Hartal

Yesterday there was a hartal, a general strike, all across Bangladesh. These things tend to get violent, so we decided I should stay home and work from there just in case. There hasn't been a hartal here for 3 and a half years, and it didn't turn out too badly from what I've heard. Only a few people were injured in Dhaka, a few cars were set on fire, and no one died to my knowledge. Several prominent figures in the opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), were preemptively detained to prevent mass chaos in the city. I don't really understand why exactly the BNP called a national strike; their reasoning was that the ruling party, the Awami League (AL), has failed to provide a consistent supply of water, electricity, and gas, and there was something about corruption in there as well. The corruption I don't doubt is common to both parties, so of course striking over that makes no sense. When the BNP was in power 3 or so years ago, they also could not provide basic services, so it's a little ironic they would complain about that now. More importantly, though is the fact that only about 30% of the population has access to electricity, and something like 95% get their water from individual tube wells, many of them not installed or maintained by the government. So I wonder, beside those in power, who really cares if there is a constant supply of water or electricity supplied by the government when most people don't have a supply to begin with?

Sometimes things don't turn out quite as planned....

Today was an interesting day. It's Friday, the official day off, so I was on my own to find something to do all day. My main goal was to spend as little money as possible, but that didn't work out as planned....I began by procrastinating like I normally do on the weekend, and watched an episode of America's Got Talent where this bum looking dude played an amazing acoustic version of Walking on the Moon by Sting, and I agree with the judges, played it better than Sting.

Once I finally got out of my room, I went over to Banani Supermarket, my favorite place since I know where it is and generally what's in it, plus a lot of the shop owners speak English. I made a copy of my passport since I realized I completely forgot to do that before I left the States, and then wandered around in search of something to do. I discovered another half to the market where they sell food. It was the most chaotic thing I have ever walked into in my life! I couldn't see what all was there at first because it was dark inside, but it turned out to be a hall full of vegetables, which was very pretty, but literally every seller tried to get my attention as I walked through. I didn't buy anything because I have no kitchen, but outside I bought a mango. Now I haven't bought a mango for myself yet (we have some from one of the field offices at work), so I'm not sure what the going rate is, but I can bet it's less than 40 taka. Unfortunately, I paid that anyway because my bargaining vocabulary is less than adequate and the guy didn't understand my pointing and saying 20 taka (I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fixed price place either).

From there, I didn't really have a plan nor did I really need to buy anything, so I decided to take a rickshaw to Gulshan and check out the market there. Again, I ended up getting over charged for that, partly because I couldn't find a five taka note in my pocket. So I walked around the market for a bit, although many of the stores were closed, looked at some shoes, and bought a water and a caramel. That was probably the only reasonable purchase of the day.

Having exhausted all the apparent attractions in Gulshan DIT-II Circle, I went off in search of the park that I visited last week. However I didn't know the name of the park and couldn't remember exactly how we got there, so when the rickshaw driver suggested Lake Park, I said acha (OK). I mean, that park had a lake, so it made sense. Turns out there is a different park with a bigger lake a few blocks from that one, but the lake is drained right now, and they are doing some major renovations, so it looks like a giant crater. It was still pretty though, and there was a beautiful garden at the main entrance. I walked around the park and first sat down on a bench near a group of men, but got sick of the stares and walked around to a place where a couple of women were sitting and just enjoyed being outside. While I was walking around, I noticed the tiniest frogs I have ever seen and tried to take a picture of one. After looking at all these pictures of the ground, though, I can't find a frog in any of them.

The crater from the first place I sat

Crater from the second place I sat. There is a couple across the crater (see the woman in red) - for hearing that PDA is unseemly so many times, there sure is a lot of it parks, although usually just hand holding and cuddling.

The Garden

A picture of the ground where I am almost certain there is a tiny grey frog - let me know if you find it...

