How to get out of Dhaka

Step 1: Flag down a CNG, bargain, and cross your fingers that they understood that you want to go to the airport train station, not airport. At 6am on a Friday morning, you might have a to wait a while.

Step 2: Arrive at the airport train station, and wait eagerly in the area you think your cart will be. Surely this will be incorrect. Politely ignore the man who asks for money repeatedly but in such a comical fashion that you suspect he is on repeat mode more for his amusement than for the money.

Step 3: When a train pulls in around the time your train is supposed to leave, and the announcer calls out the name of your train and destination you are hoping to go to, assume that the train that just pulled in (the only one in the station) is in fact the right train for you. This is a false assumption.

Step 4: Because people told you that the train would only stay at the station for a few minutes, jump onto the first cart you see, and ask people to help direct you to your seat.

Step 5: Listen to the 4-6 people you show your ticket to, and tell you that you have to keep moving a few more carts up to get to your seat. Bash people with your big backpack as you attempt to squeeze past the mash of people filled in the train carts.

Step 6: 3 or 4 carts down, show your ticket to a couple more people and then listen to their advice when they say, no, your seats are a couple carts back down the other way - where you just came from.

Step 7: Show your ticket again to someone on the train, after when you've retraced your steps a few carts down (and re-pissed off the people you squeezed past again). Bear in mind that at this point the train has already been on the move for the past 10 minutes. Process the next few words a kind stranger tells you when he looks at your ticket. "You're on the wrong train".

Step 8: Ask a few other kind strangers if in fact you are on the wrong train, and surrender to your tourist badge of shame. Kind strangers explain that the next stop is not for another 2 hours, and that you'll have to then catch a train back to Dhaka and then maybe from there, you can catch another train to your destination.

Step 9: Politely answer questions from kind strangers (all this is Bangla of course), particularly when 2 men offer you their seats. I am from Canada, she is from USA. Yes, my parents are originally from Kolkata. Yes, I do look Bangladeshi. Yes, West and East Bengal was all one region at one point. Yes, I understand Bangla a bit, but I'm not good at speaking it. No, she is not Chinese. Her family is originally from Korea. You want my number?

Step 10: Hark! 10 minutes later the train starts to slow down. One kind stranger shouts to the people on the other train and you find out that the other train is on its way to Dhaka. Kind stranger tells you that the train will only stop for a few moments, and to quickly jump off and jump on to the train going in the opposite direction.

Step 11: Like Indiana Jones, gracefully dismount from your train, ask the guys on the other train to confirm its destination is Dhaka, and squeeze yourself in to the other train. Repeat Step 9.

Step 12: Once back in Dhaka, take a rickshaw to the nearest bus ticket counters, track down a carrier that has room for you. As luck would have it, the third one has seats available and it's a luxury bus line.

Step 13: 14hours later, arrive at your destination. Reward yourself with mango juice and a paratha (or soup if you're Miji).

*My next post will have stories of our lovely visit to the Hill Tracts and visits with some of the Indigenous groups in Bangladesh - one of the highlights for my time here in B'desh for sure. Stay tuned! Oh, and I promise to include photos!

Fear factor, comic genius, cats, and other related topics

It's amazing how dull my internal panic button has become here. I know my mom will read this and get mad at me and say I should be more cautious - and then my dad will tell me to stop using rickshaws and wear a hardhat at all times, but the fact of the matter is that you have to numb your fear senses to be able to circumnavigate this city. Traffic lights, for example, are an endangered technology, and I'm not sure if there is a 'right of way'. I think the only "right" belongs to the biggest vehicle on the road. And this is no different than most megacities in the global south. When you turn on to a major road for example, the rickshaw driver doesn't really slow down, but just plows through and stares down the oncoming vehicle. And rings his bell. Yes, because that's how you get the SUV heading straight at you to slow down. If riding at night, the only vehicles on the road with headlights are motorized vehicles, but remember, there are a whole lot of un-motorized, passenger-carrying contraptions out on the road (namely, the one I'm riding on). I'm banking on the fact that the bigger vehicle that's headed toward me has lights, so they can see me. Good logic right? And vehicles that back-up on a major road, they may or may not check to see if they might run over a pedestrian or oncoming rickshaw. It's just assumed that everyone is alert and will give way if they have to.

And so, when my rickshaw makes a quick turn onto oncoming traffic, I no longer take in a sharp breath and clutch my seat. When a car makes a quick turn into the path I'm walking along, I don't scream in shock. So although I numb my knee jerk reaction to near-misses, I certainly have amped up my sense to dodge, and when appropriate, shout at the oncoming swerving car to slow down a touch. I have climbed over rickshaw wheels as necessary and smacked a CNG or two. Constant vigilance people. (And yes, I finally finished re-reading Harry Potter. I'm so ready for the last movie).

