.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Pre-travel jitters and more
Sometime in late June or early July, I’d booked a one-way ticket for Dhaka, Bangladesh to leave on August 13. Just in case a university position works out somewhere, I booked a refundable ticket and kept my fingers crossed. Things have been going downhill ever since my financial crisis began in early September last year. Since then, I’ve felt like I’ve been digging myself deeper into a hole while trying to dig myself out of that hole.
The closer the date comes to my flight date, the more sure I am that I am leaving, that nothing is going to work out in Iowa or even the Midwest and so, I continue to prepare accordingly for my departure. A depressing time but one which has to keep me active in taking care of my paperwork, travel shots, and other things while preparing myself mentally to leave.
I am definitely eager to see my mom and relatives since I haven’t seen them in years. I also want to see for myself how my birth country has changed over the past 20 years since I’ve been there last. I’ve found most satisfaction in knowing I can start my career there and be able to pay off the numerous loans I’ve accumulated over the past few years. I don’t have a job yet…but I will…soon. J
What is most painful is that I miss the States, my sister, all my friends, in particular, my closest friends, and also, living there on my own. Bangladeshi culture I expect to be totally opposite to how it is in Iowa, with one exception, strong family ties in which everyone is involved in everyone’s business because they’re all family.
Having lived on my own for the past two years, I’ve come to realize I want an independent life, one which involves me doing what I want and need for myself, not because I’m being told to do so by family. I was raised in the States. American culture is what I know and have experienced growing up, along with some Bangladeshi culture which my parents tried to instill in me. It worked somewhat. I never forgot how to speak in Bangla because they insisted on my speaking it at home.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve never felt my ties to Bangladesh to be that strong. Maybe I did feel them more so as a child because I returned there often. I had lived in and traveled back and forth between Bangladesh and the Middle East, namely, in Iraq and then Kuwait, for a couple of years each. I lived and traveled in Baghdad back when the US still supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein. No matter what, I never felt I had roots anywhere, and even though I had family to return to, I was used to being uprooted and felt out of place. Thus, after I moved away to Houston, my connections with my relatives, my uncles, aunts, cousins, and my grandmother became nearly zilch. We talked rarely and never knew each other.
The primary question most Bangladeshis have asked me over the years is “Don’t you miss Bangladesh?” No, not really. I don’t have roots there. I have memories, and my parents have roots there. My roots have grown deep in America, despite not legally belonging here. Also, I forgot how to write in Bangla a long time ago, within a couple of years after I arrived in the States. Still, like so many others, I’ve felt caught between two equally influential worlds. Not being able to find a place for myself in either one, I tried to bridge the two and then created a mixed one for myself.
For me, working in Bangladesh is something I have to do get myself out of the muck into which I’ve fallen. I want to return to America, and back to the Midwest into a Creative Writing program. That’s the area in which I want to be…writing and definitely in publishing. Whether I focus on and apply for a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program or in a Ph.D. program will depend on how my teaching career, if that is the area in which I land at here, changes my mind about being good at and enjoying teaching. If I hate it, then a Ph.D. is out of the question. I’d have to teach introductory writing courses as a MFA student but won’t consider teaching as a career.
I have come to realize that no one will understand what I want and what I need better than myself because only I understand my situation best, from the inside out. Everyone always has advice to give which, of course, they will, whether I want it or need it, or not. But at the same time, I understand that they are looking at the situation through their perspective and it’s colored with their experiences and their understanding of those experiences. Essentially, they have seen the world and do understand it, but there’s always more beyond what they’ve seen and know.
The closer the date comes to my flight date, the more sure I am that I am leaving, that nothing is going to work out in Iowa or even the Midwest and so, I continue to prepare accordingly for my departure. A depressing time but one which has to keep me active in taking care of my paperwork, travel shots, and other things while preparing myself mentally to leave.
I am definitely eager to see my mom and relatives since I haven’t seen them in years. I also want to see for myself how my birth country has changed over the past 20 years since I’ve been there last. I’ve found most satisfaction in knowing I can start my career there and be able to pay off the numerous loans I’ve accumulated over the past few years. I don’t have a job yet…but I will…soon. J
What is most painful is that I miss the States, my sister, all my friends, in particular, my closest friends, and also, living there on my own. Bangladeshi culture I expect to be totally opposite to how it is in Iowa, with one exception, strong family ties in which everyone is involved in everyone’s business because they’re all family.
Having lived on my own for the past two years, I’ve come to realize I want an independent life, one which involves me doing what I want and need for myself, not because I’m being told to do so by family. I was raised in the States. American culture is what I know and have experienced growing up, along with some Bangladeshi culture which my parents tried to instill in me. It worked somewhat. I never forgot how to speak in Bangla because they insisted on my speaking it at home.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve never felt my ties to Bangladesh to be that strong. Maybe I did feel them more so as a child because I returned there often. I had lived in and traveled back and forth between Bangladesh and the Middle East, namely, in Iraq and then Kuwait, for a couple of years each. I lived and traveled in Baghdad back when the US still supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein. No matter what, I never felt I had roots anywhere, and even though I had family to return to, I was used to being uprooted and felt out of place. Thus, after I moved away to Houston, my connections with my relatives, my uncles, aunts, cousins, and my grandmother became nearly zilch. We talked rarely and never knew each other.
The primary question most Bangladeshis have asked me over the years is “Don’t you miss Bangladesh?” No, not really. I don’t have roots there. I have memories, and my parents have roots there. My roots have grown deep in America, despite not legally belonging here. Also, I forgot how to write in Bangla a long time ago, within a couple of years after I arrived in the States. Still, like so many others, I’ve felt caught between two equally influential worlds. Not being able to find a place for myself in either one, I tried to bridge the two and then created a mixed one for myself.
For me, working in Bangladesh is something I have to do get myself out of the muck into which I’ve fallen. I want to return to America, and back to the Midwest into a Creative Writing program. That’s the area in which I want to be…writing and definitely in publishing. Whether I focus on and apply for a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program or in a Ph.D. program will depend on how my teaching career, if that is the area in which I land at here, changes my mind about being good at and enjoying teaching. If I hate it, then a Ph.D. is out of the question. I’d have to teach introductory writing courses as a MFA student but won’t consider teaching as a career.
I have come to realize that no one will understand what I want and what I need better than myself because only I understand my situation best, from the inside out. Everyone always has advice to give which, of course, they will, whether I want it or need it, or not. But at the same time, I understand that they are looking at the situation through their perspective and it’s colored with their experiences and their understanding of those experiences. Essentially, they have seen the world and do understand it, but there’s always more beyond what they’ve seen and know.
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