Eventually I got hungry and needed a bathroom so I went back to the guesthouse and ate my mango. It may have been tasty enough to justify paying 40 taka for it. After wasting a little more time and making a few calls, I went out again for dinner. My plan here was to i) try some real street food and ii) save money on dinner by eating street food rather than food from the guesthouse. To give you an idea of why I haven't done this yet, these places are completely dominated by men. I have never seen a woman in one, although I took the Lonely Planet guidebook's word that women are welcome. There is also no menu. I've obviously had Bangladeshi food while I've been here, but I can't even get the guys that get lunch at the office to understand "Ami shobji ebong baat chai please" (I'd like vegetables and rice, please) because my pronunciation is so wrong. So I walked into this restaurant and they looked at me funny as I passed the guy frying stuff, so I thought maybe I'm supposed to order there. No, they told me to sit down. I assumed there would be no menu, but tried to ask anyway, and the man couldn't understand "menu" although I think it's the same as in English. I didn't know what I wanted, because I wasn't really sure what they had, so I got out the guidebook and tried to ask what he would recommend, but mauled the pronunciation again. The Bengali is written in the book and he could read, but he just kept reading the phrases out loud and not really processing that I was trying to ask something. I tried to say it a few more times and eventually some guy in the crowd around me figured it out. The waiter said "rice? fish?" in English, and I said "ha" (yes). He brought rice and fish (prawns actually). and chicken. and salad. and more rice. and another prawn. All I wanted was rice and fish!! But, being unable to communicate this, I ate as much as I could handle (it was incredibly spicy) with everyone watching me eat rice with my hands for the third time ever (not that easy for a klutz like me). I must have been fascinating - some traffic police even came in for milk so they could watch. And after this...experience...my plan to save money on dinner completely failed again, as I really don't know what this should cost, I couldn't argue if I did, and I ended up paying 330 taka (nearly $5) for the whole thing. I'll be studying up on Bengali before I try that again.

On the way out, I also attracted the attention of a guy eating at the table next to me, and so have a new friend, Rubel. Don't worry, I made him work for my name and questioned him intensely about his intentions before giving him any information - he was the first to say he just wanted to be friends, help me out, and practice his English. I decided he was trustworthy enough, so I gave him my number and let him walk me home - dinner took longer than expected and it was getting dark, so I was glad to have a man with me anyway. On the way we talked about siblings (because "brother-sister" friends is the best way to clarify that I'm not looking for a date) and he invited me to his house for mangoes and jackfruit and meeting his brother and parents next Friday. We'll see how that goes...

Now I'm back in the privacy and security of my room, getting ready to wind down for the night - it's been kind of a long day!

Fresh Air

Today I spent most of the day in a village outside of Dhaka, and it was awesome. It was beautiful and green, the people were overly hospitable (I may turn orange from all the mangoes, mango flavored things, and jackfruit I was offered today), and the air was a little cleaner. You can definitely see the haze over Dhaka, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't all from the rain. In case you're wondering what jackfruit is, here is a picture of jackfruit in a tree. It's not the most informative, but if you do a Google image search, you'll see it better.

You can also see some wandering animals in the background (goats or young cows, I can't remember). Another thing I saw plenty of today was cows emptying their bladders.

While this village was definitely poor, I still thought they were all doing pretty well. They had nice clothes, the children, including the girls, were going to school (I even met a girl in class 10!), and they seemed to have plenty of food to go around. In comparison to N'gayene Sabakh in Senegal, it seemed much better off, actually, and much cleaner. Although there were a lot of kids around in this village, there weren't nearly as many as in N'gayene Sabakh, as far as I could tell. Of course this is all based on only one village in each country, but I'd say Bangladesh is headed in the right direction much more so than Senegal.

It was also interesting how all the new developments going up just outside the city look just like American housing developments in the suburbs - rows of large, identical houses, fenced off from the outside world with no integration of residences and businesses.

(I wrote this part yesterday, but with the generator issues the internet was down when I went to post it.)

My guesthouse is having issues with its generator today and the flickering light is driving me up the wall. Also it could get pretty hot in here with the fan going uselessly slow. The power hasn’t gone out so much in a few days, but this is the third time today I’ve found myself sitting in the dark for a minute until the generators kick in. I’m not sure if that power plant ever started working again or not because I haven’t gotten a paper in several days.

