Goodbye, Bangladesh

This post has been a long time coming. I sit writing it in my parents’ house in Leicester, shivering in an English summer, and wondering how I got here.

Maybe this is how Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy must have felt when they got back from Narnia. Nothing at home has changed, and Narnia feels a bit like a peculiar dream. To be fair, people aren’t just exactly where I left them (i.e. coming up the stairs to shout at me for being in a room where I’ve been told in no uncertain terms not to go), but it doesn’t feel like things have moved on that much.

Which is fine, because I’d be well and truly screwed if everyone had grown up, got married AND found their dream jobs whilst I was gone. It does feel a bit like that in some cases, but thankfully not in all (sorry guys!).

Really, this post should be several. In my last few weeks, I had a load of good ideas for posts, but things were too busy and too downright emotionally traumatic to find time to write them. So this is all you’re going to get, I’m afraid.
So. Where do I begin? How can I say goodbye to Bangladesh? To friends, colleagues and the people who became my family in Bangladesh? To the rickshaw wallahs, the little children who shook my hand every morning on the way to work, the aunties and uncles who asked me endless questions on long journeys, the market men where I used to buy my vegetables every week, the woman I bought bananas from practically every day, the little boy who shouted hello every morning from behind his pyramids of cucumbers, and all the others who made my daily routine so much more colourful? How do I say goodbye to saris and lungis and salwar kameez, and silly sandals, anklets and heavy gold jewellery? How do I bid farewell to mangoes and pineapples and jackfruit and red spinach and shojna? And what about the endless emerald paddy fields, the damp heavy air and the furious storms? And then there’s the call to prayer, which I sometimes find myself listening for, even though I know I won’t be hearing it.

And what about all the things I have to say thank you for? For everything Bangladesh has taught me; for all the support of friends and colleagues; for all the experiences, which I can’t help feeling have changed me fundamentally.

Bangladesh, it’s been wonderful. Abar dekha hobe.

Goodbye, Bangladesh

This post has been a long time coming. I sit writing it in my parents’ house in Leicester, shivering in an English summer, and wondering how I got here.

Maybe this is how Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy must have felt when they got back from Narnia. Nothing at home has changed, and Narnia feels a bit like a peculiar dream. To be fair, people aren’t just exactly where I left them (i.e. coming up the stairs to shout at me for being in a room where I’ve been told in no uncertain terms not to go), but it doesn’t feel like things have moved on that much.

Which is fine, because I’d be well and truly screwed if everyone had grown up, got married AND found their dream jobs whilst I was gone. It does feel a bit like that in some cases, but thankfully not in all (sorry guys!).

Really, this post should be several. In my last few weeks, I had a load of good ideas for posts, but things were too busy and too downright emotionally traumatic to find time to write them. So this is all you’re going to get, I’m afraid.
So. Where do I begin? How can I say goodbye to Bangladesh? To friends, colleagues and the people who became my family in Bangladesh? To the rickshaw wallahs, the little children who shook my hand every morning on the way to work, the aunties and uncles who asked me endless questions on long journeys, the market men where I used to buy my vegetables every week, the woman I bought bananas from practically every day, the little boy who shouted hello every morning from behind his pyramids of cucumbers, and all the others who made my daily routine so much more colourful? How do I say goodbye to saris and lungis and salwar kameez, and silly sandals, anklets and heavy gold jewellery? How do I bid farewell to mangoes and pineapples and jackfruit and red spinach and shojna? And what about the endless emerald paddy fields, the damp heavy air and the furious storms? And then there’s the call to prayer, which I sometimes find myself listening for, even though I know I won’t be hearing it.

And what about all the things I have to say thank you for? For everything Bangladesh has taught me; for all the support of friends and colleagues; for all the experiences, which I can’t help feeling have changed me fundamentally.

Bangladesh, it’s been wonderful. Abar dekha hobe.

Jascim-bhai's house

As the end of my placement draws near, I’m being increasingly flooded with invitations and entreaties for me to visit people’s houses, to visit their villages, hell – even to visit their mothers, before I go. I’m trying my hardest to schedule all these invitations so that I get to spend time with my close friends and the people I really care about, while not offending those who are essentially just big boss men in the office who want to be able to parade their bideshi for the neighbours to see (call me cynical, but I know these guys).

A few months ago, going to Jascim-bhai’s house would have fallen into this latter category. He’s certainly a big boss man in the office, and until January, I’d really had very little to do with him for a whole year – except a few times when he’d called me into his office and talked at me in rapid, incomprehensible Bangla, and I’d smiled, tried to nod at the right times, and run away as quick as possible.

But since we started working together on a project in January, he’s invited me to his house several times. I was extremely sceptical the first time – I thought he just wanted me to set up his newly-bought computer. But it turned out he actually wanted me to show his kids how to play computer games (not exactly my area of expertise), and to have dinner with him and his family. I was surprised to find that, beneath the bluster, he’s one of the gentlest, kindest guys I’ve met in Bangladesh, with three of the cutest, most endearing kids I’ve ever seen to boot.

