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.