I'm on a boat!

So many eventful days at the end of this trip! Where to begin? Why not the beginning?

As I mentioned last time, we conducted a focus group in a village just outside of Dhaka after I last wrote. I was getting concerned that I would have to make a big production out of riding on a boat while in a country that is 1/3 underwater during this time of year (wouldn't it be a shame to leave without riding in a boat at least once?), but the fates smiled upon me on the way to the focus group. Friday is the big market day in the area, so the market was blocking the road, and heaven forbid Bilqis and I walk 500 feet to the village, so we drove our car in to a CNG lot of sorts on the riverbank and hopped in a boat for a 5-10 minute ride down the river to the village. It was neat to be on one of the probably hundreds of varieties of boat in Bangladesh that you wouldn't normally see in the US, although not really that eventful on the way to the focus group. The focus group itself was very informative, although it had to be cut short a bit because of the market and the half hour delay in figuring out how to get a couple of overly privileged women past it. I had been to this village before, so many of the farmers recognized me. I remembered some of them, but this one man came up to me and started talking my ear off in Bangla and I didn't remember seeing him before. Apparently he saw me in his house last time I was there and wanted to say hi. On the way back from the focus group, it was around noon on a Friday, so people were starting to come out and play. There were tons of what we guessed were college students blasting music from gigantic speakers strapped to the roof of many boats going down the river. Apparently this place is a popular weekend hang out since it's so close to the city. There was one particularly interesting boatfull of student-looking young men that was driving alongside our boat with a guy in a hot pink fisherman's hat and a bright sky blue shirt dancing like there's no tomorrow on the roof. I couldn't help but laugh - he looked ridiculous! Unfortunately my camera takes forever to start up, so I only got a picture of the tail-end of their boat as they passed us.

The boat

In the boat
Brick kiln, as seen from the boat

After the focus group, I met up with Loida for lunch at Cafe Mango, a restaurant in Gulshan that she visits regularly, but I had yet to experience. It was a cute little place on the second floor of this little alley of somewhat more Western shops - including a hookah lounge with a couple of snakes under a glass panel in front of the door. Lunch was refreshing since we both did a lot of ranting about the cultural difficulties of working in Bangladesh, like not really fitting into the strict social hierarchy, dealing with not fitting the typical female stereotypes, and how much we can't stand certain people we work with (but that would happen anywhere).

Continuing my extremely long and full Friday, I met up with Wahid and we went to the National Botanical Gardens in Mirpur. I wish I had gone earlier so I could go again. I loved it! Certain parts of the gardens reminded me of home, especially because it was surprisingly hilly. I discovered this one legume tree that has really gorgeous red-orange flowers, long green seed pods, and ridiculous multiple compound leaves that I think is really beautiful. Difficult to photograph, though...I think the best way to describe the place is with pictures, so here we go:

Sweet flowers on the legume tree

Eucalyptus

Wahid and I at the Botanical Gardens

Though green, not a plant - this is a CNG, our transport to and from the Gardens.

My next big adventure was on Sunday. As I think I mentioned before, Bilqis bought me a sari a few weeks ago, but I didn't know how to put it on. Well, I'm still not really sure how it works, but I brought my sari to the office on Sunday and Rabeya and Sufia helped me get it on. Now I understand why so many women have switched over to salwaar kameez! If you're as clueless as I was, the way a sari works is you wear a petticoat underneath (basically a long cotton skirt with a drawstring and the little shirt on top) and tie the drawstring extremely tight so you can tuck the sari into the skirt. My kidneys felt a little bruised after wearing the thing for just a few hours, but it was fun to get all dressed up. Sufia bought me a pair of clay earrings and a necklace that supposedly matched my neon-sign-pink sari, so I felt fully Bangladeshi and fully ridiculous, as you can probably tell in the picture. I must have been driving the boys crazy, as Bilqis later pointed out, and judging by the looks on my co-workers' faces. I mean, a pasty white girl with blond hair in a sari rather than a baggy samauri-looking pant suit draws some attention. Anyway, Sufia and I went to the National Museum so that I would have an occasion to wear the sari in the first place. I wish I had bought heels rather than the dirt cheap sandals I bought to wear with the sari (I didn't think clunky Tevas of a different pink would be flattering) because it would have been much easier to walk!

Sari at the office

The museum trip itself was really interesting. Like any museum, it was swarming with school groups, and if you know me at all you know how much I love children...very little. Although even the adults were staring so much I wondered if I had become part of the museum's collection, the children are much bolder and like to stand about six inches away and stare. Really they were pretty well behaved. I was quite surprised when one of the older boys said "Hey, what's up?" to me - I don't think anyone has understood that question when I've used it so far so it was really surprising to hear someone actually say it. Anyway, the museum is huge! It starts off with the geology of Bangladesh, which I find pretty boring, then the biology, which is awesome, then transitions into more cultural displays with a room that more or less describes ethnobotany in Bangladesh (how people use plants to satisfy their needs, wants, etc.), so I also got pretty excited about that. There are displays for the different tribes in the Chittagong hill tracts, tons of Buddhist and Hindu artifacts dating back to the 7th century, a wild upholstered umbrella with pearls and precious metals stitched on to it, and some ridiculous wooden works. Then on the second floor they have a bunch of fancy old weapons and some more fancy decor, Bangladeshi art by the national painter (whose name escapes me), modern Bangladeshi art (which, not surprisingly, prominently features paintings of crowds), and a very nice exhibit detailing the Liberation War. Unfortunately we didn't have a ton of time to spend in the Liberation War exhibit because we spent too much time looking at things in the beginning - I would have like to read more of the displays since I only have a vague understanding of what went on during the war and it seems to have played a key role in forming the national identity. The third floor has a few exhibits of art and cultural stuff from the rest of the world, including a room full of paintings of famous old white men, and one white woman. I didn't spend much time looking, but I don't recall seeing any important South Asian figures, like Gandhi or Mother Teresa, or even non-white figures, like Nelson Mandela or MLK. Interesting choice of portraits...The museum doesn't allow picture taking, and in fact you have to check your purse at the door, so I only have pictures from the outside.

Sufia and I outside the museum

Since then I have finished my data entry and cleaning (sort of) as of 5 pm today! Now I just have a few more measurements and regulations to gather in the next week and I will have successfully completed everything that absolutely must happen here for the project to continue! WooHOO!!! While it's been a fun trip, I'm ready to get back to my "motherland", as Sohel calls it, and see everyone again - only 8 days to go!