He invited me for dinner the other night, and, as usual, the visit restored my faith in the world a little. As usual, within minutes of arriving at his house, Jascim-bhai himself went out to see his mates, leaving me to eat snacks and play with his kids. All night. I’ll always be grateful to kids in Bangladesh for just accepting me as I am, and not treating me as something special just because I’m a foreigner. Jascim-bhai’s kids do quite the opposite in fact: they actually think I understand whatever they say, even if it’s an extremely long story told at top speed, or a Khazi Nazrul Islam poem recited over and over and over again, because I didn’t give the right response. We must have spent hours, playing bingo and snakes and ladders and other games that I’d never heard of before, and eating bananas and biscuits and chana chur. Then, when Jascim-bhai finally came home, we all sat on their living room floor and ate chicken curry and rice and dal and salad together.

It’s nights like this that I’m really going to miss when I go home.

Domestic failure

Today, craving something sweet and having long ago devoured the chocolate supplies I lay in every time I go to Dhaka, I decided to whip up a batch of banana-raisin muffins. Being the domestic goddess that I am, this required nothing more than twenty minutes of measuring, mixing and beating before the mouth-watering scent of baking brought the neighbours running to investigate.

After forty minutes in my oven (which is pretty pathetic to be honest, and fries every socket I try to plug it into), I judged the muffins ready. Golden brown, with a good sugary glaze on top, I couldn’t wait to have one. I only left them on the rack for a minute…

This proved to be a massive error. I can’t have been away more than two minutes, but when I came back, the rack – and all ten of my freshly-baked muffins – were crawling with red ants.

I screamed. I shouted obscenities. I might have even stamped my foot a little. But then my need to eat took over: it wasn’t too late to salvage my precious baked goods! Using the quick thinking and natural problem-solving ability that I’m lucky enough to possess, I decided to rinse each muffin under the tap. Yes, you read that correctly, I washed my banana muffins.

On the plus side, this successfully removed the ants. On the minus, the muffins became a soggy, squidgy imitation of the delight they had been. I ate one, just to satisfy my sugar craving, but there’s no denying it. They were ruined. Rather than admit defeat, I put them in a tupperware in the fridge thinking that the cold might sort them out. But I haven’t yet reopened the box again to see how they’re doing. I imagine that, true to form, they’ll stay there while I tell myself that I will eat one in a minute, until I can see the mould growing inside. Then, holding my breath, I’ll quickly the open the box and lob them into the rubbish bin, and try to forget that this whole sorry episode every occurred.

Workshops from hell 1

Over the last few months, I’ve facilitated a lot of trainings and workshops. While I really enjoy facilitation, some of my experiences of the last few weeks have driven me to such disbelieving distraction that I had to take a note of proceedings. It was either that or start beating my head against the nearest hard surface… Here is an example of just one of many particularly frustrating workshops.

9.30am Scheduled starting time. Approximately half of the participants have arrived. All are sitting very quietly, but smile when I walk in.

9.47am Almost all participants are here now.

9.49am Deputy Director slouches in. Proceeds to go through the workshop outline I hand him, smiling brightly, demanding changes and alterations to everything from the grammar to the timetable. Had he been available to discuss the schedule any time in the last two weeks, I wouldn’t mind him pointing our errors. But as it is, I mind rather a lot.

9.52am People have started leaving. For cigarettes, for a stretch of the legs, to breast feed (that’s my co-facilitator, by the way).

10.15am Director waltzes in with a cursory ‘sorry’. Everyone leadps to their feet, rather as if their seats have been wired to an electric current that activates when he is present. Although he does apologise for being late, he seems to think he’s only 20 minues late, rather than 45. In workshop terms, I reckon 20 minutes is just about recoverable. 45 minutes is an entire session. I have to take quite a few deep breaths.

10.19 am Finally get started. However, Deputy Director continues to interrupt and find fault with everything we do. He wants to know where the marker pens are, why something hasn’t been explained (my colleague is, at this moment, mid-sentence, explaining precisely the point he’s harping on about. If he’d only listen…) I’ve seen few such overt displays of power in my life.

11.36 am Break morphed from 15 minutes into 30 minutes. I try to be understanding, but the main reason for the delay is that one of the facilitators, who’d assured me a particular document was translated and printed, was actually attempting to do it during the break (all 3 pages of it), and hoping I wouldn’t notice. More deep breaths. I contemplate praying.

11.42 am Group work. It quickly becomes apparent that one of the groups is really struggling. The project coordinator, who has the best English, didn’t turn up, and without the Bangla translation, it’s proving really hard for them to participate. I turn to find my co-facilitators for a bit of support. One is on the phone outside and waves me away in irritation. One refuses to go and help translate the document because there’s a senior staff member in the group and he doesn’t want to show up his boss. And one is off breast feeding her baby. Realise I’m grinding my teeth.

