Down the Meghna

A few weeks ago I chaperoned the IB Group 4 project for my school. I'm slowly picking up the IB jargon, so in July I would have thought "oh no, chaperoning..." but it's September so I know better, and Group 4 project means another boat trip! All Seniors taking a science class have to participate in this project analyzing water quality on Dhaka's rivers. Four teachers, twenty-five students, and boat! We traveled East of Dhaka, and met a boat on the Meghna river. Here we are, taxiing out to the boat (at dusk, so sorry for the blurry picture).


We ate dinner and went to bed so we could do experiments early the next day. You know you have good students when you tell them to wake up at 5:30am and no one complains. Since it's Ramadan, the muslim students had to wake up at 4:30am for Suhoor (the pre-dawn meal) anyway, so I think that put things in perspective for everyone. The hundreds of ants in my bunk-bed respectfully stayed below my knees, which I greatly appreciated.

We got up bright and early and the kids started experimenting. We made six stops along the trip, traveling down the Meghna river, and then up the Buriganga.


And the teachers posed for pictures.


We also had a little boat for experiments near the shore at each stop.


For a few of the stops I was feeling adventurous and got on the little boat. There are some beautiful bugs here! This dragonfly visited us while we did experiments at the shore.


Also, every time the little boat approached the shore we had an audience. It's hard to explain, because it's not like they see us coming and yell "hey everyone look at these people doing experiments in a boat!!" They just stop what they're doing and and watch, even if we stay for twenty minutes. This is after a good fifteen minutes anchored near the shore of the Meghna.


I also got to spend some quality time with two guys from the boat crew, Juyal and Kaosar during the two days on the boat.


They seemed almost unable to comprehend the fact that I could speak Bangla and Hindi. They both spoke Bangla, and Kaosar could speak Hindi too, so they kept testing me to see if I could understand what they were saying to me. For them, it was just chillin' during downtime on the boat, but it was great practice for me. At some point they found out that I could read and write Bangla and Hindi too, and after writing their names in both languages, they went nuts. In the afternoon, while the students were doing work, we sat at the front of the boat reading the billboards and signs along the shore.

It was great to get out of the city, because even though the rivers are busy, traffic on a river doesn't have the same sensory overload that traffic on a street does. Other than the boat engines, the only noise that I heard were the sound of garment factories along the shore running their looms, which went late into the evening. I leave you with some pictures of the boats and people that we passed along the way.

I'm Teaching!

I realized that I haven't been talking about my job at all. I'm teaching at an international school, which means that it caters mostly to children who are from out of town. The school is way expensive, but when employees get sent overseas to work, they usually get an extensive benefits package, which includes education for their children at these private schools. There are some Bangladeshis, but their parents are probably loaded up the wazoo.

My job is going really well. The school hasn't had intern teachers before, so intially they were puzzled about what Sara, Beckley and I were supposed to do. In less than a week, teachers had figured out how helpful we could be, and were scrambling to get us in their classrooms. Right now I'm working with the High School Biology teacher, and I sometimes teach lessons in her IB Biology classes. I also run a half-hour seminar on modern Indian history in an IB History class. Basically, since we're not lazy, we're allowed to do whatever kind of work we want. Not a bad deal.

(photo credit: Asavari)

As you can see from the picture above, I'm the kind of teacher you probably thought I'd be. I puzzled for a couple of days how I could look more like a teacher, since I had gotten carded within the last 6 months at a rated R movie (i.e. there were doubts that I was 17 and capable of seeing Harold and Kumar without parental guidance). Moreover, I needed to look like a science teacher. Take note of my solution: tucked-in-plaid-shirts. Problem solved.

This Place is Beautiful

The new teachers took a boat trip out of Dhaka. The boat ride was about 2 hours each way, and most if not all of the water we were on will be gone in a few months. If we wanted to take a boat trip, we'd have to drive about an hour farther than we did today just to reach water. We saw billboards poking out, waiting for the water to recede to resume advertising. This tree is probably not even close to submerged during other parts of the year:

You see these boats go by every once in a while that are so full of sand that they look like they should be sinking.

