Reason #45 that I love working at AIS/D: we have yet ANOTHER break for the Thanksgiving/Eid Mubarak holiday, which both happened to be around the same time this year. We have had a nice long break every month since school began, which has been much needed and amazing! We decided to stay in Dhaka for this one and "save money," which hasn't worked out all that well but Christmas break is right around the corner on the 16th of December and we also wanted to see everything go down for this second Eid.
This marked my first Thanksgiving away from my family and although this was very difficult for me because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday the 26th was a very busy day and it ended up being a lot of fun. We went to a rooftop dinner at night with good ole American traditional food-mac n cheese, mashed potatos, cranberry sauce and of course turkey followed by all kinds of pies. Banani decorators set everything up with beautiful twinkle lights all around the rooftop and did this whole table spread-it looked awesome. Lots of wine and some new people to meet-all of Kasey's NGO friends so that was cool.
Saturday the 28th was the day of Eid this year. The first Eid is the one after Ramadan where you give presents and this Eid is where you slaughter animals to symbolize Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son. It is a big deal to Muslims here-they save up money all year or pool their money with the rest of their family or neighbors and buy whatever lifestock they can afford. The really rich will buy camels. Most people get either cows or goats. Some people buy local Bangladeshi cows and more wealthy people import them from India and Pakistan-these cows have been force-fed and are ginormous!
The animals are chained up outside the houses for days in advance as a kind of status symbol and are decorated with these shiny wreaths and headdresses. One house on the way to school had 7 huge cows chained up outside for 3 days in advance! They bring the animals into the city in trucks and have lifestock auctions set up along the motorways. There was one near us that went on all night long for 3 or 4 nights prior to Eid with some guy yelling into his megaphone in Bangla, turning me into an insomniac. Apparently Muslims don't value sleep.
The morning of Eid all the Muslims went to Mosque around 8:30 and all the men dress in white and wear punjabis on their heads. When they were finished, the slaughtering began. Typically the oldest male has the honor of slitting the throat of the animal. Butchers then come around all day long to do the actual butchering. There were men walking around all day with these humongous knives. They move from house to house butchering the animals so the killing lasts from morning until mid afternoon pretty much. Islam says that you keep one third for yourself and your family, give one third to the mosque, and one third to the poor.
Because of this, there were tons and tons of beggars everywhere because we live in an area with more wealthy Bangladeshis. The street that I walk to get to school everyday was completely packed with beggars because of that one house with seven cows. All the beggars walk around with these dripping bags of animal parts to take back to their respective villages.
They don't waste any part of the animal and all day long they had spread out tarps and blankets in almost empty parking garages or the side of streets or any open areas and were hacking up meat into small pieces with hammers and knives. They strip the hides and give them to the tanneries. They really don't waste any part of the animals.
Donna and I walked to our friend's house for some tea and leftover Thanksgiving apple pie at around 11. As we walked along Gulshan lake, blood from all the slaughtering poured into it, coloring the murky puke green lake bright red. Pools of blood formed along roadsides and in potholes. Although it was incredibly strange to see all this livestock be slaughtered in a city setting with high rises and cars rolling by, I thought they were very efficient and had the system down to a calculated science. They didn't waste and they didn't leave anything behind. When we woke up the following morning, it was almost like it hadn't happened-there were only a few telltale signs that a massive slaughter had happened the day before.
Donna and I had been invited by our driver that the school had given us the first 2 weeks of school, Ansary, to his "village" for Eid lunch at 2pm. He was really excited to have us there and so proud to cook us this meal and for us to meet his family and see where he lives. He had drawn me a map that looked really simple in theory but turned out not to be. As we drove down the main road there were stacks and stacks of raw cow hides that had been stripped from the innards and literal meat wagons-Bicycle- pulled flat beds with hides and meat parts stacked high. Everyone was in a good mood and happy and feasting.
After driving around confused for about 40 minutes we finally got to where we needed to go, which was just across the Rampura bridge. Ansary met us on the main road and then we all drove together through muddy back roads that got narrower and narrower to his simple apartment building. There we met his wife, his older son who will be a 9th grader, and his younger son who was 2. The older one was so well behaved and nice and spoke really good English and the younger one was mischievous and cheeky. He fell in love with Donna's camera and just wanted to have his picture taken the whole time.
Ansary's wife served delicious beef curry and white rice and cucumber slices. We started the meal with sweet noodles in a rice, milk pudding type thing. I thought it was interesting how they began the meal with something sweet rather than ending it with that. Donna ate meat for the first time in 16 years because she felt bad refusing. Ansary's son was nice enough to show us the cow that it came from off of his MP3 that could record video-it was a bull who had been rather difficult and put up quite a fight. How nice of him to show us. The meat was tasty but I kept getting visions of the cows I'd seen with their shiny headdresses chained up. We didn't eat all together, because this is not their custom. Ansary, Donna, and I ate first, then his wife, and then his sons ate. I wished we could all have enjoyed it together. Afterward, they served delicious milky chai tea. It is real Chai-not the crap that's called Chai at Starbucks. It was so good. I was so happy that we had gone because you could tell how proud Ansary was to serve us a meal and have us at his home. Over and over again I am reminded how generous and truly kind the Bangladeshi people are. They are very proud of their customs and are excited what little they may have with you.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
A Few Things That Have Happened in Dhaka 11/21
Hello All!
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that it's late in November and that Christmas is just around the corner! I'm accustumed to feeling time pass but seeing and feeling the seasons change so when "winter" here consists of 85 and 90 degree days, it doesn't really indicate that time has past. It has cooled off a little bit and the evenings and mornings are nice and cool-you even need a thin sweater sometimes. Amazing. I think about what would be happening back home right now and the town's Christmas decorations would be going up just about now, Christmas commercials would be bombarding T.V. sets and Christmas would just be everywhere as the last leaves fall and the coldness of winter sets in. We don't have any of that here and I'm not really missing it-they go so overboard with it at home.
Two weekends ago my roommates Donna and Kasey and our friend Kristen went to the H&M garment sale because they have their headquarters here and Bangladesh. They have garment sales 2 or 3 times a year where they unload all the stuff they've made too much of or have small defects. You can get sweaters and t-shirts and stuff for a dollar. It was absolutley crazy though. Mozib drove us to the headquarters and all these white women were already lined up outside a half hour before it even started. It was a very hot day and we were all clustered together with the sun beating directly on us. Women had bags to hoard clothes in and some even had boxes, shopping for their whole families. I felt like women were sizing each other up before we even went in, like "Bitch, I'm gonna get more clothes than you!" The Bengali workers who were working on rooftops thought it was crazy to see all these Western women lining up for their western-style clothes and they laughed and chatted about us from the rooftops, smoking their bindy cigarettes. Kasey, who has lived in Dhaka for 2 years was prepping us on the madness and I was getting anxious just listening to it. When they finally opened the gate, there was a mad rush into this super tiny outdoor space, covered by a tent. There were long tables, some lining the outside and some in the middle with huge heaps of clothes on them. Women rushed to claim their spots and starting digging, clothes being glanced at and then flung into the air. Before they could even land on the pile someone had already scooped it out of the air, looked, and either hoarded in the cardboard box, or discarded into the air again. It was madness. All kinds of manners and human decency were completely flung out the window. We don't have any western shopping malls here so this is one of the only chances to get this type of clothing-and for super cheap! I was definitely not good at pushing people aside to I could get to a table. It took me quite a while to find a spot and start rooting through clothes. Even then, you can only look at the square patch between your elbows and right in front of you. I got some good stuff in the end, some sweaters for London at Christmas, and some basic tee-shirts. There was absolutely no room to try anything on so I had no idea how things fit until I got home. Watching other women, they had obviously done this several times before and had it down to a science! They had their huge cardboard box and their hands whipped through clothes, knowing instantly whether it would be right for someone in their family or it could be discarded. Sifting through one area they would then kick their box across the area to another spot and then follow it, elbowing their way into another table spot. When I had finsished, the worst part was waiting in line to pay. I was drenched with sweat, had no idea whether the clothes in my hands would fit and just wanted to get away from the pushy women acting like animals fighting over raw meat. The people at the checkout desk had forgotten to give me a ticket when I finally did pay which was the only way to get out of the door. The guardsmen only spoke Bengali and couldn't understand what I was trying to explain. I had a moment of panic as I thought I would never get out of this place until they finally let me go. I had gotten a text from Donna 10 minutes after we had gotten into the sale and had been seperated from each other saying, "Can't handle it, in the car." haha I joined her and gave a huge sigh of relief to be out of there. Kasey and Kristen were still in the middle of everything. I don't think I will ever look at a piece of clothing from H&M in quite the same way. This had not been a relaxing shopping experience at all. I feel like had I tripped and fallen in there that I wouldn't have even been helped up, only trampled over by women and their cardboard boxes searching for one dollar t-shirts for their children. Craziness.
Later that weekend Donna and I were feeling like we needed to give back to the community after we had just acted like sub-humans to accquire a cheap cotton t-shirt so we volunteered our time with the ABC school kids. These kids go to a local school but come on the weekends to AIS/D to play on our playgrounds. They don't have any facilities like this at their school or many resources like books and art supplies in general. It is really great that they can come to our school and have lots of space to run around and play. A teacher volunteers every weekend to make lunch for them-chicken curry and rice. We went over at around mid day and there were about 40 kids on the playground. There was one other volunteer there, John, who goes to AIS/D and works with them every weekend. We all "lost" in the statue game and had to do a little skit for all the kids. The kids were so sweet and ranged in ages from 3 to 16. We taught them the songs and clapping game we knew-Ms. Mary Mac, Ring Around the Rosey, Twinkle Twinkle, Down by the Banks, London Bridges, and they taught us songs and clapping games in Bengali. We played these with the younger girls while the older boys played soccer. We all played tag together. They were so sweet and appreciative and loved having us. At lunchtime, we helped serve their chicken curry and rice and they ate in the traditional Bengali way, with no hands-a very messy affair! The kids ate ravenously. AIS/D does a lot of work with the ABC and often has charity events, giving the money to ABC.
Last weekend we went on Saturday night to a Bengali play called "The Communicator." It was far away in a part of the town we hadn't been to. There was lots of traffic at this time too and it took us an hour to get to where we were going. When we got there we were some of the only white people there and got lots of stares. We bought Mozib a ticket and he came with us. The play was really good even though we couldn't understand most of it, we could still get the idea of it from the images and dances and Mozib translated bits of it for us. They used lots of different mediums in the play. I thought the dancing and the outfits were really good. It was all about how the leaders of the world control a lot of the money and the press and they often times don't pay attention to the masses of poor and how they have to live. There were lots of images of George Bush, including the one of him getting shoes thrown at him, to which everyone in the place errupted in cheers and applause. He doesn't appear to be a very popular character on this side of the world. Saturday is a school night for us because our work week is Sunday through Thursday and with all the traffic we got back late but we were all glad we had gone and been around non-school people and gotten out of the bubble for a bit.
I cannot wrap my head around the fact that it's late in November and that Christmas is just around the corner! I'm accustumed to feeling time pass but seeing and feeling the seasons change so when "winter" here consists of 85 and 90 degree days, it doesn't really indicate that time has past. It has cooled off a little bit and the evenings and mornings are nice and cool-you even need a thin sweater sometimes. Amazing. I think about what would be happening back home right now and the town's Christmas decorations would be going up just about now, Christmas commercials would be bombarding T.V. sets and Christmas would just be everywhere as the last leaves fall and the coldness of winter sets in. We don't have any of that here and I'm not really missing it-they go so overboard with it at home.
Two weekends ago my roommates Donna and Kasey and our friend Kristen went to the H&M garment sale because they have their headquarters here and Bangladesh. They have garment sales 2 or 3 times a year where they unload all the stuff they've made too much of or have small defects. You can get sweaters and t-shirts and stuff for a dollar. It was absolutley crazy though. Mozib drove us to the headquarters and all these white women were already lined up outside a half hour before it even started. It was a very hot day and we were all clustered together with the sun beating directly on us. Women had bags to hoard clothes in and some even had boxes, shopping for their whole families. I felt like women were sizing each other up before we even went in, like "Bitch, I'm gonna get more clothes than you!" The Bengali workers who were working on rooftops thought it was crazy to see all these Western women lining up for their western-style clothes and they laughed and chatted about us from the rooftops, smoking their bindy cigarettes. Kasey, who has lived in Dhaka for 2 years was prepping us on the madness and I was getting anxious just listening to it. When they finally opened the gate, there was a mad rush into this super tiny outdoor space, covered by a tent. There were long tables, some lining the outside and some in the middle with huge heaps of clothes on them. Women rushed to claim their spots and starting digging, clothes being glanced at and then flung into the air. Before they could even land on the pile someone had already scooped it out of the air, looked, and either hoarded in the cardboard box, or discarded into the air again. It was madness. All kinds of manners and human decency were completely flung out the window. We don't have any western shopping malls here so this is one of the only chances to get this type of clothing-and for super cheap! I was definitely not good at pushing people aside to I could get to a table. It took me quite a while to find a spot and start rooting through clothes. Even then, you can only look at the square patch between your elbows and right in front of you. I got some good stuff in the end, some sweaters for London at Christmas, and some basic tee-shirts. There was absolutely no room to try anything on so I had no idea how things fit until I got home. Watching other women, they had obviously done this several times before and had it down to a science! They had their huge cardboard box and their hands whipped through clothes, knowing instantly whether it would be right for someone in their family or it could be discarded. Sifting through one area they would then kick their box across the area to another spot and then follow it, elbowing their way into another table spot. When I had finsished, the worst part was waiting in line to pay. I was drenched with sweat, had no idea whether the clothes in my hands would fit and just wanted to get away from the pushy women acting like animals fighting over raw meat. The people at the checkout desk had forgotten to give me a ticket when I finally did pay which was the only way to get out of the door. The guardsmen only spoke Bengali and couldn't understand what I was trying to explain. I had a moment of panic as I thought I would never get out of this place until they finally let me go. I had gotten a text from Donna 10 minutes after we had gotten into the sale and had been seperated from each other saying, "Can't handle it, in the car." haha I joined her and gave a huge sigh of relief to be out of there. Kasey and Kristen were still in the middle of everything. I don't think I will ever look at a piece of clothing from H&M in quite the same way. This had not been a relaxing shopping experience at all. I feel like had I tripped and fallen in there that I wouldn't have even been helped up, only trampled over by women and their cardboard boxes searching for one dollar t-shirts for their children. Craziness.