12.00 Deputy Director approaches me and asks if it’s possible to wrap things up before lunch. I must be hearing things. But when I ask him to repeat himself, it turns out I’m not. Want to scream. Instead, explain as politely as possible why there’s no way in hell a whole day workshop can be compressed into half a day – or rather, the remaining five hours cannot be squeezed into one. He nods understanding, and I think I may be getting somewhere. Then he explains that the senior management have very tight schedules. As if this is something I’ve never heard before.

12.04 Have to excuse myself for a few minutes. More deep breaths. I try to remind myself that it isn’t my strategic plan that we’re trying to develop, and that it means absolutely zilch to me whether or not it’s a good strategic plan.

1.16 pm Valiantly trying to finish the workshop as requested (because, after all, what’s the point in continuing if no-one will be there?) Gently remind the groups that they have 5 minutes to finish off their activity, and get yelled at by the Finance Manager. Want to yell back, with as many obscenities as I can think of, but with great self control I don’t. Have to go outside for some more calm talk though.

2.12pm Finished. As everyone slopes out for lunch, I think dark thoughts about all of them.

2.14pm Need to go and lie down in a darkened room.

Bizu

Unbelievably, or so it feels, I have just passed my second Bizu in Bangladesh. Last year, I spent it in Khagrachari, enjoying lots. This year, I went to Rangamati because the security situation in Khagrachari is still not great, and – if it’s possible – I enjoyed even more there!

Bizu is the Chakma name for new year celebrations, which are observed across much of South and Southeast Asia according to the movement of the sun (usually on or around 14th April). In the hills, the Tripura, Marma and Chakma groups have given it their own name: Boisabi, an amalgamation of the different names given to this festival by each group: for the Tripura, it’s Boisuk, for the Marma it’s Sangrai, and for the Chakma it’s Bizu.

Although Bizu or Boisabi is observed differently in different areas, in the hills it generally involves three days of festivities. The first day, Phul Bizu, is a flower festival, where people exchange flowers and hang them in their doorways. Bitter neem leaves are also hung up, apparently to freshen the hew year. Unfortunately, owing to bad timing on my part, I have spent Phul Bizu both years sitting on buses, on my way to the hills.

Not to worry, however, because it is the next day, Mul Bizu, that’s the big daddy of Bizu. On Mul Bizu, it is the tradition to ‘go visiting’. Well, that’s what you do if you’re a bideshi and therefore not expected to receive visitors yourself. If you’re not, you probably spend a lot of time cooking for and serving the steady stream of visitors who will no doubt pass by. Going visiting may sound like the jolly past time of nineteenth gentlewomen, prone to attacks of the vapours, but in the hills, it’s a marathon of eating and drinking that pushes your stamina – and your stomach capacity – to the limits. In order to bring good luck to the new year, we were repeatedly told, you should aim to visit at least seven houses. Last year, we made it to thirteen houses. This year, I made it to fourteen before conceding defeat.

What makes going visiting so difficult is the pace of the schedule and the sheer quantity of food you’re expected to consume at each and every house you visit. I’m sure we were supposed to visit at least twenty houses, and doubtless caused great offense in our failure to do so. Estelle and Tony, who both live in Rangamati, made it to seventeen and eighteen houses respectively, even though they began at 9am, three hours before my friend Amy and I arrived, and didn’t stop until almost midnight.

In every house you go to, you’re usually offered the same dishes and drinks. Depending on how you feel about the food, this can be a good or a bad thing, but I don’t think I’ll be eating brown mishti or watermelon again for quite some time.

The classic Bizu dish is a vegetable dish called pachon, supposed to contain at least twenty different types of vegetables – the majority if which I was unable to identify. As it is cooked with the dried rotten fish paste that is so common in cooking here, I can’t say that I’m a big pachon-fan. Birani, however, is a different matter. This is boot dal (big round lentils, a bit like chickpeas), and usually has egg or meat bones in it as well. Even at my fourteenth house I was still reaching for a second helping. Watermelon is also offered, Bizu coinciding with the peak of watermelon season in the hills. Other foods on offer included: delicious curried pork, different kinds of pitha (cake) made with rice, coconut and green bananas, noodles with egg, brown mishti, jalepis (just like skinny donuts, according to Amy), omlette, rice pudding, noodle pudding, papaya, orange, apple, banana, grapes, fruit custad, deep friend fish, chicken curry, beef curry, ruti, paratha, boiled rice… the list goes on.

Now, don’t get the idea that you can somewhoe have a little of one or two of these things and then just say you’re full. This simply doesn’t wash as a reason not to eat in the hills (or all of Bangladesh, for that matter). The key to survival is to make sure your plate is never empty. This means you can point to your single piece of watermelon and truthfully claim to still be eating. That way, your host is less likely to stick another fried fish on your plate, or a generous spoonful of pachon. Another trick is to avoid stodge, as there is absolutely no way you can eat rice pudding fourteen times, even if it’s really tasty.

