This weekend the weather was absolutely beautiful and we tried to be outside as much as possible before it starts getting too hot again. It was sunny and warm but not too hot. On Friday Kristen, Donna, and I took Tyrona for a walk along Gulshan lake by our house. I love walking in this park because there are always children hanging out there. There are two little boys who are there a lot who have a bathroom scale. People weight themselves and the boys ask for "bakshish" or money. There was a group of boys and a group of girls in the park too walking and playing and Donna and I were taking pictures of them and showing it to them. People here love cameras and think it's so funny seeing their face on a tiny screen. We walked the length of the park and then turned off into the streets and the kids followed us. Most Bangladeshis are afraid of dogs because people here just don't have domesticated pets but these kids see Kristen with Tyrona in the park most days and know her well by now so they will pet her and play with her. Everyone we met seemed to be in a good mood because of the sunshine.
We walked by the mosque, which was about to let out. On Fridays, all the beggars wait outside the mosque around mid-day because the mosques feeds them dal and rice in little baggies. Anna, our cook, has been on a fried food kick lately and made us doughnuts the day before. They were very yummy but in an attempt not to come home weighing 300 pounds we put the doughnuts in recycled plastic baggies and gave them to the beggars and the street kids who will enjoy them much more than we need them! On Sunday, when Anna comes again, we will tell her how delicious the doughnuts were and how they are all gone!
Then we walked to the market near the Gulshan 2 circle. We didn't really need anything from the market but I love walking through it and seeing all the colors and fruits and veg in mass quantities. There are always kids with huge baskets that they will carry your fruit and veggies in for a very small price. The street kids are sharp-they aim their prices high, especially with white people, until you bargain it lower and they will remember your face time after time. After walking through, we met a bunch of kids in the back alley playing badminton. They had one good racket and a bunch of homemade ones built from scraps of wood and old nails. They had a shuttlecock too. They are very resourceful and the trash heaps and discarded items provide endless uses for these kids. They definitely have smarts and imagination. I played with them for a long time and they would only let me play with the "good" racket even when I asked to use the homemade one. By the time we were through, the shuttlecock was beat up and the boy I was playing with asked for 100 Taka (about a dollar and 50 cents) for a new one. I gave it to him and that was that-he didn't ask for more and the other children didn't either. Donna was taking more pics of the kids, which they loved. I love that they get so excited to see their faces on camera. The kids here have the most beautiful smiles and kind, big eyes.
We had wanted to visit Old Dhaka this weekend but there is a huge Islamic gathering going on and main roads had been shut down including Airport road so it would have been hell getting down there. Instead we did lots of walking and explored some parts of the city we hadn't been to yet. A friend took us to a coffee shop and bakery that we hadn't been to yet in the Banani area-about 15 minutes from where we were. A lot of Bangladeshi university students hang out there and you can get simple coffee drinks, bakery items, and some bread.
Also this week, Donna and I had an interesting adventure to a homeopathic doctor in Dhamondi. I had looked him up online and made an appointment for 9 at night on Wednesday. It took us an hour to get out there, the traffic was so bad, and it was more like 10 by the time we got there. It was in this place with zero English signage, it was all in Bangla, so it was a good thing that Mozib was with us. His "office" was in a building of open-sided stalls. It was pretty grungy and looked like something out of a movie. He was a very nice man and spoke good English and wrote well too. He has several degrees from Japan, Bangladesh, and Germany, and he agreed to see me even though we were late. He had a shelf full of medical books and glass cases full of homeopathic medicines imported from Germany. Homeopathy is holistic and I had to sit there and talk to this old man about my period and my snot and my gas and just about everything else. Pretty uncomfortable. Donna had agreed to come with me but I couldn't look at her the whole time because I would have cracked up. I was sick quite a lot in the Fall because Bangladesh is a harsh environment to exist in and with all the changes in my life and working lots my body has been put through a lot. It is so hot here that germs just kind of stew and fester and being around kids all the time you are exposed to everything. Not to mention all the things like Dengue fever that you have to watch out for here that you don't at home. In the end, he gave me a regimen of things to take and was very specific about the order I have to take them in. The whole experience was crazy and after that we went around the corner to get Puchka with Mozib to top off the whole night. Traffic was gone by the time we headed home close to 12 and we made it home in 15 minutes. I'm scheduled to go back in February after my regimen is complete.
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