Shaking our booties to funky house (or, The Ministry of Sound, Dhaka-stylee) 6/11/08

Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, I tell no lies: On Thursday night I was persuaded, against my better judgment, to large it up at the Westin at a Ministry of Sound night. After spending the afternoon and evening hanging out in the Bagha club, and imbibing a large quantity of gin (expat guilt be hanged, I was stressed out), Laura used the ‘well, we’re leaving Dhaka in 7 days’ argument to persuade me that what I really wanted to do with my Thursday night was get wasted and dance in one of the most surreal experiences of my whole life.

How to convey how confusing this night really was?! The Ministry of Sound, in all their wisdom, selected the Westin Hotel as the location for this shindig. This was probably for lack of alternatives, but still, it was an odd arrangement. Picture, if you will, a function room in a fancy hotel. More than half the room is filled with tables covered in white table cloths, giving the whole affair the feel of a wedding reception or a slightly stuffy prom. Although the dance floor was tiny, at least there was a dance floor and people were dancing. The music was apparently ‘funky house’ – not to my taste really, but good enough to dance to. And dance we did!

Megan, Laura and I were with some friends of Megan’s and some friends of theirs from the Bagha. All of them were very lovely, but the minute any of them left to get drinks, we girls were surrounded by guys dancing in a variety of entertaining ways. (The clientele was mainly men, some much older than I would expect to see at a funky house night, some pretty young-looking. There were a few women, but in comparison to English clubbing, it was pretty strange to be one of the only girls there). To entertain ourselves when things got dull, we taught some of the extremely enthusiastic young men dancing near us a highly cool funky house version of ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’. What can I say, they lapped it up!


LATER – things get more surreal…

The next morning, I’d been invited to a fancy lunch in Gulshan by an expat friend of Rhori and Eli’s (two Filippina volunteers). This was all well and good, except for the fact that, naturally, Laura, Megan and I were all extremely hungover from our escapades the night before. After a completely wonderful meal (I am going on a gastric tour of the Philippines – the food is just aMAzing), the karaoke microphone is brought out, and I freeze like a rabbit in the headlights of some extremely enthusiastic karaoke singers. Actually, Megan freezes too, so there we are, crouched in the headlights of impending doom, waiting for our turn with the microphone (apparently, everyone must sing – it breaks the ice and is good for you. Ha!).

As most of you know, I really definitely cannot sing. Yes, I might like to do it melodramatically from time to time, but I’ve inflicted my terrible singing on enough people to know that it’s something I can’t do well. You’ll all be mortified to learn, then, that I became addicted to karaoke. After my initial solo rendition of Chiquitita, I developed a passion for karaoke power ballads. Four hours later, I’d done them all: Total eclipse of the heart, Can you feel the love tonight?, and My heart will go on (my personal favourite, for which the karaoke machine gave me 96%!)

Although it proved to be a fun afternoon (well, maybe not for everyone: I don’t know if Megan will ever be able to listen to a power ballad again), it only compounded my addled state of mind. What on earth was I doing, hanging out in fancy Gulshan, singing karaoke at the top of my lungs, with a group of grown up women with a predilection for the most corny power ballads ever – having a complete whale of a time!? I suppose it’s just one more part of being flexible and adaptable in this crazy new life of mine…

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.

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.