Later that weekend Donna and I were feeling like we needed to give back to the community after we had just acted like sub-humans to accquire a cheap cotton t-shirt so we volunteered our time with the ABC school kids. These kids go to a local school but come on the weekends to AIS/D to play on our playgrounds. They don't have any facilities like this at their school or many resources like books and art supplies in general. It is really great that they can come to our school and have lots of space to run around and play. A teacher volunteers every weekend to make lunch for them-chicken curry and rice. We went over at around mid day and there were about 40 kids on the playground. There was one other volunteer there, John, who goes to AIS/D and works with them every weekend. We all "lost" in the statue game and had to do a little skit for all the kids. The kids were so sweet and ranged in ages from 3 to 16. We taught them the songs and clapping game we knew-Ms. Mary Mac, Ring Around the Rosey, Twinkle Twinkle, Down by the Banks, London Bridges, and they taught us songs and clapping games in Bengali. We played these with the younger girls while the older boys played soccer. We all played tag together. They were so sweet and appreciative and loved having us. At lunchtime, we helped serve their chicken curry and rice and they ate in the traditional Bengali way, with no hands-a very messy affair! The kids ate ravenously. AIS/D does a lot of work with the ABC and often has charity events, giving the money to ABC.
Last weekend we went on Saturday night to a Bengali play called "The Communicator." It was far away in a part of the town we hadn't been to. There was lots of traffic at this time too and it took us an hour to get to where we were going. When we got there we were some of the only white people there and got lots of stares. We bought Mozib a ticket and he came with us. The play was really good even though we couldn't understand most of it, we could still get the idea of it from the images and dances and Mozib translated bits of it for us. They used lots of different mediums in the play. I thought the dancing and the outfits were really good. It was all about how the leaders of the world control a lot of the money and the press and they often times don't pay attention to the masses of poor and how they have to live. There were lots of images of George Bush, including the one of him getting shoes thrown at him, to which everyone in the place errupted in cheers and applause. He doesn't appear to be a very popular character on this side of the world. Saturday is a school night for us because our work week is Sunday through Thursday and with all the traffic we got back late but we were all glad we had gone and been around non-school people and gotten out of the bubble for a bit.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
November 15, 2009
I feel like so much has happened between my trip to Nepal and now and I have been bad about blogging. In October Donna and I went to Thailand for the October break. The school works its staff members very hard but they provide us with so many nice long breaks-its awesome! People here are always traveling-they will fly to Bangkok just for an orthodontist appointment, its crazy.
Donna's sister lives in Thailand and she came the week before the October break to do some teaching observations because she is trying to get certified as a teacher. She really enjoyed Dhaka. She first went to Thailand in her early 20's and has lived overseas there for quite a while but has gotten so used to it that Dhaka was truly a different experience for her and she loved it! Donna and I picked her up from the airport-it was a cool feeling to pick someone else up from the airport in Bangladesh and be able to point out things to them, saying we do this and we do that and this is where I live. I don't feel like a visitor in the country any longer.
We had U.N. on Thursday, which was a really cool experience at our school. 68 countries were represented and all the kids dressed up in their native outfits and the kids all processed into the gym with their country flags and there was a big assembly. They cheered the loudest with Bangladesh was called. It was truly moving and I teared up because they were so proud and so excited to be repping their countries, oh and I'm also a huge wus bout those things.
We skipped out early and made a mad dash for the airport so as not to miss our flight. 3 and 1/2 hours to Kuala Lumpur and a 7-hour layover in the airport. Donna had booked a hotel for the night but we realized when we got there it was an hour's drive a way! not worth it and no other available hotels. We had a greasy airport dinner at 12 at night and slept overnight in the airport. We woke early the next morning and got on a 1-hour flight to Phuket, Thailand.
We stepped off the plane and onto the runway to warm, tropical temperatures, and sun. Unlike Dhaka, it felt so much more fresh and not smoggy at all. Lia's husband, Ott, and their youngest son Teva met us at the airport. We stopped on the way home for a delicious roadside breakfast. This is another difference between Thailand and Bangladesh; you can eat the street food in Thailand but it is highly discouraged in Dhaka unless you want to sit on the toilet for 3 days. We ate noodles, hot stuff, fresh bean sprouts, pickled onions and beans, hard boiled eggs, and more hot stuff-it was so so yummy!
Thailand seemed so westernized compared to Dhaka-there were things that I recognized everywhere like dentists' offices and print shops and big groceries stores like Tesco. So strange; in Dhaka you really have to know where things are because a normal looking house could be a shop or a butcher or a furniture store. Not many things look like an actual shop, nothing is marked well and if it is marked, it only has a tiny sign hanging outside. So compared to what I've gotten used to over the past couple months, things were a LOT different. In comparison though, there would be a very modern building and right next to it would be a simple grass hut with an elevated floor. This strange mix of modern and traditional was everywhere. They had huge shopping malls and even an outlet mall that looked exactley like the ones back home in Maryland or the Outerbanks or Leeseburg. We stopped here to get Donna some running shoes at the Adidas outlet. It was very surreal after I hadn't seen anything resembling a mall in 3 months. I weirded me out.
We stayed with Lia and her family who have 3 boys. Her husband is Thai and they have lived there for a while so he knows all the best local places and he can always get "Thai price." They own a jewelry shop on Khata beach called Andeman Creations because it's right on the Andeman sea. They have absolutely beautiful jewelry. They work with hill-tribe people to get lots of the stones and silver and they put it together themselves. Ott started out making jewelry with beach glass and stuff he found and selling off a blanket on the beach and has since moved his business up and up.
We went to the beach everyday, either just us or with the boys when they were around. We ate the most delicious Thai food everyday-shrimp kapow with basil, rice, and a fried egg was our go-to that we had at almost every meal. We would drink fresh pineapple, watermelon, and coconut slushees and drink huge Singhas. And it was all so incredibly cheap!
One of my favorite things that we did was go to the market at nightime. Ott drove his motorcycle with Lia on the back and the 5 of us rode in the sidecar. The market was so cool at night with all the vendors under bamboo umbrellas and lights strung up. People selling clothing and cheap toys, fresh meat and fish were strung up, and heaps and heaps of fresh fruit and veg. The vendors cooked delicious meals in huge woks that you could take home with you.
While the boys were in school during the week, Donna and I went to Railay beach for 2 nights. We took a "2 hour bus ride" that turned into 4 hours because the driver made many convenient delivery stops along the way to Krabi beach. We then took a longtail boat from Krabi to Railay, which is the only way to get there. The longtail was soo much fun. I was a little nervous before going on it because the water looked really rough and I could see water coming in all sides of the other boats but once we were on it we were going really fast and it was awesome. You had to go out and around this point and out a ways and then you landed on the island. It was awesome. We were there during low season too so it was pretty quite. You could get cheap Singhas from a tiny minimart and drink beers on the beach. There were lots of reggae bars to go to and more fresh delicious Thai food. They had these bars with cushions on elevated platforms everywhere and you could just lounge and drink beers and listen to music.
During the day we sat in the sun and went sea-kayaking. Although Donna and I both proved that we suck at it and it was impossible for us to do it in unison, it was fun and the water was such an intense blue, it was truly beautiful. Time seemed to slow down/be non-existent. On the morning of the day we left, I got up early and attempted this hike to a lagoon. You scramble up this steep slope and there are some ropes to help you and then hike down into this gully. When I was in the gully, I felt like I was on the set of lost; all these huge palm trees towering over me and jungle noises all around me; it almost seemed fake.
I was sad to leave but we took a speed boat back to Phuket, which was much much faster and really fun. It was about an hour and a half back to Khata beach. When we left Thailand, I was genuinely sad and it is definitely a place I want to go back to. I would like to go to northern Thailand because it is much different and go exploring the hillsides there. I was so happy we had gone though and had been able see a little bit more of the local side of things than most!
Donna's sister lives in Thailand and she came the week before the October break to do some teaching observations because she is trying to get certified as a teacher. She really enjoyed Dhaka. She first went to Thailand in her early 20's and has lived overseas there for quite a while but has gotten so used to it that Dhaka was truly a different experience for her and she loved it! Donna and I picked her up from the airport-it was a cool feeling to pick someone else up from the airport in Bangladesh and be able to point out things to them, saying we do this and we do that and this is where I live. I don't feel like a visitor in the country any longer.
We had U.N. on Thursday, which was a really cool experience at our school. 68 countries were represented and all the kids dressed up in their native outfits and the kids all processed into the gym with their country flags and there was a big assembly. They cheered the loudest with Bangladesh was called. It was truly moving and I teared up because they were so proud and so excited to be repping their countries, oh and I'm also a huge wus bout those things.
We skipped out early and made a mad dash for the airport so as not to miss our flight. 3 and 1/2 hours to Kuala Lumpur and a 7-hour layover in the airport. Donna had booked a hotel for the night but we realized when we got there it was an hour's drive a way! not worth it and no other available hotels. We had a greasy airport dinner at 12 at night and slept overnight in the airport. We woke early the next morning and got on a 1-hour flight to Phuket, Thailand.
We stepped off the plane and onto the runway to warm, tropical temperatures, and sun. Unlike Dhaka, it felt so much more fresh and not smoggy at all. Lia's husband, Ott, and their youngest son Teva met us at the airport. We stopped on the way home for a delicious roadside breakfast. This is another difference between Thailand and Bangladesh; you can eat the street food in Thailand but it is highly discouraged in Dhaka unless you want to sit on the toilet for 3 days. We ate noodles, hot stuff, fresh bean sprouts, pickled onions and beans, hard boiled eggs, and more hot stuff-it was so so yummy!
Thailand seemed so westernized compared to Dhaka-there were things that I recognized everywhere like dentists' offices and print shops and big groceries stores like Tesco. So strange; in Dhaka you really have to know where things are because a normal looking house could be a shop or a butcher or a furniture store. Not many things look like an actual shop, nothing is marked well and if it is marked, it only has a tiny sign hanging outside. So compared to what I've gotten used to over the past couple months, things were a LOT different. In comparison though, there would be a very modern building and right next to it would be a simple grass hut with an elevated floor. This strange mix of modern and traditional was everywhere. They had huge shopping malls and even an outlet mall that looked exactley like the ones back home in Maryland or the Outerbanks or Leeseburg. We stopped here to get Donna some running shoes at the Adidas outlet. It was very surreal after I hadn't seen anything resembling a mall in 3 months. I weirded me out.
We stayed with Lia and her family who have 3 boys. Her husband is Thai and they have lived there for a while so he knows all the best local places and he can always get "Thai price." They own a jewelry shop on Khata beach called Andeman Creations because it's right on the Andeman sea. They have absolutely beautiful jewelry. They work with hill-tribe people to get lots of the stones and silver and they put it together themselves. Ott started out making jewelry with beach glass and stuff he found and selling off a blanket on the beach and has since moved his business up and up.
We went to the beach everyday, either just us or with the boys when they were around. We ate the most delicious Thai food everyday-shrimp kapow with basil, rice, and a fried egg was our go-to that we had at almost every meal. We would drink fresh pineapple, watermelon, and coconut slushees and drink huge Singhas. And it was all so incredibly cheap!
One of my favorite things that we did was go to the market at nightime. Ott drove his motorcycle with Lia on the back and the 5 of us rode in the sidecar. The market was so cool at night with all the vendors under bamboo umbrellas and lights strung up. People selling clothing and cheap toys, fresh meat and fish were strung up, and heaps and heaps of fresh fruit and veg. The vendors cooked delicious meals in huge woks that you could take home with you.
While the boys were in school during the week, Donna and I went to Railay beach for 2 nights. We took a "2 hour bus ride" that turned into 4 hours because the driver made many convenient delivery stops along the way to Krabi beach. We then took a longtail boat from Krabi to Railay, which is the only way to get there. The longtail was soo much fun. I was a little nervous before going on it because the water looked really rough and I could see water coming in all sides of the other boats but once we were on it we were going really fast and it was awesome. You had to go out and around this point and out a ways and then you landed on the island. It was awesome. We were there during low season too so it was pretty quite. You could get cheap Singhas from a tiny minimart and drink beers on the beach. There were lots of reggae bars to go to and more fresh delicious Thai food. They had these bars with cushions on elevated platforms everywhere and you could just lounge and drink beers and listen to music.