They are digging up sand and sending it to Dhaka to reclaim land for the river, i.e. to make more room for those 15 million people who somehow manage to squeeze into the city.

The boat trip was a welcome change from the city, especially since it's so hot and humid these days. It was breezy and Bangladesh is beautiful.



We also stopped in the village of the boat's captain and walked around. I talked to some people in Bangla, although I don't really know enough yet to go beyond simple questions. I asked kids how old they were, and where in the village they lived. Some of the kids are very fashion-forward; this kid (in the blue pants) has already heralded the beginning of the pants-above-belly-button movement.

Hollywood, I hope you're ready.

The kids wanted to show us how they catch something (I think snakes?) in the water. No catches today, but I got a good action shot!

The kids also love getting their picture taken and looking at themselves on the digital camera screen.


There's lot to talk about, boat trip and otherwise, but in the mean time, I had to put up some of these pictures. Also, by popular request, some of the pictures on this blog will actually include me. Here I am, in Bangladesh!

Solutions

It has taken about two weeks of living in Dhaka to realize that you have to be creative to find things to do in Dhaka. Things must be pretty bad when someone like me notices a lack of nightlife. It is worth noting that we are on another level from the Hoboken-has-no-nightlife kinds of complaints. To buy alcohol at the liquor stores in Dhaka, you have to present your foreign passport. That's right, no liquor for bangladeshi citizens. There are bars in this country, but only at some of the high-end hotels and the international clubs. I've only made brief visits to the American and Australian clubs, and I haven't been to any of the bars yet but it's not lookin' good, people.

Now begins the search for things to do. Since Sara, Beckley and I are younger than the other employees at the school, I remain hopeful that we may not be out of luck yet. With few exceptions, we are also noticeably younger than all of the ex-patriates in Dhaka, who are mostly employed by Embassies, Businesses and NGO's. The international clubs seem like a welcome luxury (you can play Tennis, hire a hitting partner, and a ball boy for under $4 an hour) but if I work at an American school all day and then hop on over to the American club, why am I living in Dhaka? It's time to start exploring!

Well today Beckley and I went on a Hash run, which is this international organization of people who run and drink. Nope, not water. We met in front of the Parliament building, that Louis Khan building that people seem to know about.


Here was our meeting spot, before most of the people arrived. There are separate, simultaneous running and walking hashes, so all sorts of people show up.


I didn't bring my camera on the run, since I am as fast as a bullet and I don't like blurry pictures. We ran through Dhanmondi, which is a neighborhood close to the heart of downtown Dhaka. For Dhaka standards, it was a nice neighborhood, since it had some small lakes and walking paths. I don't ever see tourists in Bangladesh, and pretty much only foreigner sightings I have are in the Diplomatic Zone, where I live. Thirty foreigners running through downtown Dhaka was apparently an event worthy of pictures for the Bangladeshi kids with cameraphones. Not a moment went by without Bangladeshis looking over double-taking as they saw our human caravan jog leisurely on by. I'm not going to pretend that it isn't incredibly entertaining to be a spectacle literally everywhere you go. Speaking of the diplomatic zone, the US and Australian Ambassadors were along for the run, which probably means that I can't say anything else about what transpired. After running, we congregated on the roof of a five-story commercial building downtown.


There was a nice view from the building! I did all my picture taking too early, but dusk was gorgeous from the roof.



As dusk approached, everyone caught up and people were forced to drink beer for all sorts of silly reasons, which is the obvious thing to do after you run for 90 minutes. We found something to do in Dhaka!

The Stare

One of the weirdest things for foreigners in South Asia is 'The Stare.' When people are curious, they have no problems just staring at you. If I catch someone looking at me in the states (or vice versa), we'll both quickly look away. In South Asia, looking back invokes not even the slightest blink from their eyes. They just keep staring.


