Bangladesh

John has been really funny about telling me important information about a place after it is too late. For example, he told me while in Malaysia that it is often on the “do not travel to” list for the US. He also didn’t tell me that Dhaka is the most densly populated city in the World, and that tourists (let alone white tourists) never visit Bangladesh. He was right! There was not a single time in Bangladesh when I couldn’t see people. And I think we were the ONLY Americans in the entire country! (As a disclaimer to John, he supposedly told me all of these things before we left, but that I was too distressed with wedding and dissertation stuff listen!)

My feelings about Bangladesh are rather mixed! I am really glad that I went, but I don’t know if I would want to go back. We were only there for about 9 days, so maybe if we had stayed a little longer, I would like it more. I don’t know. The first two days we were in Dhaka and I was so miserable! There were so many people everywhere, and it took a long time to get anywhere whether we were walking or in a vehicle. Everything was dirty and unsanitary, and the streets were lined with trash! It seemed like the cleanest places were still dirtier than the dirtiest places I have seen in the US.

But I think the real shocker for me was all of the poverty that I saw! I have never seen poverty like I saw in Bangladesh. I saw so many young children walking the streets begging for money, malnourished babies and mothers, people with serious physical disabilities begging for money. I saw people going to the bathroom on the streets, and people sitting on the dirty streets selling food out of dirty baskets. I also saw chickens and fish being slaughtered right in front of me on the street. And mangey dogs roaming around everywhere. I saw children and babies running around naked with no shoes or with only a dirty pair of shorts on (even the girls). I didn’t see any babies wearing diapers, I have no idea how they are cleaned up! The smell was so bad and that combined with the food made me sick to my stomach. When we walked around on the muddy streets I couldn’t stop thinking about all the human and animal crap I was was probably stepping in! I saw rows and rows of houses made of loose bricks and tin roofs, and I saw lots of people sleeping under tarps on the street.

Dealing with the beggars was difficult for me. First of all, they were really annoying. But I felt so sorry for them! They would tap on the car window until we gave them something or drove away. If we ran into them on the street, they would follow us and tap us on the arm until we got inside a car or walked too far away. John did not want to give them money, because it would be supporting the system. I guess a lot of people make a living out of begging and force their children to do it also. Even some people deform themselves or their children to get more money! And if a child beggar doesn’t bring home enough money at the end of the day, he will get beat. But if you give him money, you are supporting the system. This was shocking to me! I felt like I was inside the movie Slumdog Millionaire. After we left the capitol city it was much nicer for me. Still crowded and dirty, but not as bad.

But even though it was tough I learned a few important things. It made me grateful for all of the luxuries I have back home, such as a house made of sturdy materials, clean air, clean food, clean water, clean bathroom (with a toilet included), air conditioning, internet, phone, education, days off, SPACE, and having options (my friend Sara pointed this one out to me). But by the end of the week (after I had slightly gotten over the shock of how bad it was there) I thought about all of the necessities in my life that aren’t really necessary. It made me wonder if I have been wasting my life because I have been absorbing all the benefits of living a wealthy life but not giving anything back to the world. Basically it just made me think about what I should really be doing with my life! So many things that are important to me shouldn’t be so important. There are only a few things that really matter and I should be doing my best to help those who don’t have them.

Here is an overview of what we did, incase you are interested.

We stayed with John’s friend Muhsin from Emory while in Dhaka. Before we got there John told me that Muhsin lives in a poor neighborhood but his house is nice. But when we arrived I realized that John’s standard of nice is MUCH different than mine! Muhsin is in his 40’s and never married. Seven of his brothers and sisters plus one of their spouses all live in his three bedroom aparment! Luckily they rearranged themselves so that John and I could have a bed. The electricity was out for much of the time and it was soooo hot! I wanted to sleep with no pj’s on, but these strange men kept walking through our bedroom to use the bathroom, which by the way was dirty and gross. Actually the whole house was not that clean. And there were cockroaches. But at least Muhsin’s sisters were nice to us and made us some food (a LOT of food actually, that I could barely stomach). Anyway, Muhsin didn’t arrive at his house until 10:30 that night, which meant that we were hanging out with his brothers and sisters who don’t speak English for like three hours (in the dark)!

The next day Muhsin had one of his friends take us around town. We rode around in a little green taxi thing called a CNG which stands for “converted natural gas”. It had no doors and no seat belts! But that wasn’t as bad as the Rickshaws, which were carts pulled by bicycles. Those were scary, because I constantly felt like I was about to fall out.

The next day we rode a nice bus (I think John would have taken the crappy cheap bus if it weren’t for me) to Chittigong. It was nice to drive through the rice fields on our way there. Lots of cows and goats and children wandering around. The next morning we took the same bus to Cox’s Bazar, which is kind of like Bear Lake, but on the ocean. Cox’s Bazar is the longest sea beach in the world. The funniest thing I saw in Bangladesh was all the people swimming in the ocean with their clothes on! The women even did not take off their scarves to swim! John said they do that because it is such a conservative country.