During the day we sat in the sun and went sea-kayaking. Although Donna and I both proved that we suck at it and it was impossible for us to do it in unison, it was fun and the water was such an intense blue, it was truly beautiful. Time seemed to slow down/be non-existent. On the morning of the day we left, I got up early and attempted this hike to a lagoon. You scramble up this steep slope and there are some ropes to help you and then hike down into this gully. When I was in the gully, I felt like I was on the set of lost; all these huge palm trees towering over me and jungle noises all around me; it almost seemed fake.
I was sad to leave but we took a speed boat back to Phuket, which was much much faster and really fun. It was about an hour and a half back to Khata beach. When we left Thailand, I was genuinely sad and it is definitely a place I want to go back to. I would like to go to northern Thailand because it is much different and go exploring the hillsides there. I was so happy we had gone though and had been able see a little bit more of the local side of things than most!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
September 23rd-NEPAL TRIP
Sunday, September 23, 2009
Last week we had off Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Eid break. My roommate Donna and I and our friends Kristen and Stephanie went to Nepal for 4 days. We left on Friday, midday. That Thursday night I felt like it was Christmas Eve, I could barely sleep I was soo excited. I needed a break from school badly too. We had booked our tickets with a travel agent and he had recommended that we get to the airport 3 hours in advance and be mindful that there might be bad traffic. For once in Dhaka there was zero traffic and we got to the airport in about 10 minutes. Mozib drove us in a school van and I was singing karaoke over the buses’ intercom system the whole way-typical. Kristen forgot her travel Rummy Cube, which she is obsessed with but our trip mom (Donna) would not let her go back for it. Haha. When we arrived at the airport there were more people begging outside on the sidewalk then there were in the actual airport. We got through baggage check, check in, and security in about 15 minutes. So we had hours to kill at the Bangladeshi airport. We headed for the Duty Free shop.
While Donna and Kristen were busy buying rum I played dress up with one of the male shop keepers who showed me how to put on a sari correctly after I had picked it up to inspect it. He put it over my head and then wrapped it around my body-the whole thing was a complicated process. Then I had to take pictures with all of the shop keepers-they thought this little white girl dressed up in a sari was hilarious. We proceeded to the next Duty Free shop. This one was more legit and I bought 2 bottles of red wine for our trip; something that is hard to attain in Dhaka. With more time to kill we went for coffee at a typical Bangladeshi restaurant. This means that they have all different types of cuisine on the menu including Bangladeshi and there are some very interesting spellings on the menu. It’s a gamble whether you will actually get what you order and I am very wary of any item listed as “vegetarian” because this doesn’t really guarantee much of anything. Really yummy, whipped, sweet coffee though. There were tons of other teachers going on holiday and families from the school as well so there were plenty of people to chat too.
Finally time to board and no doubt, this was the number one sketchiest plane I’ve ever been on in my life. The seats interior looked like someone puked up the 1970’s all over the inside; huge orange and blue and vomit green flower patterns everywhere. We had tried to get seats together but this did not work so I was several rows behind Donna and Kristen and Steph. Have way through the flight the control panel (with the call buttons and lights) in the row of seats in front of mine promptly fell out of the ceiling. I was staring up into this black hole with all these blue and red and green wires hanging out of it. I tried not to look but I couldn’t help it. Two stewardesses tried to put it back and when they could re-put it up there the co-captain came marching back with a silver roll of duct tape and taped the damn panel back up. Ghet-to.
The flight was only and hour long and they served some suspicious looking sandwich that looked like chunky mayonnaise, which I did not have, as well as some sweet noodles, which I did try and were pretty good. I saved my soda they served us for later to make rum and cokes. When the flight (thankfully) landed, we came down, over the mountains into Kathmandu, which is a valley with mountains all around it.
Once off the plane, we got onto a bus that took us about 100 yards to the terminal. The airport was only one level and very small with beautiful Hindu-looking wood carvings everywhere. I felt at peace already. A lady took our temperatures with a thing that looked like a radar gun and we all passed! We also had to fill out a swine-flu card. We already had our visas so this part was quick. When we got through all of the desk stuff we were trying to figure money, exchange rates, ATM’s, etc. because Nepal uses Rupees but we were mobbed almost immediately. We had been told you could hire a taxi (which looks like any really small beat-up car) to take us anywhere we wanted to go. A guy agreed to take us there and said we could stop at an ATM along the way. This is typical of a lot of people of Asian countries-they will tell you whatever you want to hear whether they know what you’re talking about or not.) For some reason we had all these people swarm us, asking us where we were from, what we were doing, etc. Our hired guy hustled us into the taxi and we set off for Nagarkot.
We slowly made our way out of Kathmandu, descending hire and hire into the hillsides and taking in all the local architecture and street life. I want to own a fixer-uper in Nepal-there are some gorgeous empty houses here that are just going to waster or have squatters living there. We went up and up this switch-back road carved into the hillside. It was quite scary the higher we got-the road became unpaved and these motorcyclists would whip around the curves at high speed, packed buses with people riding on top going very fast. We finally got up to the top of the hillside and were passing all these guesthouses when we asked if we were near the Nagarkot Farmhouse, where we were staying and where the nearest ATM was. He looked us like we were crazy and it turns out he A. had no idea where we were going, and B. didn’t know where an ATM was. Despite this, we felt like we were at the top of the world and we were staring at beautiful rolling hills rice terraces and our sense of adventure was strong. We kept winding along this steep, curvy, rocky, pot-holly road until we finally found the Nagarkot Farmhouse. We were able to pay our driver in US dollars and we gave him a BIG tip for braving the journey. We had actually gone all the way to the top of this steep hillside and over the edge and started going down again.
We were so incredibly happy that we had kept going once we were there. The Nagarkot Farmhouse was the cutest place on earth; the moment we arrived they didn’t ask about money or our reservation, they simply asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee. So we sat on the outside patio, looking out at the Nepalese hillsides with prayer flags waving drinking lemongrass tea and coffee with steamed milk and sugar. It was so incredibly nice. There was a little lodge with a fire place and some table and a small bar and then a stone patio attached and a lawn area with more tables and chairs. They showed us to our rooms. Stephanie and Kristen shared a room and Donna and I shared another room. Donna and my room was on the end and had two huge windows. Again, the rooms were soo cute; two little twin beds with big fluffy duvets, stone floors, candles for nighttime and a wrap around porch with lounge chairs.
That night for dinner we were the only guests besides one other couple and their son. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was put I hadn’t really eaten a meal all day. Nepal is also an hour behind Bangladesh so I was starving by dinner time at 7. I had brought UNO with me and we had picked up a bunch of bottles of wine from the Duty Free before leaving Dhaka. So we sat around and played UNO and drank red wine. The owner of the place came and sat with us and chatted. He told us that it was unusually cold for this time of year. It was indeed pretty chilly but it was so nice to wrap up at night and put on pants and shawls and sweaters and not be sweating insanely. A little elevation makes such a huge difference!
Dinner was amazing. They brought us four plates and huge pots of everything; a dark dahl (lentils), rice, cooked vegetables, cooked cabbage, and chicken. It was so nice to have a delicious home-cooked meal. Everything was excellent and I think we ate about 3 plates each. We had so much fun that first night-we were basically the only ones there so the more we drank the louder we got and we were just so happy and giddy to be on vacation somewhere other than Dhaka.
In the morning we got up early. I didn’t even need an alarm to wake me up, I got woken up by the sun shining in. We all got up and watched the sunrise together. As the sun came out and the clouds lifted a bit we could just see the tops of the Himalayan mountains way off in the distance. Even from far away they were amazing! They were so jagged and so high up, punching out above the clouds. They were very dramatic.
After taking a bazillion pictures, I took a hot shower and headed up to the lodge for some delicious coffee and steamed milk. We sat out on the porch, wrapped up, enjoying the crisp morning drinking cups of coffee from blue and white china cups and saucers.
After an hour or two, they asked us if we wanted breakfast, to which the answer was of course, yes. We had these flat, round breads with butter and peach jam, which they make on sight. We also had yummy egg omelets with mixed veggies and chillies. I was so impressed with the food so far!
We decided we should probably get moving before the food coma set in and a mid-morning nap became too tempting. So we strapped on walking shoes and headed back up and over the hill the way we had arrived. It was so nice and warm during the day, getting pretty hot compared to the chilly nights. It was just so nice to feel a contrast other than hot and sticky. We hiked up the dusty road, taking short cuts when we saw them. We checked out the other guest houses at the top of the hill. Our walk was so nice and relaxed. Stopping at little craft shacks and tea houses along the route we talked to local people who were all so nice and didn’t pressure you to buy anything.
Arriving into the small town of Nagarkot we found some local children who were flying a kite on the side of a cliff. They spoke very good English and let us fly their kites. We met some other children who right after meeting us asked if we had any chocolate-smart kids! We wandered around, and found some really cool things. There was a little artist hut who did these amazing mandalas. He explained what they all meant and how they depicted the stupas and the cycles of human life and so on. They were so intricately done, they were beautiful. We stopped and had a beer, which were huge, at a small café. I really miss this about Dhaka-sitting outside and having a beer and just people watching.
In the afternoon, we hiked back to the lodge. There were so many cute tea shops and cafes perched on the edge of the cliffs that served light meals, tea, coffee, and beer. They were so open and had amazing views and the people who work them are all so nice and friendly. When we arrived back at the lodge, lunch was being served; really tasty garlicky, vegetable soup, a rich dish, followed by French fries. They brought out mustard and ketchup with our rich, which was supposed to be for the fries, but being the idiots we are, we ate the condiments with our rice because we thought this was customary!
In the afternoon, we relaxed and sat outside in the sun, listening to music and reading. It was so perfect. At night we had the same delicious dinner as the night before but only it was buffet style this time because there were a lot more people staying at the lodge and we downed two bottles of white wine with our meal and played more Uno.
The next day, we hiked the opposite way, down the hill, and took several short cuts, bringing us to a small village with just a few terra-cotta colored houses with bright blue shutters and a couple cafes/bars again. People tend to do a lot of hanging around in these places; just sitting outside and drinking and relaxing. In contrast, everywhere we went we saw old women hauling huge sacks of rocks or other heavy building materials or crops in wicker baskets on their backs. These women are strong and tough and have been doing this kind of manual labor their entire lives. It was a pretty amazing sight.
I loved this walk-it took us into more rural areas, although everywhere in Nagarkot was rural, we trekked along windy dirt roads and vegetation patches and up and down steep hillsides. It was much hotter today even though the previous night had been quite chilly. The countryside was so gorgeous too; looking out over terraced patty fields of rice and down into a deep gorge with a rushing river. It was so quiet and peaceful as well compared to the gritty noises of Dhaka.
The next day when we left Nagarkot, we took the scariest bus ride I have ever been on, hands down. We went the opposite way that we had come, going straight down into the valley below. We had to start off rolling down a hill to get the bus to start and once it did it repeatedly stalled out. Our driver whipped around hairpin corners high on the edge of steep cliffs and took no regard for the huge pot holes that dotted the road, sending my skull into the roof of the van more than once. We stopped once for a photo op once we got closer down to the river and I seriously doubted if he would be able to start the car up again. We bumped and banged all the way down the hillside, into the valley, and slowly the countryside began to change, giving way to a more populated and industrial-looking space until we eventually arrived in the outskirts of Kathmandu and then inched our way in heavy traffic deep into the heart of Thamel, where we were staying.
Kathmandu reminds me a lot of Dhaka-dirty, loud, open-faced shops lining the roads, packed sidewalks and roads. This was a far cry from where we had been just 2 hours ago. But it was fun looking at all the faces and things passing our car windows. We arrived at the Kathmandu Guesthouses that had gotten its fame from such guests as the Beatles and Ricky Martin! It was in the middle of a busy district with tons of shops and restaurants
Last week we had off Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for Eid break. My roommate Donna and I and our friends Kristen and Stephanie went to Nepal for 4 days. We left on Friday, midday. That Thursday night I felt like it was Christmas Eve, I could barely sleep I was soo excited. I needed a break from school badly too. We had booked our tickets with a travel agent and he had recommended that we get to the airport 3 hours in advance and be mindful that there might be bad traffic. For once in Dhaka there was zero traffic and we got to the airport in about 10 minutes. Mozib drove us in a school van and I was singing karaoke over the buses’ intercom system the whole way-typical. Kristen forgot her travel Rummy Cube, which she is obsessed with but our trip mom (Donna) would not let her go back for it. Haha. When we arrived at the airport there were more people begging outside on the sidewalk then there were in the actual airport. We got through baggage check, check in, and security in about 15 minutes. So we had hours to kill at the Bangladeshi airport. We headed for the Duty Free shop.
While Donna and Kristen were busy buying rum I played dress up with one of the male shop keepers who showed me how to put on a sari correctly after I had picked it up to inspect it. He put it over my head and then wrapped it around my body-the whole thing was a complicated process. Then I had to take pictures with all of the shop keepers-they thought this little white girl dressed up in a sari was hilarious. We proceeded to the next Duty Free shop. This one was more legit and I bought 2 bottles of red wine for our trip; something that is hard to attain in Dhaka. With more time to kill we went for coffee at a typical Bangladeshi restaurant. This means that they have all different types of cuisine on the menu including Bangladeshi and there are some very interesting spellings on the menu. It’s a gamble whether you will actually get what you order and I am very wary of any item listed as “vegetarian” because this doesn’t really guarantee much of anything. Really yummy, whipped, sweet coffee though. There were tons of other teachers going on holiday and families from the school as well so there were plenty of people to chat too.