There is this one particular road in this one particular neighbourhood (on the way to Niketon off of Mohakali…) - it has the most remarkably porous path. No, porous doesn't do it justice - you'd think you were traversing the moon's surface. But on a rickshaw, and with a very acute awareness of gravity. I am convinced every time I'm on that road, particularly after an afternoon deluge, that my rickshaw will in fact, topple over or throw me out at the point where 2 out of the 3 wheels are launched mid-air at 45 degree converse angles. It hasn't happened yet, but I've got another 2-3 weeks here.

So, I know this blog post is not particularly well-thought out, but perhaps entertaining, with shades of snarky sarcasm. Interestingly, a friend just sent me an email: "wow. no sarcasm in that e-mail at all...you feeling ok?". And that's the thing - sarcasm does not translate well here, so I've had to really keep it on the down low. Or even my sparkling wit. The other day, I was taking photos of a friend's football/soccer team - all B-deshis+ an American. For the team photo, instead of saying to the guys, "1, 2, 3…cheese!" I said: "1, 2, 3…paneer!!". Get it? Get it? I got it. They did not, in fact, get it.

My comic genius is stifled.

But I'm not complaining. I must say, Dhaka has grown on me. There are little gold nuggets I'm discovering in the city and its people. And the many worlds that are smashed up together in this city. So allow me to go on one last tangential path. One of my favourite Margaret Atwood novels is Cat's Eye, mostly because of her prologue (and because it's not really about cats..):

But I began then to think of time as having a shape, something you could see, like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another. You don't look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.

The many worlds that live in parallel or on top of each other are amplified in a city like Dhaka. My Dhaka is so very different from the Dhaka of a Program Officer from a large international NGO, or my rickshaw driver, or the middle/upper-class young Bangladeshi, or the woman who lives in the neighbouring slum. And in a city where everyone and everything is so densely packed, it's easy to put on blinders to the world that is brushing past your shoulders. But on occasion (if I may be so bold to borrow Ms Atwood's beautiful analogy of time) the different worlds bubble up and if you're lucky or if you choose to take off your blinders, you can catch a glimpse of another world.

On traffic, tea, and where to get your snuggle on

More random thoughts - I know, I've been reduced to bullet points…once a consultant, always a consultant.

1. You know that sound? That sound of someone trying to cough up a hairball? It's those moments in my day, when, hark! a man makes a loud hawking noise..and I await with tense apprehension for when and where he will expectorate…but he doesn't…and the suspense is excruciating...at least, in the time it takes me to awkwardly dodge around him. So…where does it go? I leave that for you to mull over and digest. Hmm..poor choice of words perhaps.
2. Random, but interesting point of note…a commercial for Glee here, advertises it as: "Hollywood's Bollywood" - love it.
3. I think I have to give up my need to setup meetings with people I want to meet with. I keep trying to push for a time to meet, and I get back, oh yea, let's meet on Saturday. When? On Saturday. What time on Saturday? Let's say in the afternoon. But when in the…oh nevermind. Okay, sounds good. It's all about stalking people, or hovering...to meet with people. It's not that there isn't a sense of urgency or importance - far from it. It's more that it's just the culture for things to run late, so why bother setting a specific time? And in a city that gets so much traffic, strikes, and heavy rainfall that can delay a city of millions, I can see the reason for not setting a time, since chances are, you'll be late no matter what time you said you'd be there. As one of my friends in Tanzania recently posted, her language teacher said something along the lines of: Punctuality is a luxury that developed countries have.
4. Also, I think I've handed out more business cards in the past 3 weeks than I have in my entire career. And that includes all the cards I've given to my mom. Everyone introduces themselves with a business card..it's the professional thing to do. That said, I'm not sure how I can look professional when I'm sitting at a meeting and getting bitten by mosquitoes…somehow I don't think I can pull off scratching my leg against a chair and make it look graceful.
5. Another great thing? Cups of tea at every meeting. And at breakfast and at 9:30 and 2:30 every day. Glorious.
6. Just to get from A to B in the city, is an incredible achievement - the sweaty hot mess that you are feels like a job well done if you manage to get to your destination in one-piece. The traffic, the pre-requisite haggling with the rickshaw driver - or, if you walked, the giant mud lakes you circumnavigated - the sweet sweet layer of condensation that has formed all over your torso and face, making you wonder if its pointless to take a shower anymore…the victory is in the simple fact that you arrived. I often wonder, when I've arrived at my destination, why there is no applause and cold mango juice waiting to congratulate me on such an accomplishment.
7. Description of the restaurant I went to one night..." In keeping with its eponymous theme, the restaurant’s walls are decorated with posters of such jazz icons as Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis; " really?
8. Saw a woman dressed elegantly in a sari and heels. I was waiting to cross a major intersection along with a throng of men, waiting for the traffic to slow a tad (usually there are a few brave souls who run across, but not this time..the traffic was flying past). This beautiful woman just started walking, elegantly put her hand out to command the oncoming traffic to brake a little while she glided (not ran) through the intersection. She crossed successfully, not a hair out of place. If you ever see me in a sari and heels, I can assure you, that even if I were walking across an empty room, I'd find a way to stumble. Wait, that would happen even if I was in jeans and flats (and a number of you have witnessed that).
9. What is interesting, is to see people practice their religion so freely. Well, in all fairness, it is one particular religion -Islam is the main religion here. But I could be in the office or in a coffee shop, and it's not unusual for someone to step aside, and pull a prayer rug out and start praying - right there. No need to go to somewhere private, just as long as you're praying towards Mecca. Granted, yet again, I only see men pray in public, I'm guessing women pray in private? Not sure, will have to ask. But many women do use their dupattas to cover their hair during prayer call. And there's not odd looks if you don't. It's kind of nice to see such an openness about making time to pray - and no apparent judgment if you're not.
10. On my way to work one day, amidst a slew of rickshaws, CNGs (autorickshaws ), cars and other scrappy vehicles, I saw a chicken crossing the road. I did not question why the chicken was crossing the road, but more importantly, how on earth did the chicken cross the road with all its feathers in tact?
11. Where do middle-class teens go in Dhaka to get their snuggle on? Coffee shops. Where do young adults go to get their snuggle on? Parks, preferably close to a large body of water (even if there are questionable items floating around).
12. All random thoughts and jokes aside, I think I've found a few favourite spots in Dhaka. My #1 right now is Banani bridge, around 5:30/6pm when the sun starts to set, a scattering of boats launch lazily across the river, taking people home, underneath a slew of cars and rickshaws that crawl over on the bridge.