The next day after visiting Cox’s Bazar we hired a driver to come pick us up and drive us to Bonderbon. There were only crappy busses that went to Bonderbon, and it was cheap to hire a car. Bonderbon was a nice little town in the mountains. It was sooo beautiful! I couldn’t believe that I was still in Bangladesh. I was so happy to be there. We stayed at a lodge there and Muhsin and John’s other Bangali friend Mawa were already there to meet us. (Although they didn’t spend much time with us while we were there! We later concluded that they must have been on a secret romantic get-away.)

The next morning we found a guide to take us on a trek through the jungle mountain area to see some of the indiginous tribes. That was my favorite part of our visit to Bangladesh. It was really cool to see them, and the scenery was so beautiful! Most of the tribal people live in bamboo huts with dirt floors. I thought they had much better living conditions than the poor people in the City even though they had even less money. At least they got to live in the peace and quiet of the jungle mountains! Luckily our guide knew how to communicate with them and he translated for us. They were all really nice to us. Many of the tribal women still wear their traditional patterned dresses. On that hike he also took us to a neat water fall that had a swimming hole. We just got in with our clothes on, because we were so hot that it didn’t matter! On the way back to our camp the guide pointed out his house and John of course asked if we could go visit his family. He was a young guy and had a wife and baby who we met. They had one of the nicest houses we saw, with a tin roof instead of a thatched roof. I think his family was well off because he had a steady job at the lodge where we were staying. He told us that he works seven days a week and makes $50 a month.

After visiting his house, the guide told us that he knew a shortcut through the jungle back to our camp. We agreed, and ended up bushwacking our way through the JUNGLE to get back! We had to climb through and over bushes and trees and all sorts of scratchy plants! And I don’t think it was any faster, either. The clothes I was wearing that day are totally ruined! John and I also got a few leeches on our feet while doing that. I’d never had leeches before, and I didn’t know that you bleed when you take them off!

After leaving Bonderbon we went back to Chittigong where we met up with a guy we had met on the bus a few days earlier. He was also a foreigner, but he was half Bangali and half Japanese. His father’s village was near Chittigong and he offered to take us there. It was really really beautiful and green everywhere! People were working in the rice fields and kids and goats were running around. It was quite a nice trip. This guy was a better host to us than our Bangali friends, telling us all kinds of interesting things and showing us around, and getting us a cheap hotel deal. And he could hardly speak the language!

We eventually made it back to Dhaka the night before our flight out of there. We visited Muhsin’s family one last time, and one of his sisters gave me a cool henna tatoo on my hand. I experienced my only moment of sadness for leaving the country as we got in the taxi to go to our hotel that night. All the people out in the street gathered around our car just to stare at us, and we said good-bye and they said bood-bye back to us, and all the children were shouting and waiving. It was kind of sad!

Here are some additional interesting observations about Bangladesh:

It is also a Muslim country, but MUCH more conservative than Malaysia. Many of the women cover their heads, and many wear burqas. Some of the burqas are all black, and some ladies wear colorful ones. I heard that once a woman decides to start covering her head or wearing a burqa, she can never go back.

The women all wear the traditional Bangali dress (which is the same sari and salwar kameez they wear in India). The only women I saw wearing western clothes were the foreigners and there weren’t very many of them.

All of the Bengali people we met were insulted that we thought 9 days was a long enough visit to their country!

The men and older boys (especially in the rural areas) wear lungis, or cotton skirts that wrap around their wastes. Probably cheaper than buying pants.

I was the most immodest woman in the country!

Even though it was soooo crowded, there were not very many women outside, especially at night. I would say one person in every 50 was a woman.

Whenever Bengali men talked to eachother or to us, it sounded like they were yelling.

Whenever we ate at a restaurant at least one waitor would stand right next to our table watching us the entire time!

Whenever we stopped walking, a crowd of people gathered around us.

Everywhere we went people stared at us like they’d never seen a white person before in their life.

We received special treatment wherever we went, maybe because we are white? I don’t know. I felt like a celebrity. And now I know that I am SO glad that I'm not a celebrity!

Many of the Bengali girls had short hair just like the boys. I thought this might be to keep them from getting lice or something.

When we visited the tribal areas, many of the tribal women didn’t cover up on top, which was surprising to see in a Muslim country.

Despite their poverty, the naked and half-clothed kids running around seemed to be enjoying their lives.

When going through immigration, I had to state on my form my father or husband’s name, but John did not.

It seemed that Bengali women are very shy and timid compared to the men, who seem to be pretty outgoing and arrogant.

Sometimes men would stop us on the street to say, “What is your country?” They would seem pleased to hear that we were from the US, and some of them said, “Ah, yes. Obama! Good man!”