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.