The Vigilance of Complacency

My walk/ride (depending on how hot it is) to and from work takes me right through a small slum. In the mornings you can small the strong stench of the effects of the lack of a sewage system combined with the shouts of parents calling after their kids.

 

I don't know if I'll get used to seeing extreme poverty on a daily basis. I hope I won't grow complacent to the old man with no hands or legs on the side of the street, or the naked toddler covered in dirt, scratching his bloated little tummy (bloated because of the lack of nutritious food). Whether I'm walking through the slum, or riding through it on a rickshaw, my heart and stomach lurches and my head revolts when I see the man reach out to me, or the toddler cry alone in the mud. Not out of disgust for them of course, but out of disgust of myself. What am I doing? Why aren't I doing anything right this very second to help him..whatever I can? Part of my brain reasons that I'm not doing anything at this second because the "solution" is - I'd like to believe- a long-term sustained and vigilant effort that addresses a multitude of factors, not a quick hand out that will make me feel better more than help anyone.  And of course the other part is probably that I'm afraid to help. I  feel a twinge of guilt for my good fortune to have been born into this life without the multitude of obstacles that face these kids that are not heart and stomach-lurching for them, but simply a part of every day life.

 

Perhaps I will grow complacent over time - I suppose it's how we cope. I remember a few months after 9/11, one of the first movies I saw in the theatre was some Lethal Weapon part 322nd movie (not my choice, I can assure you). There was a scene where a mid-rise building was blown up and I can recall cringing and shrinking in my seat, shaken by the reality that we had all witnessed just months before. Probably a year later I was watching another wham-bam movie (again, not my choice)…and walking out of the theatre, I realized I didn't cringe or even give a second thought to all the violence that had just entertained my senses. Not that violence on TV is comparable with the effects of extreme and utter poverty literally calling out to you, but I became numb, and I'm still numb to the images we call entertainment.

 

Perhaps that's why I've changed the course of my career path - so that I won't become complacent and be a small part of that long-term sustained vigilant effort. Perhaps.

 

But I'll try to end on a lighter note. Speaking of vigilance. Walking through the streets of Dhaka is an exercise of constant vigilance (yes..I'm heeding Mad-Eye Mooney's advice…and yes, I am re-reading Harry Potter thank you very much). Not only am I looking at the ground for the next big mud puddle to avoid, but I'm looking to my sides for dangerously close rickshaws, CNGs and cars, and I'm also looking above so I don't run into any of the hanging severed electrical wires. Constant vigilance people. Whether walking around in Dhaka, or trying to tackle the monstrous elephant that is poverty.