Thanks to Beckley for being brave enough to take my camera and point it at people who were staring at him. I still haven't completely gotten over myself yet. In India I had noticed some people staring, but in Bangladesh its everywhere. Bangladesh is probably the opposite of a tourist destination to most people, so when I walk with other teachers through markets downtown, its as if people had just spotted a celebrity. Okay, more like a rare bird sighting.


I'm not completely surprised, because I literally have not seen one non-South Asian outside of the Diplomatic Zone in Dhaka so far. Not that we're the only ones, but the rare sightings must be something of an event for the locals.

Since it's raining...

I'm slowly getting into the swing of Bangladeshi life after this first week. I've oriented myself for the most part, so let me tell you about where I live!

I live in Bangladesh, the most densely populated country on Earth. Bangladesh is about the size of Iowa, but contains half the population of the United States (about 150 million people). Bangladesh had been part of the Indian colonial holdings of the British Empire until 1947, when India was split into two independent nations, India and Pakistan. Present day Pakistan and Bangladesh were split from India into West and East Pakistan, respectively, an Islamic nation split by the entire nation of India. West Pakistan's grip over the government of Pakistan led to civil and political unrest in East Pakistan, which culminated in a bloody war for Independence from West Pakistan. West Pakistan is now Pakistan, and East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshis speak Bangla (Bengali) and are ethnically Bengalis, a language and culture that they share with West Bengal (capital: Kolkata/Calcutta), the Indian state that borders Bangladesh to the west. West Pakistan's resistence to allowing Bengali as an official language of Pakistan was, and still is, an important symbolic grievance for East Pakistan. The Bengali Language Movement was a strong player in the years leading up to the war for Independence in 1971, and Bangladesh's annual independence holiday is called International Mother Language Day.

(The Call to Prayer microphone/sound-system at the Tara Masjid aka the Star Mosque in Old Dhaka)

I mention all of this because I can't leave my apartment without being reminded of the history that shaped this city. The Muslim call to prayer, which resounds five times daily from mosques throughout the city, including one a block from my house, ensures that I don't even have to leave my apartment to be reminded. I've been trying to learn Bangla for the past month or so, and even a simple 'kaemon achen?' ('how are you?') is enough to put a big smile someone's face. Bangla is not just a part of their culture, it's the pride of their nation. Many people are around the world love their country and their culture, but far fewer are truly able to say that they are proud of it like the Bangladeshis are. Maybe it's because only 37 years have passed, so the memory of the liberation war is not just a memory recorded in textbooks. I suppose Americans in 1820 must have felt the same way.

For the last ten years, India has been in the global spotlight. When Bangladesh achieved independence, Pakistan fled with most of the political and economic leadership. Struggling to find its footing on the world's stage, I'm witnessing a country that is lucky to make a footnote The Economist, but not for lack of trying. Dhaka is a city that looked completely different five years ago, and will probably be unrecognizable in the next decade.


I hear the call to prayer a few times every day, but even more often I hear the sounds of hand labor and construction. The skyline is laden with incomplete buildings.


I feel humbled, and blessed, to be able to witness this country in its explosive adolescence. The poverty around me is not a result of laziness; these men and women are working day and night to earn their meager salaries. The world may not care, but Bangladesh is trying.

Having Arrived!

I arrived safe and sound in Dhaka five days ago! We have finally procured some home internet access, so the blogging begins. Here are some pictures I took in the last couple of days to tide you over while I get settled in.

Welcome to Bangladesh! This is a river of the main ferry ports in Dhaka.



Welcome to my apartment! Here's the view from the balcony outside of my room:



Say hi to my housemates, Beckley and Sara! I'm not sure if our cook Rehana actually thought we could eat all of that food, but Beckley tried his best.


Now the more observant among you may notice a six-week delay between the first and second posts on this blog. No one likes observations.

I have more pictures, which means more posts soon!!