Finally time to board and no doubt, this was the number one sketchiest plane I’ve ever been on in my life. The seats interior looked like someone puked up the 1970’s all over the inside; huge orange and blue and vomit green flower patterns everywhere. We had tried to get seats together but this did not work so I was several rows behind Donna and Kristen and Steph. Have way through the flight the control panel (with the call buttons and lights) in the row of seats in front of mine promptly fell out of the ceiling. I was staring up into this black hole with all these blue and red and green wires hanging out of it. I tried not to look but I couldn’t help it. Two stewardesses tried to put it back and when they could re-put it up there the co-captain came marching back with a silver roll of duct tape and taped the damn panel back up. Ghet-to.
The flight was only and hour long and they served some suspicious looking sandwich that looked like chunky mayonnaise, which I did not have, as well as some sweet noodles, which I did try and were pretty good. I saved my soda they served us for later to make rum and cokes. When the flight (thankfully) landed, we came down, over the mountains into Kathmandu, which is a valley with mountains all around it.
Once off the plane, we got onto a bus that took us about 100 yards to the terminal. The airport was only one level and very small with beautiful Hindu-looking wood carvings everywhere. I felt at peace already. A lady took our temperatures with a thing that looked like a radar gun and we all passed! We also had to fill out a swine-flu card. We already had our visas so this part was quick. When we got through all of the desk stuff we were trying to figure money, exchange rates, ATM’s, etc. because Nepal uses Rupees but we were mobbed almost immediately. We had been told you could hire a taxi (which looks like any really small beat-up car) to take us anywhere we wanted to go. A guy agreed to take us there and said we could stop at an ATM along the way. This is typical of a lot of people of Asian countries-they will tell you whatever you want to hear whether they know what you’re talking about or not.) For some reason we had all these people swarm us, asking us where we were from, what we were doing, etc. Our hired guy hustled us into the taxi and we set off for Nagarkot.
We slowly made our way out of Kathmandu, descending hire and hire into the hillsides and taking in all the local architecture and street life. I want to own a fixer-uper in Nepal-there are some gorgeous empty houses here that are just going to waster or have squatters living there. We went up and up this switch-back road carved into the hillside. It was quite scary the higher we got-the road became unpaved and these motorcyclists would whip around the curves at high speed, packed buses with people riding on top going very fast. We finally got up to the top of the hillside and were passing all these guesthouses when we asked if we were near the Nagarkot Farmhouse, where we were staying and where the nearest ATM was. He looked us like we were crazy and it turns out he A. had no idea where we were going, and B. didn’t know where an ATM was. Despite this, we felt like we were at the top of the world and we were staring at beautiful rolling hills rice terraces and our sense of adventure was strong. We kept winding along this steep, curvy, rocky, pot-holly road until we finally found the Nagarkot Farmhouse. We were able to pay our driver in US dollars and we gave him a BIG tip for braving the journey. We had actually gone all the way to the top of this steep hillside and over the edge and started going down again.
We were so incredibly happy that we had kept going once we were there. The Nagarkot Farmhouse was the cutest place on earth; the moment we arrived they didn’t ask about money or our reservation, they simply asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee. So we sat on the outside patio, looking out at the Nepalese hillsides with prayer flags waving drinking lemongrass tea and coffee with steamed milk and sugar. It was so incredibly nice. There was a little lodge with a fire place and some table and a small bar and then a stone patio attached and a lawn area with more tables and chairs. They showed us to our rooms. Stephanie and Kristen shared a room and Donna and I shared another room. Donna and my room was on the end and had two huge windows. Again, the rooms were soo cute; two little twin beds with big fluffy duvets, stone floors, candles for nighttime and a wrap around porch with lounge chairs.
That night for dinner we were the only guests besides one other couple and their son. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was put I hadn’t really eaten a meal all day. Nepal is also an hour behind Bangladesh so I was starving by dinner time at 7. I had brought UNO with me and we had picked up a bunch of bottles of wine from the Duty Free before leaving Dhaka. So we sat around and played UNO and drank red wine. The owner of the place came and sat with us and chatted. He told us that it was unusually cold for this time of year. It was indeed pretty chilly but it was so nice to wrap up at night and put on pants and shawls and sweaters and not be sweating insanely. A little elevation makes such a huge difference!
Dinner was amazing. They brought us four plates and huge pots of everything; a dark dahl (lentils), rice, cooked vegetables, cooked cabbage, and chicken. It was so nice to have a delicious home-cooked meal. Everything was excellent and I think we ate about 3 plates each. We had so much fun that first night-we were basically the only ones there so the more we drank the louder we got and we were just so happy and giddy to be on vacation somewhere other than Dhaka.
In the morning we got up early. I didn’t even need an alarm to wake me up, I got woken up by the sun shining in. We all got up and watched the sunrise together. As the sun came out and the clouds lifted a bit we could just see the tops of the Himalayan mountains way off in the distance. Even from far away they were amazing! They were so jagged and so high up, punching out above the clouds. They were very dramatic.
After taking a bazillion pictures, I took a hot shower and headed up to the lodge for some delicious coffee and steamed milk. We sat out on the porch, wrapped up, enjoying the crisp morning drinking cups of coffee from blue and white china cups and saucers.
After an hour or two, they asked us if we wanted breakfast, to which the answer was of course, yes. We had these flat, round breads with butter and peach jam, which they make on sight. We also had yummy egg omelets with mixed veggies and chillies. I was so impressed with the food so far!
We decided we should probably get moving before the food coma set in and a mid-morning nap became too tempting. So we strapped on walking shoes and headed back up and over the hill the way we had arrived. It was so nice and warm during the day, getting pretty hot compared to the chilly nights. It was just so nice to feel a contrast other than hot and sticky. We hiked up the dusty road, taking short cuts when we saw them. We checked out the other guest houses at the top of the hill. Our walk was so nice and relaxed. Stopping at little craft shacks and tea houses along the route we talked to local people who were all so nice and didn’t pressure you to buy anything.
Arriving into the small town of Nagarkot we found some local children who were flying a kite on the side of a cliff. They spoke very good English and let us fly their kites. We met some other children who right after meeting us asked if we had any chocolate-smart kids! We wandered around, and found some really cool things. There was a little artist hut who did these amazing mandalas. He explained what they all meant and how they depicted the stupas and the cycles of human life and so on. They were so intricately done, they were beautiful. We stopped and had a beer, which were huge, at a small café. I really miss this about Dhaka-sitting outside and having a beer and just people watching.
In the afternoon, we hiked back to the lodge. There were so many cute tea shops and cafes perched on the edge of the cliffs that served light meals, tea, coffee, and beer. They were so open and had amazing views and the people who work them are all so nice and friendly. When we arrived back at the lodge, lunch was being served; really tasty garlicky, vegetable soup, a rich dish, followed by French fries. They brought out mustard and ketchup with our rich, which was supposed to be for the fries, but being the idiots we are, we ate the condiments with our rice because we thought this was customary!
In the afternoon, we relaxed and sat outside in the sun, listening to music and reading. It was so perfect. At night we had the same delicious dinner as the night before but only it was buffet style this time because there were a lot more people staying at the lodge and we downed two bottles of white wine with our meal and played more Uno.
The next day, we hiked the opposite way, down the hill, and took several short cuts, bringing us to a small village with just a few terra-cotta colored houses with bright blue shutters and a couple cafes/bars again. People tend to do a lot of hanging around in these places; just sitting outside and drinking and relaxing. In contrast, everywhere we went we saw old women hauling huge sacks of rocks or other heavy building materials or crops in wicker baskets on their backs. These women are strong and tough and have been doing this kind of manual labor their entire lives. It was a pretty amazing sight.
I loved this walk-it took us into more rural areas, although everywhere in Nagarkot was rural, we trekked along windy dirt roads and vegetation patches and up and down steep hillsides. It was much hotter today even though the previous night had been quite chilly. The countryside was so gorgeous too; looking out over terraced patty fields of rice and down into a deep gorge with a rushing river. It was so quiet and peaceful as well compared to the gritty noises of Dhaka.
The next day when we left Nagarkot, we took the scariest bus ride I have ever been on, hands down. We went the opposite way that we had come, going straight down into the valley below. We had to start off rolling down a hill to get the bus to start and once it did it repeatedly stalled out. Our driver whipped around hairpin corners high on the edge of steep cliffs and took no regard for the huge pot holes that dotted the road, sending my skull into the roof of the van more than once. We stopped once for a photo op once we got closer down to the river and I seriously doubted if he would be able to start the car up again. We bumped and banged all the way down the hillside, into the valley, and slowly the countryside began to change, giving way to a more populated and industrial-looking space until we eventually arrived in the outskirts of Kathmandu and then inched our way in heavy traffic deep into the heart of Thamel, where we were staying.
Kathmandu reminds me a lot of Dhaka-dirty, loud, open-faced shops lining the roads, packed sidewalks and roads. This was a far cry from where we had been just 2 hours ago. But it was fun looking at all the faces and things passing our car windows. We arrived at the Kathmandu Guesthouses that had gotten its fame from such guests as the Beatles and Ricky Martin! It was in the middle of a busy district with tons of shops and restaurants
September 12th
Tuesday, September 12, 2009
This week the teacher that I am working with, Rachel, had to fly back to the U.S. because her mother just had surgery and she wanted to be with her. Therefore, I am the main teacher. It is so different being the main teacher versus teaching just a couple classes and the rest of the time being an aid. In order to teach my own classes, I need to feel really prepared. Once I feel this preparedness, then I can improvise and switch up my lessons but need to feel like I am on top of things before I can be spontaneous, if that makes any sense.
Last week was intense and both Rachel and I were at school most days until at least 5 o’clock and other days until 6 or 6:30 getting ready for this week. I feel competent with making up my own lessons for Language Arts but I feel more shaky about Social Studies because I’m not as familiar with the material. There were so many little details that needed to be taken care of though, like transferring Powerschool, which is where we take attendance, record grades, etc. from Rachel’s computer to mine. We were literally working until the last couple hours before Rachel left for her flight to get things in order.
The week is going fine though, although being a real teacher is hard and tiring. You have to put on a show and stand up in front of kids all day long. You have to be super organized and flexible at the same time. Not always easy.
I’m also stressing about what I am going to do next year. I feel like I just figured out this year and now have to think about next year’s plans. I went to Google search my computer today and just had no idea where to begin. Grad school, teaching near D.C., teaching in another city in the U.S., teaching overseas? I have no idea. I feel like I have a lot of time to decide but in reality I don’t and interning does not rake in the money so I need like a real job next year. OMG.
This week the teacher that I am working with, Rachel, had to fly back to the U.S. because her mother just had surgery and she wanted to be with her. Therefore, I am the main teacher. It is so different being the main teacher versus teaching just a couple classes and the rest of the time being an aid. In order to teach my own classes, I need to feel really prepared. Once I feel this preparedness, then I can improvise and switch up my lessons but need to feel like I am on top of things before I can be spontaneous, if that makes any sense.
Last week was intense and both Rachel and I were at school most days until at least 5 o’clock and other days until 6 or 6:30 getting ready for this week. I feel competent with making up my own lessons for Language Arts but I feel more shaky about Social Studies because I’m not as familiar with the material. There were so many little details that needed to be taken care of though, like transferring Powerschool, which is where we take attendance, record grades, etc. from Rachel’s computer to mine. We were literally working until the last couple hours before Rachel left for her flight to get things in order.
The week is going fine though, although being a real teacher is hard and tiring. You have to put on a show and stand up in front of kids all day long. You have to be super organized and flexible at the same time. Not always easy.
I’m also stressing about what I am going to do next year. I feel like I just figured out this year and now have to think about next year’s plans. I went to Google search my computer today and just had no idea where to begin. Grad school, teaching near D.C., teaching in another city in the U.S., teaching overseas? I have no idea. I feel like I have a lot of time to decide but in reality I don’t and interning does not rake in the money so I need like a real job next year. OMG.
September 12
September 12, 2009
Last week Donna (my roommate) and our friend Kristen and I did the hash again. It was out in the country for the second week in a row. Two weeks ago in was in village called Ashulia about 45 minutes away. I walked that one so I could take pics. It was soo incredibly nice to get out of the city. We didn’t even go that far away but we were totally transported to a completely different place. It was quiet and we walked through this little village, going right through people’s front and back yards. There was vegetation everywhere. They grow veg on elevated vines so its protected from rising flood waters. There were fruit trees everywhere. People would come out of their houses and look at us and the children would run next to us laughing and kicking homemade soccer balls. They were so happy and loved seeing us and thought it was hilarious that this group of white people were all walking together in a line.
Last weekend I did my first running Hash. We went out to a country village that took forever to get to because it’s actually really pretty close to where we all live but a this time of year the water is higher so you have to take a really long route around. As we were driving there I started monsooning-pitch black sky and just down pouring. So it was nice and muddy for our run. When we finally got there, we piled as many people as possible onto a rickety row boat and this native man poled us across a river. I swear I thought the boat was going to sick mid-way. Water was pouring in over the sides and these old men in their lungis had to keep bailing out the water with tin buckets as we shakily made our crossing. Once on the other side, the trail was incredibly muddy and I bit it within the first 5 minutes. We had to traverse really muddy banks and it was the type of mud that really sucked your feet in. The run was crazy-through dense bamboo forests one second, then a small group of mud huts, then barren rocky areas, then crawling underneath vegetation patches.