But this is only the food. Drinking begins early on Mul Bizu, and as early at 10am people were pissed. I thought we did well to avoid alochol until 12.30pm. After that, the parade of rice wine, rice beer (good for ladies, apparently, because it’s ‘softer’), whiskey, rum etc etc blurred into one. With all that eating, I can’t say that I got drunk, but walking up and down all those hills, especially after dark, required rather more concentrationt than usual.

I think we finished our last visit at about midnight, at which point we all stumbled gratefully home and into bed.

Day Three
The third day of Bizu is known as sleeping Bizu, or rest Bizu – and after the delights of Mul Bizu, you can probably guess why. It’s also the New Year’s Water Festival for the Marma indigenous group, so for many people – us included – there’s not rest to be had.

The Water Festival is celebrated throughout South and Southeast Asia, in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, for example. The idea is that you sprinkle water on others, to cleanse them in preparation for the new year. Given that the festival falls in April, one of the hottest months in this region, it’s no surprise that there’s actually more splashing, squirting, dousing and dunking than ‘sprinkling’. If the splashing of water is supposed to cleanse you for the new year, I’d say we are all positively spotless by now.


We hired Moanaghar’s ambulance to take us to Chitmorong, a Marma Buddhist temple about an hour from where we were staying. Don’t ask why we hired an ambulance. It seemed like a really great idea, until we realised it lacked AC, windows and proper seats. At least it was easy to spot in a crowd – except when our two young drivers were off joy riding. Anyway, it was a lovely scenic drive around the Kaptai reservoir and along the banks of the Karnaphuli river. Tony said Chitmorong, a short boat ride across the river, was a lovely peaceful place, so I was imagining a day of lazing around, with maybe a dip in the river if there weren’t too many people about.

Unfortunately, on this day, Chitmorong resembled a zoo. It was heaving with visitors, monks, beggars and hawkers, and the sight of four bideshis was obviously too much to handle. Because we were all really hot after our ride in the ambulance, we foolishly decided to have a quick cooling swim, even though the river smelled suspiciously like sewage. It nearly caused a riot. Crowds thronged the banks of the Karnaphuli, everyone trying to catch a glimpse of the crazy foreigners. Well, kind of. That’s what it felt like as we climbed back up the banks in our wet clothes.

As we wandered over to the temple, the double takes and the ‘wows’ were flattering at first. Then, the sensation that I would never like to be a famous person quickly took over. At one point, we must have had a crowd of at least fifty young men trailing us, camera phones extended. As someone said, it was a bit like being pursued by a troop of zombies.

The real fun began when we went to watch the water splashing. Again, I couldn’t’ get a straight answer on the origins of this ritual, but it’s quite a spectacle to behold. Two boats are drawn up side by side, about six feet apart, and filled with water from the river. The contestants line up in front of each boat, girls in their beautiful Marma dresses on one side, boy on the other. Everyone is handed a little tin cup. Then someone blows a whistle and both sides have to fling as much water as they can at the other side, for what feels like an agonisingly long time. What the aim is, how a winner is decided, and whether this actually is a competition, I couldn’t say. But when they asked us if wanted to have a go, I didn’t hang around. By the end, you’re soaked, exhausted and filthy. Your eyes sting from the water, and your flinging arm is trembling. It was incredible!

After that, we spent the rest of the day eating and swimming on a quieter stretch of the river. That evening, we firmly refused all invitations to further programs, and organised our own program, involving rum and cokes, and honey roast potatoes. The perfect end to a perfect day.

One night in Chittagong

Whatever romantic notions the title of this post may conjure up – discard them now. For those of you who’ve never heard of Chittagong, it’s an old port city in southeast Bangladesh, set in the hills, with a natural deep water harbour and a beach. While that might, to the uninitiated, sound appealing in a mouldering colonial grandeur kind of way, it’s actually Bangladesh’s second city, a busy port, and just as chaotic as the rest of Bangladesh.

My friend Amy, who was over visiting from Abu Dhabi last week, and I found ourselves with six hours to kill before our 11.30pm bus to Dhaka. We’d arrived at 6pm, expecting to just jump on a bus, but it was not to be. If you are ever be unlucky enough to find yourself in such a predicament, here’s our suggestions on how (not) to spend your time. We didn’t exactly stray far and wide in search of a good time: it being dark and me being so socialised after eighteen months in Bangladesh that I now regard darkness as indoors time, we weren’t particularly adventurous. The following recommendations are things to do on and around Sheikh Mujib road , so if you ever get stuck waiting for a Saudia of Green Line bus from Dampara, read on…

• First of all, don’t rely on the Lonely Planet to guide you. We were thoroughly disappointed by the LP’s recommendations, as you will see, and the map is highly misleading. At one point, we almost set off walking with our big backpacks to find a hotel that looked like it was just around the block. Two steep dual carriage ways and thirty minutes later, we still hadn’t reached the hotel by rickshaw. So be warned.