I went to a couple talks at the ICDDR,B (International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh) with Bilqis this morning. It’s their 50^th anniversary, so the former directors are all giving talks. The two that spoke today were both American, and even though they directed the center way back in the day (like in the late 60s), I still found it odd that an organization founded in Bangladesh, that primarily serves Bangladesh, would be run by a bunch of old white men. But then old white men rule everything else, why should this be any different? Haha. Anyway the first talk was about ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy) and how it could be adapted for medical conditions other than diarrhea, such as burns, and how the concept of having someone drink fluids rather than mechanically pumping them in through an IV or a tube down their throat is completely foreign to US doctors. Plus insurance wouldn’t cover it. And that explains why even the people in the pharmacy had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to find ORS (Oral Rehydration Salt, actually a mix of salt, glucose, and potassium in specific proportions) packets before I left. The second talk was about the out-of-control population growth in sub-Saharan Africa and why the things that have worked in Bangladesh to bring down fertility have not worked there. To name a few, there are too many political parties/ethnic groups/tribes fighting for power (and lots of babies = lots of votes), and ubiquitous polygamy means that if a woman chooses to stop having babies, her husband finds another woman who will keep it up and the first woman loses her livelihood. It was an interesting morning, not least because Bilqis once worked at the ICDDR,B, and so knew nearly everyone in the room personally.

Speaking of that, yesterday I left the office early with Sufia and Rabeya to go to New Market for a few things for the office, and some other shopping. We bought a rug, but I really didn’t know what it was for at the time. Turns out it was a gift for Bilqis’s friend’s wife, and we saw the friend at the talks today. While New Market wasn’t really any different than any other markets I’ve been in, other than being practically endless and somewhat cheaper, I was fascinated with the giant CFL bulbs they had in there. I’m sure they’re not unheard of in the US, but I’ve never seen one and I can’t find one on Google. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture, but this yet again exemplifies how committed this country sometimes is to protecting the environment. I think the only non-CFL bulb I’ve seen here is the one in my bedside lamp, which I never use.

The day before yesterday I finally got the guts to go outside at night, partly because I’ve been sick for over a week and needed to call Bilqis to ask what to do if it didn’t go away, but had no credit on my phone for the call. Since I was out, I decided to grab dinner at Dhaba, which the guy from Ohio had recommended and was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. Although it is supposedly “street food”, and it is cooked next to the street, I had dal makhani, naan, and a small water and it was the most expensive meal I’ve had yet – almost $3! Good thing lunch was less than a dollar because I’ve only got $5/day in my budget for food, water, laundry, etc…

On Friday I met up with my friend Wahid for lunch, and then took a walk in this park in Gulshan. Unfortunately it was a mosquito fest, so I wasn’t keen on sitting around, although it was a really pretty place. Of course any green space is beautiful after being surrounded by dirty streets and dirty buildings all day. Here are some picutres.

So after confidently getting myself around the area last Friday (after Wahid went home, I did a little exploring on my own in search of some juice), and in the dark on Sunday, I was thinking I could probably get myself to the EPRC office and back on my own. For some reason, they have sent someone to pick me up every day so far. Tonight Rabeya suggested to Dr. Sabur, who has been taking on the task lately, that I could call the rickshaw myself, and despite my agreement, he said I still need a few more days with help. Other than crossing the street, which could easily be done by the crosswalk a few blocks from here without a close call for each of the 8 lanes created by various sizes of vehicle, I honestly don’t need any help. Anyway, as long as there is a mass of people crossing the street, the cars will actually stop. Really, though, they need another crosswalk on that road – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone make a run for it and miss a bus by a few inches. Not to mention the motorcycles and CNGs coming out of nowhere…

In addition to the horrendous traffic, I certainly will not miss the constant spitting that goes on here. It’s like being at a 24 hour baseball game, and it’s kind of gross sometimes.

Apni ki kitnashok babohar kohren?