Again, the village children would come out and crowd around us when we were stopped. They knew very little, if any English. They loved my roommate Donna and I. They would laugh hysterically when we would say our names and then repeat them. When we started moving again, they would hang onto our hands and arms on either side. It is very hard to run this way. When we would stop, they would fan us with homemade fans. They were adorable.
The run was nuts-I had no sense of direction at all and I was thankful to finally see the boat again because it was getting very dark and shapes were not what they seemed to be. A pile of moss-covered bricks looked like tree roots. They had Iftar dinner for us and for the drivers, who if they were fasting for Ramadan had not eaten since before sun-up that day. We had delicious vegetable samosas and Tiger beers. The circle was cut short because it started down-pouring again. Another long ride back home that night, snaking slowly through villages with only one road running through them. It was about 9 at night but the streets seemed busier than ever. I love passing through these streets with all the shop vendors with open stalls that face the streets-seeing all the bright fabrics and the colors of the fruits and vegetables. Right now, mangos are still in season, but not for much longer, as are pineapple, and eggplant. Things like pumpkin and squashes are starting to come into season as well. One of my favorites right now are the Asian pears; they are so juicy and crunchy when you bite into them. Pomegranates are in season as well too and are soo tasty!
This weekend we took the 8th graders on a teambuilding retreat. We took 4 buses to Proshika, which is about 2 hours away, with traffic. Proshika is out in the country and is run by a big N.G.O. (non-government energy). They provide hundreds of jobs for local Bangladeshis who probably wouldn’t otherwise have work. They have an orchid farm and a honey farm and they manufacture textiles. They also have livestock. They raise cows and use the cow dung to produce biogas, which they use to power their kitchens. This was interesting to learn about because it fits right in with our vision of being sustainable! I’m not sure the students saw it this way though and were less than thrilled that they had to stand around these smelly containers of cow crap. The orchids were beautiful though and the honey was delicious and I bought some to bring home.
For the day and a half that we were there, we did lots of team-building activities and lots of getting to know people that we didn’t know before. I was really impressed by how well the students did with all this. We also played many many games of dodgeball, which our 8th graders are obsessed with. We only have about 15 girls and about 45 guys so the games get pretty vicious. They kept us very well fed there two with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and tea and cake break in the afternoon! We had chipatis, white rice, veggie curry, beef, fish, a thin dhal, and beans and chillies. Lots of places in Bangladesh make these sauted beans and chilies. The beans are delicious but the chilies look exactly the same as the beans and so every gamble is a bite. When you bite into a chile, you know it; you can barely speak and your eyes just start watering. Good for the sinuses though.
At night we were all tired and ready for bed but the students were just winding up and so excited to be away from their parents/with the friends. All night they were coming out of their rooms and hanging out in the hallways. We did not have a very restful night at all.
Last week Donna (my roommate) and our friend Kristen and I did the hash again. It was out in the country for the second week in a row. Two weeks ago in was in village called Ashulia about 45 minutes away. I walked that one so I could take pics. It was soo incredibly nice to get out of the city. We didn’t even go that far away but we were totally transported to a completely different place. It was quiet and we walked through this little village, going right through people’s front and back yards. There was vegetation everywhere. They grow veg on elevated vines so its protected from rising flood waters. There were fruit trees everywhere. People would come out of their houses and look at us and the children would run next to us laughing and kicking homemade soccer balls. They were so happy and loved seeing us and thought it was hilarious that this group of white people were all walking together in a line.
Last weekend I did my first running Hash. We went out to a country village that took forever to get to because it’s actually really pretty close to where we all live but a this time of year the water is higher so you have to take a really long route around. As we were driving there I started monsooning-pitch black sky and just down pouring. So it was nice and muddy for our run. When we finally got there, we piled as many people as possible onto a rickety row boat and this native man poled us across a river. I swear I thought the boat was going to sick mid-way. Water was pouring in over the sides and these old men in their lungis had to keep bailing out the water with tin buckets as we shakily made our crossing. Once on the other side, the trail was incredibly muddy and I bit it within the first 5 minutes. We had to traverse really muddy banks and it was the type of mud that really sucked your feet in. The run was crazy-through dense bamboo forests one second, then a small group of mud huts, then barren rocky areas, then crawling underneath vegetation patches.
Again, the village children would come out and crowd around us when we were stopped. They knew very little, if any English. They loved my roommate Donna and I. They would laugh hysterically when we would say our names and then repeat them. When we started moving again, they would hang onto our hands and arms on either side. It is very hard to run this way. When we would stop, they would fan us with homemade fans. They were adorable.
The run was nuts-I had no sense of direction at all and I was thankful to finally see the boat again because it was getting very dark and shapes were not what they seemed to be. A pile of moss-covered bricks looked like tree roots. They had Iftar dinner for us and for the drivers, who if they were fasting for Ramadan had not eaten since before sun-up that day. We had delicious vegetable samosas and Tiger beers. The circle was cut short because it started down-pouring again. Another long ride back home that night, snaking slowly through villages with only one road running through them. It was about 9 at night but the streets seemed busier than ever. I love passing through these streets with all the shop vendors with open stalls that face the streets-seeing all the bright fabrics and the colors of the fruits and vegetables. Right now, mangos are still in season, but not for much longer, as are pineapple, and eggplant. Things like pumpkin and squashes are starting to come into season as well. One of my favorites right now are the Asian pears; they are so juicy and crunchy when you bite into them. Pomegranates are in season as well too and are soo tasty!
This weekend we took the 8th graders on a teambuilding retreat. We took 4 buses to Proshika, which is about 2 hours away, with traffic. Proshika is out in the country and is run by a big N.G.O. (non-government energy). They provide hundreds of jobs for local Bangladeshis who probably wouldn’t otherwise have work. They have an orchid farm and a honey farm and they manufacture textiles. They also have livestock. They raise cows and use the cow dung to produce biogas, which they use to power their kitchens. This was interesting to learn about because it fits right in with our vision of being sustainable! I’m not sure the students saw it this way though and were less than thrilled that they had to stand around these smelly containers of cow crap. The orchids were beautiful though and the honey was delicious and I bought some to bring home.
For the day and a half that we were there, we did lots of team-building activities and lots of getting to know people that we didn’t know before. I was really impressed by how well the students did with all this. We also played many many games of dodgeball, which our 8th graders are obsessed with. We only have about 15 girls and about 45 guys so the games get pretty vicious. They kept us very well fed there two with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and tea and cake break in the afternoon! We had chipatis, white rice, veggie curry, beef, fish, a thin dhal, and beans and chillies. Lots of places in Bangladesh make these sauted beans and chilies. The beans are delicious but the chilies look exactly the same as the beans and so every gamble is a bite. When you bite into a chile, you know it; you can barely speak and your eyes just start watering. Good for the sinuses though.
At night we were all tired and ready for bed but the students were just winding up and so excited to be away from their parents/with the friends. All night they were coming out of their rooms and hanging out in the hallways. We did not have a very restful night at all.
August 23rd
August 23rd 2009
School has been going for about 2 and a half weeks now. I am teaching Language Arts and Social Studies to 7th graders and am assigned to 8th grade advisory, which is like a mentoring/teambuilding thing for each middle school grade. I really like our students a lot-in general they are really sweet and polite and very well behaved. They are also all so worldly and most have lived in at least 2 countries. Advisory is fun-we do a lot of team building and fun games and stuff. We also take the 8th graders on an overnight retreat in the countryside outside of Dhaka in September and to Hong Kong in the Spring, which I'm really excited about!
Our school is K through 12th grade but each school is separated. We are a very small, contained little group in the middle school. It's nice though because you really get to know the kids and we have a lot of students for both Social Studies and Language Arts. Until now, I've just kind of been aiding and helping out where necessary. Today I taught my first lesson all by myself! It went really well and I walked away feeling good about it. It's always hard when you've been kind of trying to fit into another teacher's flow and then you have to establish yourself and your own teaching style in the same classroom. I taught it on Gary Soto's "Oranges" and "Living Up the Street." The students seemed to like, although they always get restless at the end of the period if they haven't been able to get up and move around at least a little because our blocks are 85 minutes long-which is a long time to sit for anybody.
I was feeling crappy this weekend but I felt better today. Bangladesh is so hot and muggy that it's just like a festering pool of germs that just sit and accumulate. Also, being a westerner, there are a lot of things here that I've never been exposed to. Being around so many students as well bring in all kinds of germs. There have been several reports of Swine Flu in the area and the other two schools in the area closed for the day. We had our first case of swine flu reported today and it is in the middle school! Ahh! So we are having an assembly on swine flu on Wednesday haha, as if we haven't heard enough about it at this point and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay healthy enough not to get it!
Since I last wrote, I have taken a couple rickshaw rides. I really like it-just kind of bumping along as this guy peddles around the city. You can't be going anywhere in a hurry though because it does take a while. It's also kind of scary when a car or truck comes up behind and honks to let you know they're there. I also tried driving, which is absolutely insane in this country. They drive on the other side of the road and its just a free for all and you have to use your horn to let rickshaws know you're there. You definitely can't be timid and you just have to pull out in front of oncoming traffic and make them stop for you or else you'll never get across the road. Haha. I just tried driving around Baridhara, where we live, I'm not ready for the bigger roads yet. I felt like I had a lot of power though. Donna and I drove to one of the road-side plant stands and had an interesting experience. All these men like holding up flower pots in our faces, telling us there plants were the best ones. They would order these young boys who worked there around if we even looked at a plant to climb through all these other plants and get the one we looked at and like prop it up so we could see it that much better. We wanted to get a few plants for our house to make it homier. We also wanted plants that would be hard to kill. No doubt we got ripped off in the buying of these plants but we thought they were working hard and they were still very cheap for us.
We have a 5 day break coming up at the end of September, a longer break in October, a break in November for Thanksgiving, and then 3 weeks of winter break in December. Pretty awesome. Almost everybody goes traveling during these breaks. You can find some really good deals but you have to get started early enough. My roommate, Donna, and our friends Stephanie and Kristen just booked tickets to Nepal in September and Donna and I are planning to go to Thailand and Cambodia in October. The school has an awesome travel agent that they recommend; he is the one who booked my tickets over to Bangladesh and was really helpful in the whole process. He is very speedy. He found us a great deal; tickets for little over 200 dollars to Nepal. When we looked ourselves, the cheapest flight we found was 550. He also recommended places to stay and things to do. We're going to spend two nights in Kathmandu and tour around all the temples and go shopping and stuff and then two night out in the countryside at a place called Nagarkot, which has great views of the mountains if it's clear weather. I can't wait-there is supposed to be fantastic energy in Nepal-and great shopping. My inner hippie will be very content and hopefully and I can pick up some great finds.
This weekend, Ramadan began, which of course, being a Muslim country, is huge here. It depends on each family and how seriously they take it but a lot of Muslims fast from sun-up to sun-down for a whole month. All the men wear these white hats to signify the sacrifice they are making. We do have some students who do the fast so we have to be conscientious of this and when everyone else goes to the cafeteria these students are allowed to go to the library so they don't have to be around food! The roads at this time of year are even crazier than usual, especially in the afternoon. People have long ways to go and it takes a long time to get there and they want to be home right before sun set or as it is setting because they haven't eaten anything all day and they want to be home in time for the meal that breaks the fast. At the end of the month is the Eid celebration, which is when we have our break. It is a celebration of the end of Ramadan and it's kind of like Christmas for Muslims. If your cook-bearer or driver is Muslim this is when you would give them an extra month's salary. Muslims on this day will just walk around the streets asking for money and it is customary to be pretty generous with it during this celebration. Also during this couple of days there is a mass animal slaughter to celebrate the end of the fasting. Muslim families will get there hands on any type of animal, mostly cows and sheep and chickens, and tie them up outside their houses overnight and in the early morning everyone goes outside together and slaughters their animals. This is going to be a really great day for us vegetarians. There are also all kinds of parades through the streets and things. In general, a lot of things slow down and/or cease to exist during Ramadan. The business office at school told me my air shipment is currently in the country but they are "processing" it. Ramadan will definitely slow this whole process up and I probably won't see it for at least another month. It's interesting though being in the religious minority in this country when I've been in the majority for so long.
School has been going for about 2 and a half weeks now. I am teaching Language Arts and Social Studies to 7th graders and am assigned to 8th grade advisory, which is like a mentoring/teambuilding thing for each middle school grade. I really like our students a lot-in general they are really sweet and polite and very well behaved. They are also all so worldly and most have lived in at least 2 countries. Advisory is fun-we do a lot of team building and fun games and stuff. We also take the 8th graders on an overnight retreat in the countryside outside of Dhaka in September and to Hong Kong in the Spring, which I'm really excited about!
Our school is K through 12th grade but each school is separated. We are a very small, contained little group in the middle school. It's nice though because you really get to know the kids and we have a lot of students for both Social Studies and Language Arts. Until now, I've just kind of been aiding and helping out where necessary. Today I taught my first lesson all by myself! It went really well and I walked away feeling good about it. It's always hard when you've been kind of trying to fit into another teacher's flow and then you have to establish yourself and your own teaching style in the same classroom. I taught it on Gary Soto's "Oranges" and "Living Up the Street." The students seemed to like, although they always get restless at the end of the period if they haven't been able to get up and move around at least a little because our blocks are 85 minutes long-which is a long time to sit for anybody.