• So long as you’re not questing after authentic Bangladeshi cuisine (and after two days of forcefeeding in Rangamati, we were ready for a change), there’s a Pizza Hut on Sheikh Mujib Road that perfectly hit the spot with some appetizers (garlice bread) and aperitifs (well, ok, it was just iced tea). I know a lot of travellers would turn their noses up at going to a Pizza Hut in Bangladesh, but sometimes only the preprocessed comfort of a multinational chain will do. If you ensure that you manage your time well (no multi-tasking of any description, for example), you can quite easily pass a good forty minutes there.

• Next, you could think about heading out for a real aperitif. I say ‘could’ because, given the available options, I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle. The LP recommends an entertainingly seedy-sounding bar somewhere near Station Road, but as two bideshis alone, and after 8pm, for crying out loud, we decided it sounded like too much hassle. Far better to plump for a hotel. And seeing as Amy was paying for everything, we lighted upon the Hotel Agrabad – described by the LP as ‘plush’ (not my italics). I was wildly excited about the prospect of going to a hotel that apparently charges $110 for a single room, even if only for a drink, so perhaps my expectations were unreasonably heightened. Suffice to say that, although there is a bar, it is anything but plush, and two women there alone after dark were distinctly frowned upon. Add to this the fact that two local vodkas and a shared can of sprite came to 500 taka, and it really is a waste of money. You’re certainly not paying for the ambience.

• By this point, we were both pretty hungry, so decided to grab a rickshaw to try out another LP recommendation: Chung King restaurant, also on Sheikh Mujib road. The LP says that Chung King is “reputed to have the best Chinese food in town, as well as Indonesian, Thai and Indian selections.” Now, I don’t know if the writer actually visited this restaurant, or just heard about it from someone (maybe the owner?), but on the night we visited there was no selection – there was Chinese or Chinese, and it was bog-standard at that. On our way to Rangamati, we’d stopped in Comilla in a service station and had chowmein that was tastier. It wasn’t offensive at all, but it certainly didn’t live up to its recommendation.

• Feeling a bit disheartened, but a full two hours later, we struggled back to the bus counter and deposited our bags. On an earlier rickshaw ride, we’d spied an ice cream parlour a little further down the road from Pizza Hut, so went to investigate. Sadly, it was almost 10.30pm so the parlour was closing. The staff went a bit goggled eyed when we knocked on the door, but still refused to give us a scoop of ice cream each. Not to be defeated, we went back to Pizza Hut and plumped for a slice of chocolate cake and an ice cream sundae. All I can say is, the multi-national chains rarely let you down.

• Finally, after a slightly embarrassing incident where I had to sprint back to the Saudia counter to get some emergency cash from my backpack to pay for our outlandish desserts, we boarded the most lux bus I’ve ever seen, and promptly fell asleep. If the LP wants to throw the term ‘plush’ around, it might best be applied to the 760 taka Soudia S Alam Dhaka-Chittagong bus: it was like sleeping in a gently rocking arm chair.

On not getting the message

I’m going to shout at someone soon if I don’t get this off my chest, so please forgive me another rant…

What is it with Bangladeshis and not getting the message? Back home, if you call someone twice and they cut your calls, you’d probably assume they are either too busy to talk or not your friend anymore. Here, however, if someone wants to talk to you, there’s simply no stopping them.

Last night, I was really late with for a deadline thanks to the national power board, and two colleagues were trying to get hold of me. I knew it was nothing urgent, as I’d spoken to them both less than an hour before. I rejected twelve calls from the two of them in the space of thirty minutes. TWELVE. Now, it isn’t unreasonable for a person to feel hounded under such circumstances, is it? Because I’m really losing perspective here. In the end, I turned off my phone (I wanted to chuck it out the window).

When the article was finished, and I called my colleagues back, they were both outraged that I had ignored their calls. They were understanding when I said I had been very busy finishing some work, but that’s not the point, is it?

Today is a Friday, what I like to think of as me-time. Working six days a week doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to relax, so on Fridays, I tend to reject all but essential invitations and disturbances, and spend my day reading, writing, watching The Wire and painting my toenails.

About an hour ago, a neighbour came over. I heard her downstairs chatting to the other housewives, before she came upstairs. Unfortunately for her, I was really not in the mood for idle chitchat, so I decided to ignore her knocking. My lack of response did not, however, discourage her.

Meanwhile, I was checking my emails or something. At first, the knocking was easy to ignore. I assumed she’d go away after a couple of unanswered knocks. But as the minutes ticked by, I found I couldn’t concentrate. Then, I heard her telling her son to go outside and see if he could see through the windows. I cursed, and turned the main light off, starting to feel like a fugitive in my own home. I heard the kid calling to me from the front yard, then telling his mother he couldn’t see me. Then my phone started ringing.

Eventually, they must have got bored, because she went back downstairs, complaining loudly. Then I heard the gate screech as she left.

Fifteen minutes later, I judged it safe to put the light back on.