Eta mane "Do you use pesticides?"
Now you know almost as much Bangla as I do.

A couple of days ago we visited a small farm and a kitchen garden. The kitchen garden was in a government owned housing facility, but the owner could do what he wanted with the land. Here is a picture of the garden, although it is a little difficult to see the crops among all the weeds. It is also impossible to see the elusive ferret that was running around because my camera is very slow to start up.

The man had a fairly nice little apartment of sorts, which you can sort of see in the next pictures. His wife stayed inside the whole time, which is not uncommon, and explains why you see so few women on the streets. His sons were cute, sending their wind-up car zooming onto the patio so they could catch a glimpse of the strangers (especially the white one). One of them came out to stare for a bit and then shouted out "My name is ..." and broke into a giggle and ran away. I took their picture as well as one of the pretest interview.
As I recall there was also a dog running around this garden. It's weird how all the dogs, except one so far, look the same. But then you don't see people carrying dogs in their purses either.

The small farm we visited was outside of a hospital. I only took videos there and they didn't turn out so hot, but here is a snapshot of the farm from one.


It started to rain while we were here, so we went in this canteen run by the hospital to finish up. It's hard to believe 1/3 of the hungry people in the world live in South Asia when plate after plate of baat (plain white rice) kept coming from the kitchen. It's also hard to believe a hospital runs a canteen where water is served from grimy plastic buckets. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures there, but to make up for it here is a picture of the salwaar kameez I bought. On the up side, it fits and is in style, but on the downside, it has no pockets...I can deal with that.

Where the rickshaws live

This is disgusting. I am watching BP's testimony to a congressional committee. Nuff said.

On Tuesday we visited a small slum about a kilometer from my guesthouse. It's amazing how quickly the city landscape changes. Now I know where the rickshaws live. Well, some of them anyway. There were rickshaw "parking lots" overflowing between the metal shacks and shops. And in the middle of all this grey and brown was a beautiful green farm situated on a sort of blackish lake. Granted the smell from the nearby trash heap and the knowledge that there were probably about 10 people living in each little shack made the view sort of bitter sweet, but it made the idea of living there just slightly less miserable.

The view

Shacks on stilts

Trash pile and a rickshaw lot

Working on the farm

The Pretest Interview

You might also notice the Brazilian and Argentinian flags on top of the buildings in the background and even flying over some of the shacks - for somewhat mysterious reasons, Bangladeshis are crazy about those two teams in the World Cup. When I was out with Rabeya, we drove through an intersection where I could hardly see any buildings under all the flags! Dr. Sabur told me there was some weak connection to Argentina but I forget what, and people just like the colors of Brazil because they're similar to the Bangladesh flag (the green part anyway). This mysterious fanaticism has been taken to extremes of late; Bangladesh is experiencing a severe power shortage because an oil well or something has been out of service for about a month, so the power has inevitably gone out during World Cup games. Rather than respond rationally, people have rioted outside of the power company's offices and tried to set up road blocks nearby. In response, the power company has requested that factories around Dhaka shut down during the games, however garment factory workers have been rioting over factories cutting their hours already.

You might also notice the men are wearing skirts. Actually "lungis" is the right term. They wear them to do the most difficult things, and whether it's because they're cheap or traditional, I can't imagine it's all that comfortable. However, they are almost all brightly colored plaid (my favorite!) and I wish I could wear one.

