Roza (25/08/09)

Walking home from drinks with a friend this evening (non-alcoholic, of course), I happened to be passing my local mosque at the time of evening prayers. Usually, this is a pretty quotidian affair, nothing to shout about really, just a bunch of men praying. Today, however, on the third day of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, the mosque was so packed that worshippers spilled out onto the surrounding streets, kneeling to pray in the dust. Outside, the cafes and restaurants that had all day been churning out deep fried sweets and deep fried vegetables, were struggling to manage their hungry queues of people waiting to take iftar. Within minutes of the azan, the stalls had been stripped bare. After going almost sixteen hours without eating or drinking, they ate, they prayed, then they went home to their families to eat some more.

As white-capped men thronged onto the streets around me, carrying colorful packages and grease-stained packets, you could almost smell the relief and celebration in the air, mingling with the scent of frying aubergines and hot sugar. Everywhere I looked, men in their best were chowing down with their friends or hurrying home to their families.

And I was completely alone.

Until you experience a religious festival like Ramadan completely from the outside, it’s difficult to imagine how isolating it can feel. Sure, you see people observing Ramadan in the UK, but it’s a totally different story when everyone around you is fasting then enjoying iftar, and you are not. With the majority of my colleagues observing roza (fasting), I’d be feeling guilty at lunchtime as I ate my rice and dal. Walking home today, I decided that this combination of guilt and isolation really would not do, and thus my roza experiment was conceived.

3am Got up dutifully when my alarm went off. Reheated the khichuri I’d cooked the night before. Made some toast too, so it was a real carb fest. Had palmed to have tomatoes on the toast, and an apple for vitamins, but at 3am it was all I could do to tip the khichuri into a pan and stir it.

3:35am Stumble back to bed feeling pretty dazed and confused.

4:10am Realise that my first attempt at fasting has been jeopardized by the confusion surrounding ‘digital’ and ‘old’ time. I’d set my alarm for 3am having been told by my Parbatipur neighbours that 3am was seheri, the time for eating before morning prayers. Unfortunately, it transpired that they were referring to 3am OLD time (i.e. the time before the clocks went forward – see later post for time-related capers…), which is actually 4am digital time, and therefore the time by my watch. So just as I’m drifting off again, I hear the mosque begin to blare: “Time to eat, time to eat.” I think even in my addled state of mind, I managed to roll my eyes. Then later a while later, “Stop eating, stop eating.” I groaned. Then later still, the bloody call to prayer, which must be an extra-special bumper edition of the usual rendition, because it seemed to go on forever. Finally drifted off again, to have some very disturbed dreams, thanks to all the glucose that’s now haring around my system.

8:30am Roll out of bed. Feeling very disoriented. Stomach feels decidedly odd – maybe it’s as confused as my brain is at having eaten an unusually large meal in the middle of the night. I take a shower and feel a little more with it. Am lost for something to do, to fill the pre-work minutes. Breakfast so handily fills in this otherwise useless time. Decide to get down to some work to take my mind off food.

9.30am Just had a bought of what might well be called ‘loose motion’. Great stuff. My experiment is going well so far.

9.53am First stomach rumblings. Oh dear. Still over nine hours to go…

10.15am Starting to get the shakes. Really can’t concentrate on data entry.

10.43am After four out of six data sets entered, need a little lie down.

11.15am It’s really hard to know what to do when data entry-related boredom sets in. Normally, I’d just eat!

1pm Have arrived at the office and can’t help myself but moan about how hungry I am. A good Muslim would never do this, of course, but food is all I can think about. When I tell my colleagues that I am also ‘in roza’, as they say, they first look at me like I’m a little crazy, then they all think it’s utterly hilarious. I smile weakly and go and have a little sit down.

3.30pm Feeling pretty spacey. Having spent quite a frantic afternoon in the office, sending emails, searching for missing data sets etc etc, I’m a little bit exhausted. Also, feeling very hot despite the AC. Is that to do with dehydration? My self-cooling system is no longer working because there’s no cooler left? Who knows. Should have listened harder in biology. Trying to explain the intricacies of data entry/data analysis to Tonni, I start to feel like I might pass out.