Am I being unreasonable? Am I being rude to act like this? Part of me thinks so. But the other part thinks that if everyone could just take the hint and bugger off when I occasionally don’t answer their calls, we’d all get along much better.

The bastard ants

Regular readers may remember my rants about the ants last spring. Well, they’re back and they mean business.

I don’t know if it’s a seasonal thing, but my flat has suddenly been overrun by ants of all descriptions. We’ve got tiny red biting ants, whose bites leave big red swellings for days afterwards; we’ve got big black buggers, who patrol the floor of my sitting room and give the most painful bites I’ve ever had from an insect; and we’ve got little black ‘uns, comparatively harmless, but bloody everywhere.

I noticed the first ones a few days ago, criss-crossing the wall above the dining table. They were black and small, so I ignored them. Then, I came home from work to discover a black stain on the floor that, when I approached appeared to dissolve in all directions at once. A dead cockroach makes a nutritious meal for most of the ants in the sodding neighbourhood, apparently.

And now they’re everywhere. In my grapes, on my table, emerging from the plughole in my sink… there isn’t a place these ants will pass over. I made the mistake of dropping a fragment of Crème Egg wrapper (from a crème egg, lovingly sent by my sister) during a blackout one night, and awoke the next morning to find it heaving with ants.

Now that I understand. If I’m going to do something so stupid as leave sticky chocolate wrappers lying around, I’ve got to expect an ant party. Of course ants want crème egg goo, delicious as it is. But what do they want with the dreggs of my (unsweetened) coffee? And how dare they attempt to infest my goddamn oats? Not to mention violating my water filter, which I really feel is taking the piss.

I think me and the bastard ants need to sit down and try to come to some sort of mutual understanding about what is and what isn’t fair game in this flat. Otherwise, the only option is war. And I really don’t like the odds on me plus a can of Mortein, versus an army of endless ants.

Dirty Dhaka stricken by diarrhoea epidemic

As some of you may have picked up from my pathetic-sounding tweets over the last few days, I was recently struck down by a rather nasty bout of ‘the episodes’. I have never been this sick with diarrhoea before, and have never realised how truly unpleasant – and frankly dangerous – diarrhoea can be. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had travellers diarrhoea, and even giardia, many times before (I didn’t get the nickname Windy-bum Whitaker for nothing). I’m also well versed in the usual coping mechanisms (lots of oral rehydration salts and lots of water, combined with a tantalising selection of any of the following: flat 7-Up, bananas, toast, boiled rice, boiled eggs etc. My approach is always eat if you feel hungry, don’t eat if you don’t, and go to the doctor if things aren’t improving after 48 hours).

However, I’ve truly never been this sick in all my days in Bangladesh. I was only the other day thinking how lucky I’ve been, not to have been hospitalised, operated upon or airlifted out of the country, like many of my fellow volunteers. I was even applauding the steeliness of my immune system a little bit. I should have known that such thoughts only tempt fate.

Not to dwell on the gritty details, but things were BAD for quite a few days. To cut a long story short, I was practically bed ridden for three days, was given horrendously strong antibiotics, and lost about 4 kilograms in less than a week. Luckily, the antibiotics seem to have done their work, and I’ve managed to progress to non-toast-based meals over the last two days.

Usually, I can identify a likely culprit when I’m struck down with the episodes. This time around, however, I couldn’t think of anything suspect I’d eaten in the past few days. My only conclusion is therefore that the general grubbiness (read, pure filth) that characterises Dhaka simply makes one more susceptible to sickness of any kind.

During my hour of need, I was (slightly) comforted to learn that I and my liquid bowels weren’t suffering alone. ICDDR,B, the diarrhoea hospital in Dhaka – and obviously the place you want to be when you’ve got diarrhoea – has recently seen a major influx of patients as the temperature here climbs day by day. Apparently, it’s a common occurrence during this season – and one instance in which the ‘change of seasons’ can genuinely be seen to be affecting health. When I went to the travellers’ clinc that is also at ICDDR,B on Thursday, feeling extremely sorry for myself, it was sobering to see where the Bangladeshi diarrhoea patients wait out their episodes: on rubber-covered gurneys with holes in the middle and buckets beneath, in what is essentially an open air ward.

A bit of an epiphany

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany lately, dear readers: I am ready to leave the ‘desh.

Although the thought of leaving regularly makes me want to weep, a very wise friend pointed out to me a few weeks ago that, when working in development, just as it is important to see out your contract, it’s equally important to known when to leave. And I’ve come to see, over the last few weeks, that my desire to stay here at GBK is more about my fear of the next step, than about what I can really contribute to GBK in addition to what I’m already doing. The skills that I have, and the support that GBK now needs, no longer match. It’s time for us both to move on.

I think my work here is (almost) done.

Now all I have to do is break this to my colleagues. Like my neighbours, they are forever trying to convince me to stay on in Bangladesh. For a while, I was genuinely searching for ways to stay. But now that I know this is not what I want, I just don’t know if I have the heart to tell my friends that, actually, for the time being at least, I’m done with Bangladesh.