And here are a few other random things that I've noticed over the last few days...
Yesterday on the way to the office, I saw a car with a University of Michigan sticker on the back window - GO BLUE
Today we had the first real thunderstorm since I've been here. We passed a rickshaw driver with what looked like a condom on his head and I could hardly control my laughter.
I got two big zits at the same time on Tuesday and every single person I saw that day (no joke, even some women at the interview) asked what they were and did I get bit by a mosquito. No one seemed to know the word "zit" or "pimple" and I certainly don't know that in Bengali, so we settled for "it happens, it's normal".
This morning I saw the saddest looking woman looking out her apartment window. I mentioned before that women aren't out on the streets much. While they don't keep strict purdah here (a Muslim practice of keeping women in their houses to preserve their purity), other traditions keep them inside anyway. I'm not sure how these women take that - I get this attitude that I am not capable of doing certain things because I am a woman (like standing, walking moderate distances, etc.) and it drives me nuts (not that I don't appreciate the concern).
While doing some updated literature reviewing today, I encountered "assault using a pesticide" as a cause of death. wtf?
It is interesting how environmentally conscious Bangladesh may lead you to believe that it is - there are several articles about conserving biodiversity in the paper every day, and the Ministry of Agriculture website emphasized saving the environment by buying jute products and using less pesticides, to name a few examples. But aside from banning plastic shopping bags (if Bangladesh can do it, why hasn't the US?), I really haven't seen this attitude in action. Dhaka is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and I don't see many alternatively fueled vehicles or hear about many industrial pollution controls here. Not to mention everyone reuses single use plastic bottles, so while my water may be arsenic and pathogen free, it's still full of BPA. yum

That's more than enough for now, and I just spotted a small lizard on my wall that will need to be removed.

Caution: Do not feel free to move about the country

"The U.S. Embassy reminds everyone to responsibly use discretion in their decision to ride in a rickshaw...For security reasons, the Embassy recommends that U.S. citizens avoid riding in taxis, buses, and engine-powered rickshaws (CNGs)."

This is part of an email I received last night about purse snatchings from rickshaws. I wonder, if you didn't travel by rickshaw, baby taxi (CNG), bus, or taxi, how would you possibly get around? Traveling on foot certainly isn't any safer, not to mention every man, woman and child on the street asks if you need a rickshaw, and most of us don't have access to a private car. Like so many government recommendations, this seems a little ridiculous.

On the subject of rickshaws (the rickshaws here are cyclerickshaws, btw), while we were on the way to a kitchen garden yesterday to pretest the questionnaire, I saw a family of no less than 6 riding in one rickshaw (you can fit two somewhat comfortably). So far, that is a record. I have no idea how that scrawny rickshaw driver was moving all those people. Dr. Sobur informed me yesterday that rickshaw drivers make around $7-8 dollars a day - that's a lot of work for so little pay.

Dr. Sobur also informed me that there are something like 42 universities in Dhaka. I wasn't all that surprised because it seems like there is a university on every corner, and we were passing BRAC University at the time. Still it's pretty impressive that there are enough students to support that many universities, and to some extent also that there seems not to be much benefit to the surrounding communities. BRAC University, for example, faces a main road, but is surrounded by a dirty alleyway where I saw the family of six on a rickshaw and some rather questionable drinking water sources.

Short entry this time, but my dinner awaits...

Me 2, Large insects 0

Just killed the first cockroach in my room - it tried to hide in my dirty underwear, but I was not fooled. A couple days ago a crawled out of my pillow and tried to hide under the bed, but there there be monsters and my flip flop put him out of his five-legged misery. Small flying insects on the other hand are winning the battle, as the mosquitoes have been hungry the last couple of days. I have yet to figure out they manage to bite the underside of my feet, but they have - on both sides.

On the way home from the EPRC office today it was the first time I could see in the windows of the buildings on Airport Rd. (the main road between my guesthouse and the office) and I discovered there is a huge garment factory, i.e. 5 floors and at least a block long, right there. No doubt something in my wardrobe came from there.

Today we finalized the Bangla version of my questionnaire after much continued misunderstanding of the format and why certain sections were repeated. Everyone at the EPRC office has been great, despite the significant language issues we have had. As Bilqis explained to me the other day, even though many school and university books are in English, everything is spoken in Bangla because the language is common to the whole country, whereas in India, English is used as a standard because there are so many languages. The next step in the project is another pre-test tomorrow and then ethical training. I will shortly be writing a comment to the Emory IRB about how culturally inappropriate their training is for this situation (and I assume the situation for many people doing research abroad).