3.50pm I’ve given in. Had to go and get a covert glass of water. Within minutes, I’m feeling better, clearer-headed, cooler, calmer… Try to tell myself it’s okay, I’m not used to the Bangladeshi climate, so it’s alright for me to drink water. Not sure what Allah would think of that, though…

4.15pm Only three hours to go now. Not actually feeling too hungry. Still banging it out with the data entry.

6.40pm Miraculously, still not hungry! Need some bloody water though. Going to meet Mahaboub for iftar now. Roll on the fried goods and sugar!

7.10pm Searching for a restaurant that meets Mahaboub’s exacting standards. Despite not feeling hungry, I’m not too steady on my feet. Never thought twenty minutes could feel so long. Worryingly, all the hotels seem to be full of people sitting in silence with full plates in front of them, waiting for 7.22pm, and the azan.

7.30pm At last, iftar! What a delight. Finally found a hotel that had two free chairs (admittedly, on opposite sides of the room, but who’s complaining when there’s food to be had?). Had to do some aimless wandering for twenty minutes, as I didn’t really trust myself to sit in close proximity to food and not eat. The azan was playing on the radio as we stumbled in and take our seats, and it’s quite a spectacle to behold. The hotel we (finally) lighted upon was a fast food shwarma café on Mirpur road, with tempting spit roasting chickens and doner kebab outside, and strip lighting, plastic chairs and off-putting photographs of fast food inside. It was also packed to the gills, yet utterly silent, save for the sound of hungry people eating. We ordered shwarma, which is chicken kebab rolled up in a flat bread with salad and some unidentifiable sauce. I never knew shwarma could taste so good, but it did. Twice.

8.30pm Finally get back to my flat. Stomach is still a bit uncomfortably full, but I make myself tea, and crack open a packet of biscuits and curl up to watch ‘The English Patient’.

9.15pm Time for bed. I’m exhausted. As I drift off to sleep, I smile smugly that I won’t be getting up at 4am again. At least not tomorrow, anyway.

A small mystery

Travelling to and from Dhaka over the last few days, I stumbled upon something quite curious. In the roadside hotel that the bus stopped in, the old glass bottle placed on my table for drinking water caught my eye. Although the bottle’s label was long gone, there was something familiar about the logo impressed on the glass – some kind of coat of arms, perhaps – but something I had definitely seen before. Then I looked at the bottle on the neighbouring table, where a scrap of label still stubbornly clung to the glass. Just three letters remained, but I realised what I was looking at. The washed out red ‘-off’ that remained was instantly recognisable to me: it was an old vodka bottle. Glancing around the room I saw that each of the fifty-odd tables was graced with a similar glass bottle as a centre piece. Different brands, different sizes, but all vodka.

Now tell me. In a country like this, where alcohol is officially frowned upon, where does such a supply come from? How did fifty old vodka bottles wind up in this little service station, bang in the middle of nowhere? And more importantly, why has no-one let me in on this little secret?

Green mangoes (17/5/09)

I’ve been waiting for mango season since I got here, and it is with GREAT pleasure that I’d like to inform you all I enjoyed my first mango of the season the other day. Mmmhmmm.

However, perhaps more excitingly, I also tried green mango for the first time yesterday. For a long time, I’d heard talk of these green mangoes. Some spoke of them reverentially, with glowing eyes and salivating mouths. Others spoke more disdainfully, dismissing them as ‘women’s food’. Some of my male colleagues were even ruthlessly teased when they confessed to being fans. Of course, this led to many a heated argument about gender stereotyping amongst my colleagues, and a great deal of curiosity on my part as to what all the fuss was about.

Green mangoes are basically just normal mangoes picked before they’re ripe, and served with lots of salt and red chilli. A lot of fruit here is served with salt and spices on it (watermelon, for instance) and usually I cannot abide it, despite my friends’ protestations that it just ‘brings out the sweetness’. Total rubbish. It makes the fruit taste foul. I definitely wasn’t expecting to be won over.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, when it comes to green mangoes, the salt and chilli combination works like a charm. They go perfectly with the incredible sourness of the fruit, to make a lip-smacking, eye-watering snack (get the proportions slightly wrong, however, and you end up in physical pain, as happened today when some total amateur had clearly prepared our mango).

