Confessions of a guilty expat

Two brief experiences in the last week have shown me what expatriate life can be, and taught me that I’m not exactly comfortable living this kind of life.

The first was our visit to the British High Commission. Despite my joy at the gin, and my ogling of the tantalizing swimming pool, I experienced distinctly mixed feelings at being their. While it might be a nice place to retreat if everything gets a bit much, it strikes me as odd that you’d want to spend much more than an occasional afternoon there. The place is so removed from what the rest of Dhaka is like, it felt a little like I’d temporarily left Bangladesh for some sort of heated up version of the UK.

What’s more, the guy who did our security briefing added to my reservations. I don’t which was my favourite comment: that Bangladeshis don’t have anything better to do than stare at foreigners walking down the street (about the staring culture), or that Bangladesh is grateful to Britain for its education system/civil service/law and order situation. With that last comment, I think there’s a pretty good chance that he was just attempting to rile us up, as do-gooding volunteers who leap onto their high horses at any invitation. But as for the first… it does raise some interesting questions.

My second flutter of guilt came when we made our abortive visit to the Bagha Club on Friday. Again, a potentially quite attractive place after months in the villages, but the whole experience left us all feeling a little uncomfortable. Perhaps we simply haven’t been here long enough to appreciate the purpose it serves (in fact, I reckon this is fairly likely); but again, that feeling of incongruity returned. The fact that we spent about 2000 taka each in one night (a monumental sum by local standards) made me feel terribly frivolous and wasteful. And while it was highly interesting, to mingle with the local expat community and meet lots of new and interesting people, part of me felt a little uncomfortable being there.
Probably, these feelings are my fresh-faced idealism showing through. Idealism that can be fresh-faced because it’s only been here 15 days. And probably I will learn to love the expat scene. But at the moment, I think I shall be retaining my 40 quid for when I’m desperate for some home comforts.