I was feeling crappy this weekend but I felt better today. Bangladesh is so hot and muggy that it's just like a festering pool of germs that just sit and accumulate. Also, being a westerner, there are a lot of things here that I've never been exposed to. Being around so many students as well bring in all kinds of germs. There have been several reports of Swine Flu in the area and the other two schools in the area closed for the day. We had our first case of swine flu reported today and it is in the middle school! Ahh! So we are having an assembly on swine flu on Wednesday haha, as if we haven't heard enough about it at this point and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay healthy enough not to get it!
Since I last wrote, I have taken a couple rickshaw rides. I really like it-just kind of bumping along as this guy peddles around the city. You can't be going anywhere in a hurry though because it does take a while. It's also kind of scary when a car or truck comes up behind and honks to let you know they're there. I also tried driving, which is absolutely insane in this country. They drive on the other side of the road and its just a free for all and you have to use your horn to let rickshaws know you're there. You definitely can't be timid and you just have to pull out in front of oncoming traffic and make them stop for you or else you'll never get across the road. Haha. I just tried driving around Baridhara, where we live, I'm not ready for the bigger roads yet. I felt like I had a lot of power though. Donna and I drove to one of the road-side plant stands and had an interesting experience. All these men like holding up flower pots in our faces, telling us there plants were the best ones. They would order these young boys who worked there around if we even looked at a plant to climb through all these other plants and get the one we looked at and like prop it up so we could see it that much better. We wanted to get a few plants for our house to make it homier. We also wanted plants that would be hard to kill. No doubt we got ripped off in the buying of these plants but we thought they were working hard and they were still very cheap for us.
We have a 5 day break coming up at the end of September, a longer break in October, a break in November for Thanksgiving, and then 3 weeks of winter break in December. Pretty awesome. Almost everybody goes traveling during these breaks. You can find some really good deals but you have to get started early enough. My roommate, Donna, and our friends Stephanie and Kristen just booked tickets to Nepal in September and Donna and I are planning to go to Thailand and Cambodia in October. The school has an awesome travel agent that they recommend; he is the one who booked my tickets over to Bangladesh and was really helpful in the whole process. He is very speedy. He found us a great deal; tickets for little over 200 dollars to Nepal. When we looked ourselves, the cheapest flight we found was 550. He also recommended places to stay and things to do. We're going to spend two nights in Kathmandu and tour around all the temples and go shopping and stuff and then two night out in the countryside at a place called Nagarkot, which has great views of the mountains if it's clear weather. I can't wait-there is supposed to be fantastic energy in Nepal-and great shopping. My inner hippie will be very content and hopefully and I can pick up some great finds.
This weekend, Ramadan began, which of course, being a Muslim country, is huge here. It depends on each family and how seriously they take it but a lot of Muslims fast from sun-up to sun-down for a whole month. All the men wear these white hats to signify the sacrifice they are making. We do have some students who do the fast so we have to be conscientious of this and when everyone else goes to the cafeteria these students are allowed to go to the library so they don't have to be around food! The roads at this time of year are even crazier than usual, especially in the afternoon. People have long ways to go and it takes a long time to get there and they want to be home right before sun set or as it is setting because they haven't eaten anything all day and they want to be home in time for the meal that breaks the fast. At the end of the month is the Eid celebration, which is when we have our break. It is a celebration of the end of Ramadan and it's kind of like Christmas for Muslims. If your cook-bearer or driver is Muslim this is when you would give them an extra month's salary. Muslims on this day will just walk around the streets asking for money and it is customary to be pretty generous with it during this celebration. Also during this couple of days there is a mass animal slaughter to celebrate the end of the fasting. Muslim families will get there hands on any type of animal, mostly cows and sheep and chickens, and tie them up outside their houses overnight and in the early morning everyone goes outside together and slaughters their animals. This is going to be a really great day for us vegetarians. There are also all kinds of parades through the streets and things. In general, a lot of things slow down and/or cease to exist during Ramadan. The business office at school told me my air shipment is currently in the country but they are "processing" it. Ramadan will definitely slow this whole process up and I probably won't see it for at least another month. It's interesting though being in the religious minority in this country when I've been in the majority for so long.
Day 10
August 7th 2009
10th Day in Dhaka
Things have been busy at school this week; we finished up the new staff orientation and on Wednesday, all the veteran teachers came back. I felt like I had just wrapped my head around the school and the new staff members and then there were all these new faces and people to meet. Some of the teachers have been in Dhaka going on five years and said that at the beginning, they never would have though they would stay here that long but since then it has become home. I met the teacher that I am assigned to, Rachel Cook, and she is awesome-just very nice and very open to different ideas concerning teaching so that made me feel really positive about the upcoming year. I have my own big desk and it felt nice to kind of have a home for the first time for all my belongings. I won't be in her class for every block and we're still configuring my schedule but her classroom will kind of be my home base.
I wasn't too sure about middle school when I was first assigned to it-I like working with older kids. However, I think these kids will be pretty advanced and hardworking and know that I'm used to the idea of working with 7th and 8th graders I'm excited about it. The middle school is so small and compact that it makes for a good working environment. There are only about 16 or 17 teachers in the middle school and a lot of them double dip- like Rachel teaches Language Arts and Social Studies or another teacher will do Humanities and Language Arts. I'm sure there will be problems that arise between teachers butting heads and stuff but for the most part people seem to get along. This school is amazing because they have bearers that work on every hall and they will move furniture for you and put up your bulletin boards for you. They work really hard and are super sweet. This week we also made several trips to the school supply store to get things for the classroom. Again, this school is amazing in the fact that the school supply store is like a wonderland for teachers. It's this huge room with shelves practically up to the ceiling with every color sharpie, marker, pencil, every color and size of paper imaginable, poster board, every art product like glitter and glue and pipe cleaners and just everything a teacher could possibly need from grade Pre-K to 12th. It's unbelievable and everything is for free, you just sign it out under your name in this big binder.
Friday was the first day that we had off since we got here. I was soo looking forward to having a day off and being able to sleep in. On Thursday we went to the Australian club, which is where a lot a people go Thursday nights for drinks. There are only so many places that people go in Dhaka so you are always seeing people that you work with at these places. You also see students and students' parents and stuff at these places. It's nice because the ex-pat/diplomat community is close-knit and you generally develop good relationships but at the same time it's harder to escape if you feel you just need to get away from it all and unwind. It was nice Thursday night to have drinks though and relax. I'm still adjusting to working Sunday through Thursday and having my weekend be Friday and Saturday.
Saturday I slept in until 11. Donna's friend from home, Kelly, and her husband, Justin, picked us up and we went to some local stores. You really have to know where your going because shops and restaurants are so tucked away and aren't obvious like in the States. The first store we went to looked like a house and had a guard that opened a gate to let you in. They had the comfiest rugs I've ever felt and you could special order them and get an exact size and pattern. We went to a couple other stores with saris and local clothing and then we went to Jatra. This is my favorite store in Dhaka so far. So many bright, vibrant colors. They have these huge pillows that you throw on the floor and are so comfy. Everything is super cheap there too just like everywhere else in Dhaka. We went to the American club for lunch, and again, saw tons of people we knew or recognized.
Donna and I went out to dinner at Bukara on Friday night, the Indian restaurant that the school had taken us to once in the highest building in Dhaka. We were both feeling a little low and decided we needed to get out of the house. They had kept us so busy since we'd gotten there that I hadn't really had that much time to think about what the hell I was doing there. I had so looked forward to my day off but once it was there, I kind of felt like, ok what do I do now?? I'm still new to the city and I feel a little trapped and confined to school and my apartment. I miss just being able to jump in my car and go somewhere or get on the metro and meet up with friends and family. I had so much time to think on Saturday that I really started psyching myself out, like what am I doing in this strange, noisy, dirty city for an entire year? I started really missing my family and friends back home because this would have been a day where I would have been cooking and having a big dinner with my family or meeting up with friends. Donna was feeling the same way as well, which made me feel better that I wasn't alone in feeling that way. I was so happy to have a day off and now I just wanted the week to start so that I can throw myself into school and not think about how I'm like a million miles away from everything that is familiar. I tried to focus on the positives of the situation to remedy my sadness like how I have such loving people back home who are backing and supporting me in my adventure and how fortunate I am to have this opportunity and how much I am going to learn and experience. I also had to keep reminding myself that this feeling will hopefully subside in time once I become more familiar with the city and don't feel so confined to the same spaces.
Today Kelly took Donna and I to the American Commissary, where we got some familiar American things like peanut butter, oatmeal, cereal, tampons, shampoo, tuna fish, etc. You can get some of these things at the local stores but they can be sketchy and you don't always know how they were made, what's in them, etc. Now at least we can have some peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
Tonight I think I'm going to attempt the Hash (Hash Hound Harriers) which is like a running club for expats/diplomats/teachers, etc. The original one was started by Brits in India and now diplomatic communities all over the world do it. The lead runners run all over dropping little bits of paper behind them for the other runners and then there are like fake trails sometimes. It sounds strange but basically the faster runners end up running longer and the slower runners run less and at the end everyone stands in a circle and drinks beer and the leaders call out funny things that happened along the way, like if you got stuck in a mud puddle or chased by a dog. You can also walk it. I'm very apprehensive for some reason because I've been bad about running lately and I'm trying to get back in shape but running here is hard because the air quality is poor and smoggy, making it hard to breathe and it's just so damn hot and muggy. So I might walk this week and next week attempt to run. Apparently I'm signed up to coach track in the spring, which I didn't know about until Thursday, so I got to get back in good running shape if I'm going to coach other runners!
10th Day in Dhaka
Things have been busy at school this week; we finished up the new staff orientation and on Wednesday, all the veteran teachers came back. I felt like I had just wrapped my head around the school and the new staff members and then there were all these new faces and people to meet. Some of the teachers have been in Dhaka going on five years and said that at the beginning, they never would have though they would stay here that long but since then it has become home. I met the teacher that I am assigned to, Rachel Cook, and she is awesome-just very nice and very open to different ideas concerning teaching so that made me feel really positive about the upcoming year. I have my own big desk and it felt nice to kind of have a home for the first time for all my belongings. I won't be in her class for every block and we're still configuring my schedule but her classroom will kind of be my home base.
I wasn't too sure about middle school when I was first assigned to it-I like working with older kids. However, I think these kids will be pretty advanced and hardworking and know that I'm used to the idea of working with 7th and 8th graders I'm excited about it. The middle school is so small and compact that it makes for a good working environment. There are only about 16 or 17 teachers in the middle school and a lot of them double dip- like Rachel teaches Language Arts and Social Studies or another teacher will do Humanities and Language Arts. I'm sure there will be problems that arise between teachers butting heads and stuff but for the most part people seem to get along. This school is amazing because they have bearers that work on every hall and they will move furniture for you and put up your bulletin boards for you. They work really hard and are super sweet. This week we also made several trips to the school supply store to get things for the classroom. Again, this school is amazing in the fact that the school supply store is like a wonderland for teachers. It's this huge room with shelves practically up to the ceiling with every color sharpie, marker, pencil, every color and size of paper imaginable, poster board, every art product like glitter and glue and pipe cleaners and just everything a teacher could possibly need from grade Pre-K to 12th. It's unbelievable and everything is for free, you just sign it out under your name in this big binder.
Friday was the first day that we had off since we got here. I was soo looking forward to having a day off and being able to sleep in. On Thursday we went to the Australian club, which is where a lot a people go Thursday nights for drinks. There are only so many places that people go in Dhaka so you are always seeing people that you work with at these places. You also see students and students' parents and stuff at these places. It's nice because the ex-pat/diplomat community is close-knit and you generally develop good relationships but at the same time it's harder to escape if you feel you just need to get away from it all and unwind. It was nice Thursday night to have drinks though and relax. I'm still adjusting to working Sunday through Thursday and having my weekend be Friday and Saturday.
Saturday I slept in until 11. Donna's friend from home, Kelly, and her husband, Justin, picked us up and we went to some local stores. You really have to know where your going because shops and restaurants are so tucked away and aren't obvious like in the States. The first store we went to looked like a house and had a guard that opened a gate to let you in. They had the comfiest rugs I've ever felt and you could special order them and get an exact size and pattern. We went to a couple other stores with saris and local clothing and then we went to Jatra. This is my favorite store in Dhaka so far. So many bright, vibrant colors. They have these huge pillows that you throw on the floor and are so comfy. Everything is super cheap there too just like everywhere else in Dhaka. We went to the American club for lunch, and again, saw tons of people we knew or recognized.
Donna and I went out to dinner at Bukara on Friday night, the Indian restaurant that the school had taken us to once in the highest building in Dhaka. We were both feeling a little low and decided we needed to get out of the house. They had kept us so busy since we'd gotten there that I hadn't really had that much time to think about what the hell I was doing there. I had so looked forward to my day off but once it was there, I kind of felt like, ok what do I do now?? I'm still new to the city and I feel a little trapped and confined to school and my apartment. I miss just being able to jump in my car and go somewhere or get on the metro and meet up with friends and family. I had so much time to think on Saturday that I really started psyching myself out, like what am I doing in this strange, noisy, dirty city for an entire year? I started really missing my family and friends back home because this would have been a day where I would have been cooking and having a big dinner with my family or meeting up with friends. Donna was feeling the same way as well, which made me feel better that I wasn't alone in feeling that way. I was so happy to have a day off and now I just wanted the week to start so that I can throw myself into school and not think about how I'm like a million miles away from everything that is familiar. I tried to focus on the positives of the situation to remedy my sadness like how I have such loving people back home who are backing and supporting me in my adventure and how fortunate I am to have this opportunity and how much I am going to learn and experience. I also had to keep reminding myself that this feeling will hopefully subside in time once I become more familiar with the city and don't feel so confined to the same spaces.