Luckily, there are dozens of mango trees outside the GBK office, now temptingly laden with slowly ripening mangoes. Unluckily, some big boss man has ruled that the mangoes should be left to ripen, and should not be eaten green.

Of course, this is not enough to put off a die-hard mango-fan such as I have become. I mean, the green mango season is short enough as it is, without any time-wasting tactics from the ‘management’. So in a quest for mango satisfaction, my friend Sarah and I have been perfecting our techniques for covert mango consumption. This involves sneaking over to the trees when everyone in the office is suitably distracted, spiriting the plucked fruit to the kitchen staff, then coming up with separate but simultaneous pretexts on which to visit the canteen.

Once there, we sit giggling and devour the fruit amid much wincing and smacking of lips, while the kitchen boy keeps watch.

This may sound like a lot of palaver but trust me: green mangoes are worth it.

Reflections from the Sonargaon Hotel (5th May 2009 )

The Sonargaon is one of Dhaka’s premier fancypants hotels. To a VSO volunteer like me – and to most of the population of Bangladesh – it’s the kind of place one can only dream of. Perhaps you hear stories of the wonders contained within, but the chance of your seeing them with your own eyes is slim to none.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself in the lobby of this very hotel, witness to the luxurious parallel world that it offers to those who can afford the (absolutely outrageously extortionate) prices.

It was an accident, really. Places like the Sonargaon are hardly on my radar in Dhaka, so far are they from my range of possibility. But I had a meeting to go to (discussing the legal system and violence against women in Bangladesh, don’t ya know), and the Sonargaon just happened to be the closest landmark. When I asked for the Sonargaon hotel, my CNG driver assumed I meant actually inside the hotel, and by the time I realised what was happening, it was too late to turn back (there’s a stupid one-way system and a lot of guards with rifles to enforce it). Then, the man outside hotel (you know, the one that opens the doors – I don’t even know the proper name for that) also assumed I was a guest and ushered me inside. I can only assume it was my bideshi status that made him think this – nothing else about my rumpled and sweaty appearance can possibly have given him that impression.

Now, I know I could have stopped this turn of events from unspooling at any point. I’m not saying I was a helpless victim who was forced into the Sonargaon, kicking and screaming. But I also didn’t plan to end up there. I want to make that clear. I’m not the kind of person who’d choose to hang out in such mindboggling dens of indulgence. I suppose there were a range of factors at work:
1. I was intrigued. I don’t think I’d ever been inside such a fancy hotel in my life before being swept into this one. The sight of the indoor fountain, the starched uniforms and the GRAND PIANO rendered me temporarily dumb, and sadly unable to protest as I was shown inside.
2. I was ninety minutes early for my meeting. I know, I know, quite ridiculous, but I didn’t have a clue where I was going and the traffic in this city is usually shocking.
3. I was flattered. Don’t think I don’t recognise my own pride. I was definitely flattered that anyone might think I belonged in such a place, despite my torn clothes and my dusty hair and the generally dishevelled appearance I cultivate here. If it had been England, I’d have been out on my ear in moments.

As soon as I came to my senses, however, I began to panic. My palms began to sweat, despite the powerful air conditioning. I knew I had to act as if I knew exactly where I was going, or there’d be suspicions. And so began Operation Blend In With The Ridiculously Privileged Crowd.

I spied a comfortable and thankfully empty seating area, and made a beeline for it. The ‘Guests Only’ sign nearly felled me as I strode towards the seat I had already selected (I have a schoolchild’s fear of signs and instructions), but my nerves held out. I’d chosen a seat a safe distance from the waiters’ station, but which also faced the main atrium of the hotel, so I could keep an eye out for any armed guards coming to escort me from the premises.

But the first person to approach me was a bow-tied waiter, who enquired if he could bring me anything. I smiled my sweetest smile, and told him I was waiting for a friend. I graciously accepted the menu he offered me, and let out a deep sigh of relief as he glided silently away.

After a few moments, when it appeared that I wasn’t going to be ejected from the building imminently, I began to relax and take in my surroundings. The lobby is all pale stone, polished to a high shine, and vases and vases of real orchids. The staff are legion, and all dressed in a theatrical array of different uniforms, presumably marking out their place in the pecking order. But the truly incredible thing – the thing that made my jaw drop in astonishment when I first stumbled through the doors – is the grand piano. A full-size grand piano sits in one corner of the lobby, being played by a small Bangladeshi man in a dinner jacket. The medley of songs he treats passing guests to is quite astounding, from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata to a nineties boyband power ballad that I couldn’t quite identify (owing to my poor knowledge of pop music rather than his playing, of course).