Silver linings

I arrived home from work the other day, pretty tired, and ran into Meena, my landlady. Because I’ve been working such long hours lately, I hadn’t seen her in a few days. She insisted that I come in and sit down. In between making me tea and piling at least a dozen biscuits onto my plate, she began to tell me how much she was going to miss me when I’m gone. She kept insisting that things would be altogether much better if I stay for at least one more year, that I live in her flat and (when I pointed out that I would have no job beyond 17th May, and therefore would not be able to pay the rent), that I get married in Bangladesh. Sumaia’s mother, who was passing by at the time, popped in to gossip. She said the same thing. Then Auntie from upstairs came downstairs and joined in.

Really, it was all very touching, and began to make me feel rather tearful.
But then, as Meena was bringing me my dinner (I only put up a feeble resistance to her offer of goat curry, I’ll admit it), the mood changed. She pulled her chair closer to mine, and glanced around nervously. Jumping up again, she pushed the front door closed. I began to worry she was about to offer me her son’s hand in marriage. As she leaned in towards me, I began to panic, racking my brains for polite ways to say no.

Alas, my consternation proved to be needless. Her proposition was of quite a different nature. She asked me very softly, as if afraid the neighbours would overhear, whether I planned on taking my rice cooker back to England with me.
I gazed at her in wonder for a moment, before carefully explaining that no, it was unlikely the rice cooker would fit into my backpack. She beamed enormously. Then she asked if I’d be taking the china teapot my parents bought while they were here. And so began an inventory of all the household goods that I’ve accumulated, and which she’s obviously had her eye on for the last year and more.

I suppose the lesson here is that every cloud has a silver lining. And the cloud of me leaving Bangladesh is, for Meena at least, lined with electrical appliances and crockery.

Job hunting

The bright sparks amongst you have probably guessed from the title of this post that, finally, after many months of denial and procrastination, the time has come for me to decide What I Want To Do Next.

Oh, those six dreaded words. This question, while I was at home and being clouted over the head by it at every turn, made my heart constrict and my natural ebullience wilt, before the questioner had even reached the inflection at the end of the sentence.

Now, however, as I sit here in Parbs, I see the long, dark years stretch out before me, rather like the road does in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (think nuclear winter, with a bit of cannibalism thrown in for variety), and I know that attempting to answer this tortuous question is infinitely preferable to living in Leicester for the rest of my life.

I suppose I hadn’t realised, until the possibility of extending my placement here was torn to shreds, set alights and the embers danced upon by a thoroughly ridiculous decision (I’m not naming any names, before you ask), how much that possibility had been cocooning me from facing this depressing prospect. It was only when that particular rug was whipped out from under my feet that the need to Find A Job hit me square in the jaw.

Unfortunately, I’m no closer now to knowing what I want to do with my life than I was when I arrived here. Convinced I was going to have an epiphany in a Bangladeshi village, I quietly pitied my university friends, all madly applying for jobs the summer we graduated. And now, here I am, not so much closer to The Answer than I was when we took off from Heathrow back in 2008.

Back in the desh

Bangladesh got really annoying while I was gone. Perhaps it’s just going through a particularly irritating phase. Perhaps. More likely, Bangladesh has always been this annoying, only I’d been here for so long I’d stopped noticing. Either way, I am struggling to readjust, especially after the blissful two days I spent on St Martin’s island last week – probably the best part of Bangladesh I’ve been to yet, precisely because it’s nothing like Bangladesh.

(I should probably give a slight disclaimer here – I’ve had a crap day and am feeling premenstrual . But I’m not going to make excuses anymore. Oh no. I’m telling it like it is.)

It began yesterday when I got back to the office for the first time in six weeks. I went in to say hello to my director, and after the initial pleasantries, he kept me waiting for ten minutes in silence while he rifled aimlessly through papers on his desk. When I asked if I should come back later, after he’d taken the second phone call, he said “No, no, just wait, one minute”.

Then the demands for “some demandable gift from London” began. Not just from the friends whom I’m promised to bring a little something for. Oh no. Nearly every single person in the office has stopped me over the last two days to ask where their present is. Even the people I don’t like, the high up management people who generally think it is beneath their dignity to talk to me unless they want something, such as helping them to get British visa, or bringing them a cheap English laptop from home. They have no shame, I tell you, none. It all came to a head today when one particular member of staff came into my office. I thought he’d just come for a chat as we hadn’t really seen each other since I’d come back, but I was sadly mistaken. After merely 30 seconds of small talk, he asked if I had something for him. I scowled, then explained that I had brought some traditional English biscuits and chocolates (which took up a sizeable amount of space in my backpack, I’ll have you know), which I was planning to share on Saturday when many people who are away on training will return to the office. It was his turn to scowl.

“Just food presents?” he demanded, clearly not impressed with this. I nodded.

