The Lash in Dhaka 25/10/08

Having been told time and time again by returned volunteers that it’s very difficult to get your hands on alcohol here, and hence the lash is a rare occurrence, my experiences of the last week have proved that this is, in fact, a lie. You definitely have to pay for it, but it is there. Let me document my experience of the lash thus far to illustrate this exciting discovery…

Incident Number One: Drinks on the British Tax-Payer
On our visit to the British High Commission earlier this week on a particularly hot and sweaty afternoon, we enjoyed our first alcohol in Bangladesh, courtesy of the glorious British state. After plucking up the courage to ask for it (having been offered only beer initially), I enjoyed an icy gin and tonic, feeling guiltily like an old colonialist. This is the life!

Incident Number Two: Dinner at Bruce’s
Bruce, a volunteer from Uganda, invited Laura, Megan, Ollie, Keith and I over for dinner the other night. We had amazing beef stew (I get excited every time I eat meat, as I don’t yet have the balls to go out and buy it), made even better by the production of cold cans of Kingfisher at the end. Mmm-hmm. Bruce refuses to disclose his supplier’s name to us, but clearly this guy has the goods. We also had our first encounter with rice wine, a specialty of the Hill Tracts region: it’s pretty potent stuff, smelling like paint stripper and tasting a bit like a combination of whiskey (the vapour) and vodka (the taste). Clearly, there is much potential for the lash here…

Incident Number Three: My first party in the ‘desh
It was another volunteer’s birthday last week too, and again Bruce played host to much delicious food, abundant alcohol and much revelry. I also met the mysterious supplier, but failed to get his number (bugger). There was extremely sweaty dancing, lots of covering the birthday girl in various edible substances, and I racily didn’t get to bed til 1am!

Incident Number Four: The Bagha Club
On Friday night (Friday being the new Saturday, dontcha know), we decided it was time to visit the Bagha club. Bagha, meaning ‘tiger’ in Bangla, is an expat club in Gulshan, the expensive embassy area of Dhaka. On arriving, hoping simply for a quiet drink, we discovered our several faux pas. Firstly, you can’t register at 7.30 on a Friday night. Secondly, there was a big party going on for which tickets had to be purchased. Having come only for one drink, I had a measly 500 taka with me, which turned out to be sadly insufficient for the night ahead. Thirdly, there is clearly an active party-scene in Dhaka and everyone there (NGO workers, military contractors, embassy staff, the rich kids of Dhaka) was dressed to the nines for the party. I was wearing mud-spattered trousers and a non-matching shirt and orna. Cue immense embarrassment on my part, and some swift conversion of said trousers into shorts.

Despite this collection of blunders, we were determined to have a good night. Through a cunning mixture of pooled resources and a hasty trip to an ATM (thank you, Ollie!), we amassed quite a few thousand taka and proceeded to blow it all on gin and 2 packets of crisps. All in all, it was a pretty weird experience (see later), but one that was worth it. While this record may make me sound a little like a wino, as after only 2 weeks here I’m not exactly getting withdrawal symptoms yet, it will definitely prove useful after many months in a tiny and probably almost totally dry village.