The range of guests was intriguing. The majority seemed to be Middle Eastern businessmen, in expensive-looking shirts and dark sunglasses, talking quietly in groups around the lobby. Then there were the middle-aged white business men, marching through followed by porters toting briefcases and suitcases. I spied one white guy, in shorts and a multi-pocketed fisherman’s vest, who was almost definitely a journalist of some kind. The porter dragging the enormous tripod was a dead giveaway.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the kind of people who would use such a hotel. I mean, I know all the practical reasons of convenience and comfort, of course. But my brief perusal of the café menu informed me that a coke would set you back 115 taka, and a cup of tea 177. Although this might be cheaper than in England (that’s about £1.20 and £1.80), outside on the streets of Dhaka, coke is expensive, at maybe 40 taka, and tea is a snip at about 4 taka. Clearly only the very rich and the unhinged would come here. Perhaps there’s not much of a distinction between the two…

Although my fears – and my pretend telephone conversations with the ‘friend’ that I was meeting – proved unnecessary, and I was not unceremoniously booted out, I couldn’t help but wonder what the other people in the lobby thought of me. Perhaps because of the colour of my skin alone, people I assume I am a guest, one of them, the kind of person who belongs in that kind of hotel. That thought makes me a feel a little bit sick: I don’t want to be one of these people, I don’t want to be the kind of person who stays in such a bubble of luxury while outside there is both a lot more life and a lot more poverty. I’m guessing my ripped salwar, my dirty sandals and my chipped toenail polish are surely glaring signals that I’m not exactly five-star hotel material? But perhaps, the fact that I am a bideshi, that I come from the UK and can go back any time, (probably) get a decent job and live with the comfort of social security and an adequate salary my whole life sets me apart. Maybe – in fact probably – I am more like the people in the Sonargaon than those on the streets outside, and no amount of wishing will make it otherwise.

But then again, maybe my superb acting fooled them all. Those fake phone calls were the work of a genius, keeping all overly-attentive waiters at bay until it became clear that my ‘friend’ had been held up and I’d have to go and help him, and would be returning soon. Maybe my top-quality dissembling caught them all in a magnificent double-bluff, and the last laugh will be mine. I couldn’t say for sure, but I’m plumping for the last option.

The unbearable harshness of honesty (22nd April 2009 )

I came out of my house this morning, as I do every morning, and walked up the dirt track, past the goat pasture and the mosque, to Parbatipur’s main street. I was wearing a spanking new salwar kameez, fresh from Dhaka, with a racy new style (no sleeves!), and I’d even bothered to put make-up on that morning, despite the fact that, although it was only 8am, the sweat was already running off me. I was feeling pretty good this morning, let’s just say.

My friend Mahabub was waiting on his motorbike a short way down the road, as he does every morning. Now, he’s an awesome guy and I really would despair without him, but on this particular morning I came close to severing our friendship forever.

He took one desultory look at my glamorous new outfit and grimaced. My feel-good bubble trembled. When pushed for an explanation of this churlish behaviour, he informed me that my kameez was ‘so rubbish’ and that I should not wear it again. Ever. My bubble promptly burst

Although he eventually decided that it wasn’t so bad on closer inspection, it was too late for my self-esteem for that day.

Bluntness is one Bangladeshi trait that I simply cannot make my mind up about. I think Englishness wires you against it, so my kneejerk reaction is always discomfort and disapproval. But it can sometimes be endearing – if someone thinks you’re looking nice, they’ll definitely tell you about it. However, it can also be soul destroying. You know that when you are paid a compliment it is genuine only because you know that, if someone thinks you’re looking rough as a bear’s arse, they’ll also let you know. And there’s no cushioning of the blow.

The list of faults that have been pointed out about me is endless. Spots is a big one. If you have a spot, don’t think you’ll get away with everyone pretending not to see it and tactfully not commenting on it. Oh, no. Instead, the offending zit is immediately pointed out. Sometimes, you’ll get a loud “What is it?” which will be followed by a long discussion about why people get spots and how unfortunate it is that spots are so obvious on white skin. Sometimes, if you’re not quick on your feet, someone might even try to remove it for you.