“No useable item?” My scowl deepened. I explained (with some dignity, I think) that I am not a millionaire and therefore couldn’t bring a proper present for all 30 people in the office. He didn’t understand the word millionaire, however, so my dignity was somewhat lost. When I said that I am not a rich man, something that definitely translates, he laughed. Mirthlessly. No-one here believes that it’s possible for me not to be rich. I know that by Bangladeshi standards I am, but when we’re talking about buying 30 Christmas presents in England, I’m definitely not.

Anyway, this exchange continued for some ten minutes, with my face getting stonier by the second. When I asked, in exasperation, what he wanted me to do, he replied that I should have brought some small useable item for him. When I asked whether he rather not have any of my sodding biscuits as they clearly weren’t good enough for him, he asked whether I was feeling angry. In the end, I had to stare at my computer screen and count to ten whilst breathing deeply until he got the message and left.
After that, I had a good cry – more rage-induced than anything else – and decided that if no-one was going to appreciate me in this bloody office, if everyone was going to take me for granted as a limitless money-lender and bringer of “demandable” gifts, then I may as well just bugger off home.

Only Bangladesh was also waiting outside. My back was already up about this gift thing, but then, as I marched up the road to the rickshaw stand, the legions of “Hi madam, how are you’s?” began to grate against my soul, rather like a cheese grater would on bare flesh. I had on my best don’t-bloody-talk-to-me face, but some in this country are impervious to all subtle hints except shouting at very close quarters. Unfortunately for them, I swore loudly at many of the banana sellers in Haldibari today.

I finally made it back to my house, where I came upon Lily. I knew immediately that she was sulking with me for not keeping in touch, or not going to see her yesterday, or some other cultural faux pas that I was unaware of. She refused to even make eye contact with me.This is another really annoying Bangladeshi habit – expecting that the only thing you think about when you’re not with someone is them, and not really understanding that when I’m in Dhaka, or at home, I actually have other things to do (don’t get me wrong, I did keep in touch with my close friends, but if I’d kept in touch with everyone while I was at home I’d have done nothing by skype Bangladesh, and frankly, I’d had enough of it). At this stage, I couldn’t even be bothered to explain why I hadn’t been in touch (a broken mobile and a sim card left on my desk in Leicester). I just shrugged and sloped off.

By this point, I was about ready to break. So I decided that there was only one thing for it: Davina. Exercise has long been my saviour here, giving me a shot of endorphins when I’m at my lowest, ready to go out on a killing spree. My new Davina dvd thankfully did not let me down. There was enough punching and kicking in it to reduce my colleagues to blubbering wrecks who would not even be able to form the words “demandable” and “gift”, let alone tell me that my gifts aren’t good enough.

The last straw came during the abs section. I was feeling pretty good, had worked up a nice sweat, and was almost through. That’s when the knocking on my door started. It went on for the rest of the abs section and the entire cool down section (about 20 minutes). To be fair, it was only Shahanaz wanting her wages, and I can’t really blame her for that. But I was so close to the end and wearing only tiny little shorts and a sports bra (i.e. not in any fit state to answer the door), that I decided to ignore it. I assumed she’d just go away and come back later.

I was ready to scream by the end. My exercise-induced zen was utterly destroyed. But when I answered the door, a look like thunder on my face, they all just came trundling in as usual to poke around my things and ask inane questions. When Shahanaz asked if the winter weight babygro with attached mittens and booties, which my mother had sent for my colleague Sarah’s new baby, was for her five year old son, I really did think it was the end. She said that she’d seen it earlier, and that Meena-auntie had said I must have brought it for him. I forced to explain, with the poor boy standing there gazing at the babygro in wonder, that there was no way in hell it was going to fit him, and no, actually, I hadn’t brought it for him. His crushed and accusing eyes as the whole dog and pony show trooped out of my flat really were the straws that broke the camel’s back in this case.
I have to admit it. I cracked. Those chocolate supplies that were supposed to last me a good few weeks have been reduced to wrappers. However, having splurged my pent up rage onto this blog, you’ll all be pleased to know that I’m feeling remarkably better.

Welcome home, Dhaka style

I was slightly disappointed not to be met by cheering fans as I emerged from customs, especially after an annoying delay in Calcutta airport (where there is not a bloody thing to do – it’s like they have a special second-rate terminal for flights to Bangladesh).

It was rather rewarding, however, to march out of the terminal into the staring, shouting, hustling crowd that always swarms around the airport in Dhaka, and inform everyone who made a grab for my bag or attempted to usher me into an outrageously overpriced yellow taxi (who needs airconditioning in January?), that I would not be requiring their services – all in fluent Bangla, of course. Hopping into a CNG for the first time in a month was like a warm embrace from Bangladesh, and I was surprised to find myself glad to receive it.

In the evening, I enjoyed a typical Dhaka Thursday night in – cheap nasty whiskey and a dirty kebab. Unsurprisingly, delicious as it was at the time, this delightful concoction gave all participants stomach upsets throughout the night.

God, it’s good to be back!