Today Kelly took Donna and I to the American Commissary, where we got some familiar American things like peanut butter, oatmeal, cereal, tampons, shampoo, tuna fish, etc. You can get some of these things at the local stores but they can be sketchy and you don't always know how they were made, what's in them, etc. Now at least we can have some peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
Tonight I think I'm going to attempt the Hash (Hash Hound Harriers) which is like a running club for expats/diplomats/teachers, etc. The original one was started by Brits in India and now diplomatic communities all over the world do it. The lead runners run all over dropping little bits of paper behind them for the other runners and then there are like fake trails sometimes. It sounds strange but basically the faster runners end up running longer and the slower runners run less and at the end everyone stands in a circle and drinks beer and the leaders call out funny things that happened along the way, like if you got stuck in a mud puddle or chased by a dog. You can also walk it. I'm very apprehensive for some reason because I've been bad about running lately and I'm trying to get back in shape but running here is hard because the air quality is poor and smoggy, making it hard to breathe and it's just so damn hot and muggy. So I might walk this week and next week attempt to run. Apparently I'm signed up to coach track in the spring, which I didn't know about until Thursday, so I got to get back in good running shape if I'm going to coach other runners!
Day 3
July 31st, 2009
3rd Day in Dhaka
After an emotionally draining experience yesterday, I had a good night's sleep and felt well rested the next day. We took a bus trip to old Dhaka today. Since it's Friday, the Muslim holy day, the roads were amazingly clear until we got to old Dhaka. Our tour guide was one of the veteran teachers from yesterday who was nice enough to show us around. Old Dhaka is located right next to the Ganges and there are lots of fruit markets with amazing looking pineapples, mangos, and bananas. There were also lots of shops and stores selling leather goods and stack and stack of textiles. The fruit stands looked like hollowed out warehouses; they sold there fruit out of an opening right on the street but then store stretched back forever and had mountains of fruit in it. The road we took was very crowded and muddy and we went inch by inch. This was considered "no traffic" however and I dread to see what it's like on any other day of the week.
The Ganges even had a lot of traffic on it; small skiffs as well as large ocean liners. In Old Dhaka you could see architecture from the colonial days of India; big square houses with big shutters. Driving through this part of town was interesting and different. We would have people come right up to the window and stare at us but they weren't begging and they weren't being rude, they were just curious. People were very friendly and would smile and wave at us and take pictures of our bus on their camera phones if they had one. We felt like celebrities. One boy followed our bus for about 45 minutes. These people also liked having their picture taken by you and would often pose. People were also very nice to us and with our big bus it was hard to get through the narrow, muddy street. We had several guys who would hold up the rick shaw and cart traffic and direct our bus driver so he could get through. They were incredibly helpful and friendly to us strange white people.
We drove through the old Armenian section of the city and stopped at an Armenian church and graveyard constructed in the 1700's. You enter through a simple but beautiful gate and the gravestones are all cement ones either embedded into the walkway or slightly raised. They had beautiful inscriptions and designs. The inside of the church had simple pews and an alter. There aren't really any Armenians that live here anymore and the keeper of the church is one of the last and he is very old. After we had been there for about 15 minutes a crowd began to form at the gate. When we got back onto the buses there was a crowd of about 20 men just starring at us. Apartments surrounded the enclosed graveyard and you could see lots of kids on their balconies waving at us. We are an unusual sight here and we stick out quite a bit.
We passed several road side markets with huge green plants, leather goods, baskets, purses, etc. that my roommate and I made a mental note to come back to. In our area of Dhaka things can pricier, although, they're still not expensive, because they know a lot of wealthier people live there. We visited the University of Dhaka, which is a big red building with huge towers and arches.
3rd Day in Dhaka
After an emotionally draining experience yesterday, I had a good night's sleep and felt well rested the next day. We took a bus trip to old Dhaka today. Since it's Friday, the Muslim holy day, the roads were amazingly clear until we got to old Dhaka. Our tour guide was one of the veteran teachers from yesterday who was nice enough to show us around. Old Dhaka is located right next to the Ganges and there are lots of fruit markets with amazing looking pineapples, mangos, and bananas. There were also lots of shops and stores selling leather goods and stack and stack of textiles. The fruit stands looked like hollowed out warehouses; they sold there fruit out of an opening right on the street but then store stretched back forever and had mountains of fruit in it. The road we took was very crowded and muddy and we went inch by inch. This was considered "no traffic" however and I dread to see what it's like on any other day of the week.
The Ganges even had a lot of traffic on it; small skiffs as well as large ocean liners. In Old Dhaka you could see architecture from the colonial days of India; big square houses with big shutters. Driving through this part of town was interesting and different. We would have people come right up to the window and stare at us but they weren't begging and they weren't being rude, they were just curious. People were very friendly and would smile and wave at us and take pictures of our bus on their camera phones if they had one. We felt like celebrities. One boy followed our bus for about 45 minutes. These people also liked having their picture taken by you and would often pose. People were also very nice to us and with our big bus it was hard to get through the narrow, muddy street. We had several guys who would hold up the rick shaw and cart traffic and direct our bus driver so he could get through. They were incredibly helpful and friendly to us strange white people.
We drove through the old Armenian section of the city and stopped at an Armenian church and graveyard constructed in the 1700's. You enter through a simple but beautiful gate and the gravestones are all cement ones either embedded into the walkway or slightly raised. They had beautiful inscriptions and designs. The inside of the church had simple pews and an alter. There aren't really any Armenians that live here anymore and the keeper of the church is one of the last and he is very old. After we had been there for about 15 minutes a crowd began to form at the gate. When we got back onto the buses there was a crowd of about 20 men just starring at us. Apartments surrounded the enclosed graveyard and you could see lots of kids on their balconies waving at us. We are an unusual sight here and we stick out quite a bit.
We passed several road side markets with huge green plants, leather goods, baskets, purses, etc. that my roommate and I made a mental note to come back to. In our area of Dhaka things can pricier, although, they're still not expensive, because they know a lot of wealthier people live there. We visited the University of Dhaka, which is a big red building with huge towers and arches.
Second Day-I'm not in VA anymore!
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Day 2 in Dhaka
I woke up this morning around 7:15 having that feeling of where the hell am I? All the new staff met at the school at 8:30ish. Even though we live 2 blocks from school our driver was waiting to drive us there. We told him that we'd just walk tomorrow. We voiced our concerns about our apartments, i.e. our apartment has one non-working toilet and one shower without hot water. Then we had 3 veteran teachers come and talk to us. They gave kind of tour of Bangladesh and told us good places to travel to and how to get there. They gave a brief history of the country. Bangladesh just won it's independence in 1971 (I think) from Pakistan with a lot of help from India so it is a very new country. There are two major political parties here, which are both headed by women; interesting since it is such a male-dominated society. At least one of the women came to power because her husband was in power and then was assassinated. They also just shared their experiences with us and why they enjoy living in Dhaka and talked about local customs and do's and dont's of living here. One of the more shocking things they told us was that if you get into a driving accident to not stop, and to just keep going. Once you've reached your destination, then to call the Embassy and they will send someone to help. This is because mobs can form very easily and even if it was totally not your fault at all, it can become your fault very fast. This is a shocking thing to hear but I guess it's just a way of life and driving in general is soo different it that it takes getting used to. They also said that even though people here are incredibly poor, especially by western standards, that they are generally very joyful and are always willing to help. They said that if you are having a bad day to walk out into the streets and look at these people living everyday hand to mouth and your problems seem minute in comparison. We were also introduced to the support staff who do everything from tech stuff to driving buses to fixing lights. They are all so incredibly nice and always say hello to you and will help you with anything. The school staff are very appreciative of them as well, which makes for a really nice community environment, and is not always the case apparently at every International school, so it's nice to see.
After this we had lunch at the American club again and then went on a shopping expedition. We drove in buses to the hardware store and the super market, which were both fine. There wasn't anything that I was really craving food wise because we had been having such nice meals so I just got some of the basics. Your cook bara will do all your shopping for you if you want them to normally. You just write them a list and give them some money and they keep a book of expenses and receipts. My roommate and I were done quickly and so we finished up and got back on the bus to head to the electronics store to get a cell phone. Other people though were shopping for their whole family so it took them a lot longer. Sitting on the bus I got a little emotional because really small children come right up to the bus window and tap on the glass asking for money. They stand right outside the bus door, which was kept open and look right at you and just keep saying the same thing over and over again, which I can't understand, but they must be asking for money. They do this loud whistle too that is piercing. Old men beggars hold out their tin cups for money and once you've made eye contact with them they don't go away. Women hold up babies to the window right next to you begging for money. It is soo sad and I can't not look at these people who are everywhere begging for anything but once you've looked they see you and don't leave you alone. The veteran teachers told us though that even though it is incredibly heart breaking that these beggars basically all work for crime boss type people and any earning they make go right back to the boss. It's all much more organized than it seems. The babies that women hold up to your window may not even be theirs and you will often see one women holding a different baby everyday . It was really emotionally draining; us westerners sitting on a nice air-conditioned bus buying food and electronics and these people are out on the streets day after day and not even probably able to keep what they beg for. The electronics store took a really long time and the same thing happened when we were waiting to head back to the school. I had been pretty fine up until then but that was really tough to deal with.
Day 2 in Dhaka
I woke up this morning around 7:15 having that feeling of where the hell am I? All the new staff met at the school at 8:30ish. Even though we live 2 blocks from school our driver was waiting to drive us there. We told him that we'd just walk tomorrow. We voiced our concerns about our apartments, i.e. our apartment has one non-working toilet and one shower without hot water. Then we had 3 veteran teachers come and talk to us. They gave kind of tour of Bangladesh and told us good places to travel to and how to get there. They gave a brief history of the country. Bangladesh just won it's independence in 1971 (I think) from Pakistan with a lot of help from India so it is a very new country. There are two major political parties here, which are both headed by women; interesting since it is such a male-dominated society. At least one of the women came to power because her husband was in power and then was assassinated. They also just shared their experiences with us and why they enjoy living in Dhaka and talked about local customs and do's and dont's of living here. One of the more shocking things they told us was that if you get into a driving accident to not stop, and to just keep going. Once you've reached your destination, then to call the Embassy and they will send someone to help. This is because mobs can form very easily and even if it was totally not your fault at all, it can become your fault very fast. This is a shocking thing to hear but I guess it's just a way of life and driving in general is soo different it that it takes getting used to. They also said that even though people here are incredibly poor, especially by western standards, that they are generally very joyful and are always willing to help. They said that if you are having a bad day to walk out into the streets and look at these people living everyday hand to mouth and your problems seem minute in comparison. We were also introduced to the support staff who do everything from tech stuff to driving buses to fixing lights. They are all so incredibly nice and always say hello to you and will help you with anything. The school staff are very appreciative of them as well, which makes for a really nice community environment, and is not always the case apparently at every International school, so it's nice to see.
After this we had lunch at the American club again and then went on a shopping expedition. We drove in buses to the hardware store and the super market, which were both fine. There wasn't anything that I was really craving food wise because we had been having such nice meals so I just got some of the basics. Your cook bara will do all your shopping for you if you want them to normally. You just write them a list and give them some money and they keep a book of expenses and receipts. My roommate and I were done quickly and so we finished up and got back on the bus to head to the electronics store to get a cell phone. Other people though were shopping for their whole family so it took them a lot longer. Sitting on the bus I got a little emotional because really small children come right up to the bus window and tap on the glass asking for money. They stand right outside the bus door, which was kept open and look right at you and just keep saying the same thing over and over again, which I can't understand, but they must be asking for money. They do this loud whistle too that is piercing. Old men beggars hold out their tin cups for money and once you've made eye contact with them they don't go away. Women hold up babies to the window right next to you begging for money. It is soo sad and I can't not look at these people who are everywhere begging for anything but once you've looked they see you and don't leave you alone. The veteran teachers told us though that even though it is incredibly heart breaking that these beggars basically all work for crime boss type people and any earning they make go right back to the boss. It's all much more organized than it seems. The babies that women hold up to your window may not even be theirs and you will often see one women holding a different baby everyday . It was really emotionally draining; us westerners sitting on a nice air-conditioned bus buying food and electronics and these people are out on the streets day after day and not even probably able to keep what they beg for. The electronics store took a really long time and the same thing happened when we were waiting to head back to the school. I had been pretty fine up until then but that was really tough to deal with.
Arrival Day in Dhaka-What am I thinking??
Arrival Day in Dhaka
I arrived in Dhaka at about 7:30 the morning of Wednesday the 29th after a 13 straight flight from Washington D.C. to Doha airport in Qatar and then a 4 and 1/2 hour lay over and then another 5 and 1/2 hour flight from Doha, across India, to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bangladesh just decided to instate daylight savings time a few weeks ago where they didn't have it before in an attempt to save energy so we are actually 11 hours behind the US instead of 10 right now. Saying goodbye to my family and MK and Ali, who also dropped me at the airport was incredibly tough. How do you say goodbye to the people who are closest to you for a year? Getting on the plane was almost a relief, though, because the build up and mental stress of that week was so intense that I passed out pretty soon into the flight. I flew Qatar Air, which was extremely nice. Little T.V.s in the back of each seat and nice big, comfy seats. They had a tracking map so I would wake up periodically and track us go north across the Atlantic, over England, down over Italy and Turkey and down to Qatar.