Another favourite subject is teeth. I know the English aren’t famed for their shiny white teeth (I like to think it’s because we’re too strong to succumb to the pressures of the orthodontic industry), and I know my own teeth are far from perfect. But it can be demoralising to have the crookedness of your teeth pointed out to you in the middle of a meeting. Whilst you’re trying to deliver a presentation.

And then there’s weight. I’ve lost count of the number of times I smiled happily when someone told me I was looking ‘healthy’, as I tucked into a second helping of rice or my fourth paratha of the morning. Then a friend helpfully pointed out that ‘healthy’ is generally used to mean fat, and that maybe I had gained some weight since coming to Bangladesh? When I had to get a few of my kameez’s taken out at the tailors, there was lots of guffawing about all the rice and misti I must have been eating. I just rise above it all.

The list goes on. I’ve been given a pitying once over and told I’m looking ‘not so fresh’ on more than one occasion. I’ve been informed that, although sometimes I look very stylish, on this particular day, I have ‘no style at all’. I’ve been told that my hairstyle is rubbish, and that I should change it in order to please ‘the people who have to look’ at me. I don’t think there’s any aspect of my appearance that has not been criticised. But like I said. I rise above it.

The house of horrors (17/04/09)

My return to Parbatipur yesterday made me question why in the world I decided to come to Bangladesh in the first place. I was greeted by a veritable house of horrors, which I really must share with you (in expectation of full sympathy and many soothing noises). Let me guide you through my joyful return. As I do, try to imagine you’ve just spent the last two days on un-air conditioned buses, in punishing heat, alternately throwing up yourself and being vomited on my small children…

Exhibit number one: A mountain of crud beneath each window
Clearly, there had been a number of storms while I was away. The tell-tale sign is always the piles of dust, bits of twig, leaves, dead insects and pieces of tree that accumulate everywhere, although with particular concentration underneath the windows (even the ones you carefully remembered to close before you left).

Exhibit number two: Two lights left on
There was a blackout as I was leaving last week, and I thought I’d checked all the lights. Clearly not, however. This might not seem too horrifying, but think of the WASTE. Two lights left on for 10 days! I’m going to be held personally responsible when this country sinks as a result of climate change.

Exhibit number three: A bag of milk
I was ecstatic to discover that you can get UHT milk in Parbatipur. It comes in little plastic bags that say clearly on the outside something along the lines of: ‘No need to refrigerate until opened’. Yeah, right. Let me tell you, I’m going to be writing these companies a very strongly worded letter of complaint. There is every need to refrigerate before opening, because if you don’t, if you leave one of these innocuous-looking bags on the sideboard while you go away on holiday for 10 days, you may well come home to discover that they’ve mysteriously ruptured and leaked ALL OVER your kitchen, the leaked milk has naturally gone off and been set upon by a skin-crawling array of maggots, ants and cockroaches, and your flat is filled with the most disgusting smell imaginable.

A house of horrors, I tell you, horrors.

Exhibit number four: A fridge full of mouldy food
I didn’t say all of these horrors were not of my own making, did I? No? No. Good. So yes, I left half a banoffee pie and a bowl of defrosting tomato sauce and a partly-eaten cake in the fridge. And yes, I know that the power supply is limited at best. And yes, I also know that even with constant power all of these things aren’t likely to last 10 days without developing a nice rind of mould. I still reserve the right to be exasperated.

Exhibit number five: No gas
Once I have swept and scrubbed and wiped and gagged by way through the above, all I can think about is a nice cup of tea. Only to discover that my gas bottle has run out. Seriously God, not even a small break!?

Exhibit number six: Ants in my water filter
Failing a cup of tea, I decide to settle for a glass of water (it’s, like, 39 degrees outside). Only to discover that my water filter is full of cheeking sodding ants. How DARE they?! Tap water not good enough for them or something??

Exhibit number seven: Ants in my sugar
Surprise, surprise, the little chink in my sugar jar – the one that’s always been there but has so far evaded the ants – has been discovered and my sugar has been pillaged. I had to chuck it down the loo because I didn’t know what else to do.