The first round of pre-testing the survey went well except for the misunderstanding of the questionnaire format. It was interesting to see fairly large plots of land devoted to farming in the middle of a small slum area in Dhaka. For the Bangladeshis, it was also interesting to see a white person sitting in on a bench in their midst - I drew a continuously changing group of staring men, women and children, which is partly why I didn't take any pictures at the site. I didn't want to make the crowd any bigger, although I don't think a digital camera would be quite as exciting in the city as elsewhere.

Enough about work. Yesterday was a day off and I did some exploring. In the morning I went out alone for the first time (can't believe it took me so long) and took a rickshaw to road egaro (11) to buy somethings like shampoo, phone credit, and an umbrella. Along the way I found the pedestrian bridge over Airport Rd. and took a picture of the view:


I walked around a bit and must have smiled at this man, Wahid, who then insisted on being my friend. He helped me find an umbrella, but I couldn't avoid giving him my phone number (he speaks English). We will see how that turns out.

Later I went to lunch at King's Confectionary because I read about it in my travel guide. It was a very foreign establishment with cakes and doughnuts and spaghetti, but I managed to find something kind of Bangladeshi on the menu. I also met a guy from Ohio there, and it was refreshing have a smooth conversation.

Still later, I went with Rabeya, from EPRC, to visit some other EPRC staff in the hospital - one has dengue fever and the other was in a motorcycle accident. I've never been in a hospital overseas before, and it was eye-opening to see the hallways of the emergency ward of Dhaka University Hospital (also where they put the poor patients) full of people lying on the floor with bandages on their heads and things, while upstairs there are private rooms with no one in them.

Rabeya also showed me around Dhanmondi while we were out, and I bought a new salwaar kameez at the Dhanmondi Shopping Center. We ate there as well, and it is really amazing to me how much Western style food there is here: KFC, BFC (Best fried chicken), Euro Hut, just to name a few. We also visited Aarong, the retail branch of BRAC, but I thought it was kind of expensive. The goods were very nice, though, and it was air-conditioned. My favorite part of the trip was definitely the park across from the parliament building (one of the strangest buildings I have ever seen). The park is huge and it was very crowded on a Friday night. There is a pyramid there that has something to do with a former prime minister, but I wasn't clear what. We had a strange encounter with a cross-dressed man (I've read that Bangladeshis usually deny that homosexuality exists) and a couple of women who were suddenly about 6 inches in front of us, yelling in our faces. I have no idea what they said, but Rabeya gave them a few taka and they left. Here are some pics of the park:

The pyramid

The parliament building - doesn't quite do the geometric holes in the wall justice

On the way back, I experienced my first janjart (traffic jam) in a baby taxi (Chris will be proud - haha). Here are some pics from inside the baby taxi on there way there:

Kind of feels like being tiny in Mario Kart...

Rabeya

Well, sorry for writing a novel. I'd love to hear what's going on with everyone else this summer, so please send emails!

Day One

Finally arrived in Dhaka around 6am this morning after around 34 hours of traveling. The last flight was so chaotic it was almost comical - I've never seen so many people use an airplane bathroom on a four hour flight. I don't think any of them were unoccupied the entire time. Once I arrived it took an eternity to get out of the airport because Gulf Air apparently thinks it's efficient to transport 3 or 4 bags at a time from the plane to the baggage claim. So after an hour and a half wait for my one bag, I finally met Anisur, and was very glad he was there on the way out of the airport - although the crowds didn't quite rival the spectacle that was Yoff airport in Senegal, I was more than happy to have someone help me out who knew what they were doing.

There were no traffic jams on the way to the guesthouse, but we narrowly escaped being squished between two minibuses. From the looks of them, we would not have been the first to hit either bus, though.

After much uncertainty about what "guesthouse" might mean, it's pretty much what I expected. Here are some pictures of the space I'll be occupying for the next week or so:

The room

The bathroom



The view from the bathroom (complete with some serious construction work going on just outside the window)
Downstairs there is a "restaurant" and some common space that I have yet to explore. I'll be heading into the EPRC office later today. More on all of that later!