Coming into Doha was interesting; it was as flat as a sheet of paper and sand everywhere with these big strip malls and warehouses coming out of the sand. The airport was all white and was small and had Arab architecture. The security checkin "line" was really just a mass of people all shouting over each other in languages that I could not understand and waving their papers at one small girl behind the desk, hoping to get helped. It was insane. Needless to say, I didn't get helped for quite a while. Picked up some bottles at the Duty Free shop. My roomies will probably think I'm an alchi but it is much more expensive in Bangladesh because it is a Muslim country, so they look down upon drinking.
Looking around the airport, there were definitely some western looking people interspersed, although for one of the first times in my life, I was a true minority. I thought that these people were probably going to the same place or same type of place that I was but I was too scared and out of it from my flight to ask. This plane flight was very, very interesting. Whereas my first one was very quiet and people were nice and polite this flight was the complete opposite. They cram you on to a shuttle bus with no air conditioning that takes you to the plane. We had to sit on it for a while before boarding. Boarding was chaotic; they let people on the front and back entrances so people were practically climbing on top of each other to get to their seats. People were pretty rude and very pushy. I think I got side swiped by a 90 Indian woman wearing a sari at least once. This flight was loud and people were super chatty. One guy blatantly got caught smoking in the bathroom and totally denied it even when they found his cigarettes and lighter. He was about 35. People deliberately seemed to pick fights with the studardesses. One man got angry because they asked his relative, who had to be wheelchaired onto the plane to relocate because she was sitting in an exit row. This guy took it as a personal insult against her and refused to move even though in an emergency this woman would have been no help. The second the plane landed, almost the entire plane was up out of their seats, getting their bags from up top, and heading for the door. The attendants had to do serious crowd control and still people wouldn't listen.
I had ended up sitting next to a veteran teacher at the American School who had taught there since 2001 and was very nice and helpful. I followed her to the meeting point when we got off the plane and it ended up that there were about 30 of us on the flight from Doha. We all had to hand over our passports so that the embassy could obtain visas for us, which is a little disconcerting, considering I had been checking every so often just to make sure I still had it. I felt weird without it.
We got taken to our apartment by bus. Driving in Dhaka is always an adventure. The traffic basically goes at the pace of the slowest vehicle on the road, which is the rickshaw, so you're not going anywhere fast. People are constantly beeping for absolutely no reason and there are basically no driving laws, or if there are, people don't pay attention to them. "Red lights are an invitation to go faster," said our Superintendent. People drive down the wrong side of the road all the time. What's crazier is that people walk through the streets all the time and just basically dodge traffic and hope they don't get hit. I almost saw about 5 people get run over today. At night, people have these crazy flashing neon lights on their cars; as if driving wasn't tough enough, you have these flashing lights in your eyes constantly.
Bangladesh is in a delta, so it's very low-lying and flooding is prevalent. A few days before we arrived, the city saw the worst rains in 60 years. The water had receded in the past few days but it was still quite high. It's currently the rainy season right now, which lasts from June to October. It's very wet everywhere and in the evening it stormed like crazy for a solid 2 hours or so.
I am sharing an apartment with two other girls; Danna, who is actually originally from close to D.C., too, and Kasey, who has lived in Bangladesh for almost 2 years now. Danna and I were both on the flight from Doha. Our apartment is huge! There is this gigantic hall type thing when you walk in. You could easily put in a pong table here and have tons of room to spare. Big living room, dining room, extra room, lots of balconies, kitchen, and 3 big bedrooms with their own bathrooms. Everything comes furnished, you just supply the stuff you need to live; clothes, shoes, books, movies, etc.
We had a few hours to settle in and we met our cook bara, who is very sweet. They do everything from cooking meals, serving them, cleaning up, doing the washing, drying, ironing, depending on what you want them to do. It will be strange having someone do these things for me because I'm so programmed to do them for myself. I'm sure I could get used to it though.
The area that we live in is called Baridara; it is probably one of the nicest parts of Dhaka. You enter through gates that are guarded by people with machine guns. It all used to be private homes and then land in Dhaka and this part especially became very valuable so they started knocking down these private homes and building high-rise apartments. There are some private homes left though. A very small piece of land can go for 2 million here. The area is basically two parallel streets and then some numbered streets in between these two. We live on street 1. Our apartment is on the highest floor of our building, floor 5, and there is a couple across the hall from us who are also teachers at the school who just came from Seoul, Korea.
We met up at the school, which is 2 blocks away from our apartment with all the other "new staff" and the administrators. We had a little orientation meeting where we introduced ourselves to each other and said where we had just come from, etc. Experienced ranged from one lady who used to teach in Hawaii and this is her first overseas teaching experience to people who have taught in 3 or 4 places around the world already. Several of them had kids who would be enrolled in the school as well. Basically everyone was really jet-lagged. Some people had longer travel periods than I had and had started out in places like California that day, flew to Washington, flew to Doha, and finally to Dhaka.
The school is really nice and is kind of built in a triangle shape. Large parts of it are being renovated; they are adding a whole other wing to the elementary school. The construction that is going on is pretty amazing. The workers have constructed scaffolding out of bamboo polls and steps out of thin strips of wood. They carry cement from the mixer that is somewhere downstairs in bowls on top of their heads up flights of stairs to the construction site. It is pretty third world compared to what I'm used to. We walked by my classroom and the door already had my name tag on it.
We had a few hours in the afternoon to hang out at our places and relax. I passed out for two solid hours. For dinner we ate at the American club. Our drivers picked us up and drove us there. It's about a 20 to 25 minute walk so it's not that far away but there is plenty of traffic on the way. The American club is really nice; you enter through a secure entrance and there are pretty paths lined with flowers everywhere, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a bar and dining area, and an upstairs open air eating area where we ate dinner. Delicious meat and veggie kabobs, yellow rice, potato salad, green salad, pasta salad, and rolls. While we were arriving the sky looked like there was about to be a hurricane with black storm clouds building up and it finally just opened up and poured for 2 solid hours. I was so tired at dinner, I felt like falling asleep in my plate of food. So was everybody else though and the evening ended pretty quickly. After having been through and seen a lot in the past 40 hours or so, it was nice to be in a place that kind of reminded me of home.
I arrived in Dhaka at about 7:30 the morning of Wednesday the 29th after a 13 straight flight from Washington D.C. to Doha airport in Qatar and then a 4 and 1/2 hour lay over and then another 5 and 1/2 hour flight from Doha, across India, to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Bangladesh just decided to instate daylight savings time a few weeks ago where they didn't have it before in an attempt to save energy so we are actually 11 hours behind the US instead of 10 right now. Saying goodbye to my family and MK and Ali, who also dropped me at the airport was incredibly tough. How do you say goodbye to the people who are closest to you for a year? Getting on the plane was almost a relief, though, because the build up and mental stress of that week was so intense that I passed out pretty soon into the flight. I flew Qatar Air, which was extremely nice. Little T.V.s in the back of each seat and nice big, comfy seats. They had a tracking map so I would wake up periodically and track us go north across the Atlantic, over England, down over Italy and Turkey and down to Qatar.
Coming into Doha was interesting; it was as flat as a sheet of paper and sand everywhere with these big strip malls and warehouses coming out of the sand. The airport was all white and was small and had Arab architecture. The security checkin "line" was really just a mass of people all shouting over each other in languages that I could not understand and waving their papers at one small girl behind the desk, hoping to get helped. It was insane. Needless to say, I didn't get helped for quite a while. Picked up some bottles at the Duty Free shop. My roomies will probably think I'm an alchi but it is much more expensive in Bangladesh because it is a Muslim country, so they look down upon drinking.
Looking around the airport, there were definitely some western looking people interspersed, although for one of the first times in my life, I was a true minority. I thought that these people were probably going to the same place or same type of place that I was but I was too scared and out of it from my flight to ask. This plane flight was very, very interesting. Whereas my first one was very quiet and people were nice and polite this flight was the complete opposite. They cram you on to a shuttle bus with no air conditioning that takes you to the plane. We had to sit on it for a while before boarding. Boarding was chaotic; they let people on the front and back entrances so people were practically climbing on top of each other to get to their seats. People were pretty rude and very pushy. I think I got side swiped by a 90 Indian woman wearing a sari at least once. This flight was loud and people were super chatty. One guy blatantly got caught smoking in the bathroom and totally denied it even when they found his cigarettes and lighter. He was about 35. People deliberately seemed to pick fights with the studardesses. One man got angry because they asked his relative, who had to be wheelchaired onto the plane to relocate because she was sitting in an exit row. This guy took it as a personal insult against her and refused to move even though in an emergency this woman would have been no help. The second the plane landed, almost the entire plane was up out of their seats, getting their bags from up top, and heading for the door. The attendants had to do serious crowd control and still people wouldn't listen.
I had ended up sitting next to a veteran teacher at the American School who had taught there since 2001 and was very nice and helpful. I followed her to the meeting point when we got off the plane and it ended up that there were about 30 of us on the flight from Doha. We all had to hand over our passports so that the embassy could obtain visas for us, which is a little disconcerting, considering I had been checking every so often just to make sure I still had it. I felt weird without it.
We got taken to our apartment by bus. Driving in Dhaka is always an adventure. The traffic basically goes at the pace of the slowest vehicle on the road, which is the rickshaw, so you're not going anywhere fast. People are constantly beeping for absolutely no reason and there are basically no driving laws, or if there are, people don't pay attention to them. "Red lights are an invitation to go faster," said our Superintendent. People drive down the wrong side of the road all the time. What's crazier is that people walk through the streets all the time and just basically dodge traffic and hope they don't get hit. I almost saw about 5 people get run over today. At night, people have these crazy flashing neon lights on their cars; as if driving wasn't tough enough, you have these flashing lights in your eyes constantly.
Bangladesh is in a delta, so it's very low-lying and flooding is prevalent. A few days before we arrived, the city saw the worst rains in 60 years. The water had receded in the past few days but it was still quite high. It's currently the rainy season right now, which lasts from June to October. It's very wet everywhere and in the evening it stormed like crazy for a solid 2 hours or so.
I am sharing an apartment with two other girls; Danna, who is actually originally from close to D.C., too, and Kasey, who has lived in Bangladesh for almost 2 years now. Danna and I were both on the flight from Doha. Our apartment is huge! There is this gigantic hall type thing when you walk in. You could easily put in a pong table here and have tons of room to spare. Big living room, dining room, extra room, lots of balconies, kitchen, and 3 big bedrooms with their own bathrooms. Everything comes furnished, you just supply the stuff you need to live; clothes, shoes, books, movies, etc.
We had a few hours to settle in and we met our cook bara, who is very sweet. They do everything from cooking meals, serving them, cleaning up, doing the washing, drying, ironing, depending on what you want them to do. It will be strange having someone do these things for me because I'm so programmed to do them for myself. I'm sure I could get used to it though.
The area that we live in is called Baridara; it is probably one of the nicest parts of Dhaka. You enter through gates that are guarded by people with machine guns. It all used to be private homes and then land in Dhaka and this part especially became very valuable so they started knocking down these private homes and building high-rise apartments. There are some private homes left though. A very small piece of land can go for 2 million here. The area is basically two parallel streets and then some numbered streets in between these two. We live on street 1. Our apartment is on the highest floor of our building, floor 5, and there is a couple across the hall from us who are also teachers at the school who just came from Seoul, Korea.
We met up at the school, which is 2 blocks away from our apartment with all the other "new staff" and the administrators. We had a little orientation meeting where we introduced ourselves to each other and said where we had just come from, etc. Experienced ranged from one lady who used to teach in Hawaii and this is her first overseas teaching experience to people who have taught in 3 or 4 places around the world already. Several of them had kids who would be enrolled in the school as well. Basically everyone was really jet-lagged. Some people had longer travel periods than I had and had started out in places like California that day, flew to Washington, flew to Doha, and finally to Dhaka.
The school is really nice and is kind of built in a triangle shape. Large parts of it are being renovated; they are adding a whole other wing to the elementary school. The construction that is going on is pretty amazing. The workers have constructed scaffolding out of bamboo polls and steps out of thin strips of wood. They carry cement from the mixer that is somewhere downstairs in bowls on top of their heads up flights of stairs to the construction site. It is pretty third world compared to what I'm used to. We walked by my classroom and the door already had my name tag on it.
We had a few hours in the afternoon to hang out at our places and relax. I passed out for two solid hours. For dinner we ate at the American club. Our drivers picked us up and drove us there. It's about a 20 to 25 minute walk so it's not that far away but there is plenty of traffic on the way. The American club is really nice; you enter through a secure entrance and there are pretty paths lined with flowers everywhere, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a bar and dining area, and an upstairs open air eating area where we ate dinner. Delicious meat and veggie kabobs, yellow rice, potato salad, green salad, pasta salad, and rolls. While we were arriving the sky looked like there was about to be a hurricane with black storm clouds building up and it finally just opened up and poured for 2 solid hours. I was so tired at dinner, I felt like falling asleep in my plate of food. So was everybody else though and the evening ended pretty quickly. After having been through and seen a lot in the past 40 hours or so, it was nice to be in a place that kind of reminded me of home.
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