Thank you for completing this short educational tour. For more information on becoming a VSO volunteer, please check out their website.

09/04/09 A scenic tour of Gazipur

For those of you who don’t know (and I’m sure the only people who know Gazipur are the ones unfortunate enough to live there), Gazipur is a noncommittal kind of place. It’s one of those faceless towns on the outskirts of Dhaka that kind of blend into one another as you travel out of the city, like a tiresome extension of the capital which you really don’t have time for.

Given this town’s less than enchanting nature, combined with the circumstances of my visit to it, my introduction to Gazipur could have been the sort of experience that breaks a person. After all, after a nine-hour journey in which, because the lights on the night train don’t switch off (wtf!?) and the AC in the AC compartment doesn’t work, and because you’ve been so surrounded by dodgy-looking guys that you’re too paranoid to do much more than sit nervously in your seat and try not to catch anyone’s eye lest they smile too familiarly and shout ‘You’re countree?’ in your face, you’ve not been able to sleep A WINK, no-one’s in their best state. Some would even say that, in such circumstances, you’re close to the edge. But I like to think of myself as an optimist.

I fell asleep on the aforementioned night train around 5.30am. It must have been sheer exhaustion, and the fact that, in desperation, I wrapped my scarf fully around my head so that no light (and no air) could penetrate. Anyway. When I awoke about an hour later, the train was pulling into a station. My thought process was somewhat disordered, owing to the lack of sleep and fresh oxygen beneath my scarf, but it went something as follows:
a) Although the sign said Joydevpur, and I didn’t recognise this, I knew that there were 2 stations in Dhaka and the two previous times I’d travelled by train I’d got off too late, therefore maybe this was the station I should be getting off at?
b) The lechy men were all leching again once they saw I was awake, so I didn’t want to ask them if this was the right stop.
c) I’m far too cool for school, so couldn’t seem like a confused, sleep-deprived bideshi who doesn’t really know where she’s going

So in a highly composed whirl (bearing in mind it was 6.30am and I’d had basically no sleep in the last 24 hours), I swept up my enormous, cumbersome bag and swept off the train. Oh so cool, oh so smooth. I’m sure everyone thought I knew exactly where I was going. I’m sure none of them were sniggering at me as I blundered into the middle of some forlorn, back-end-of-nowhere outskirt, wearing a sleep-deprived face, a rumpled shalwar kameez and toting an oversize backpack.

You might, therefore, say that pride led me to my fall into Gazipur. I’d prefer to put it down to my adventurous, go-getting spirit. But this is just speculation – let’s get back to the story…

By the time I’d discovered my error (a succession of exceedingly nice people helped me to the realisation that getting a CNG to Lalmatia was going to be something of a challenge, though none pointed out that I should just get back on the train, which stood in the station for a good ten minutes after I’d swept off it) it was too late. The train was pulling out of the station.

And that’s how I found myself taking a scenic tour of Gazipur, perched atop my overly large backpack, beside a very nice Garo (indigenous) man in the early morning light. And really, Gazipur isn’t that bad. It’s home to Bangladesh’s rice research institute, for instance. It has some lovely looking paint and cement shops. The Dhaka-Aricha highway bisects it, rather like an infected wound might bisect a not-so-healthy limb. The highway aside, it isn’t horrible – it just isn’t much to speak of. It’s probably not somewhere you’d be particularly chuffed to find yourself ever, let alone in adverse circumstances. But like I said, I’m an optimist.

When I found out that a bus to Mohakali (a place in Dhaka about half an hour from where I was supposed to be going) would take approximately two hours, I’ll admit, my optimism was somewhat challenged. And as the people piled onto the bus, the temperature climbed and the traffic slowed to a stutter, I began to wonder at what point it was okay for optimists to lose their rags.

An hour and three quarters later, we passed the station where I should have got off the train.

But then I realised that the bus was trundling through Bonani – only a ten minute ride from the glorious Bagha club. In other words, only ten minutes from a hot shower, a full English breakfast (with bacon!) and a dip in the pool. As I jumped off the bus and into a CNG I smiled smugly to myself. Even though I was a total prat, at least I was a prat who would soon be having a hot shower, a full English breakfast (with bacon!) and a dip in the pool.