Touring around Lalbagh Fort and mosque in Old Dhaka.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Last Friday Donna, Mozib, and I decided to explore old Dhaka for the day even though it was insanely hot and humid. You were drenched the second you stood outside. Mozib took us over a new road that was just built in Dhaka. This road looks new and legit and goes over the train tracks. It had a median divider and everything. Old Dhaka is nice on a Friday with little traffic and took us no more than 25 minutes to get down there.
We drove around Dhaka University, which is a big area with lots of grassy spots in front of the dorms. The dorms are big old buildings-some of them are very old in the red brick style. We found a funny monument garden commemorating some famous politicians. Some of the statues were hilarious though. We toured around a Hindu temple, the star mosque, Lalbagh fort, and went down to the embankment road by the Ganges river. There is a lot to see in old Dhaka and it was a nice change from Gulshan-Bannani-Baridhara area. Lalbagh fort was my favorite-a Mughal king had built the extravagant house and mosque for him and his family while much of the country was starving and didn't have enough to eat. Two of his daughter are thought to be buried in tombs there. There was a gate to enter the place and men and women had seperate ques. Us whities also had to pay 100 Taka versus the 10 Taka that the Bangladeshis had to pay. 100 Taka is just over a dollar so still not so bad but come on! Old Dhaka has tons of amazing textiles for wholesale prices. We ended the day looking at rolls and rolls of amazing, brightly colored cotton fabrics and Mozib got some material for his wife. We were all dripping with sweat-thank god for air conditioned cars!
We drove around Dhaka University, which is a big area with lots of grassy spots in front of the dorms. The dorms are big old buildings-some of them are very old in the red brick style. We found a funny monument garden commemorating some famous politicians. Some of the statues were hilarious though. We toured around a Hindu temple, the star mosque, Lalbagh fort, and went down to the embankment road by the Ganges river. There is a lot to see in old Dhaka and it was a nice change from Gulshan-Bannani-Baridhara area. Lalbagh fort was my favorite-a Mughal king had built the extravagant house and mosque for him and his family while much of the country was starving and didn't have enough to eat. Two of his daughter are thought to be buried in tombs there. There was a gate to enter the place and men and women had seperate ques. Us whities also had to pay 100 Taka versus the 10 Taka that the Bangladeshis had to pay. 100 Taka is just over a dollar so still not so bad but come on! Old Dhaka has tons of amazing textiles for wholesale prices. We ended the day looking at rolls and rolls of amazing, brightly colored cotton fabrics and Mozib got some material for his wife. We were all dripping with sweat-thank god for air conditioned cars!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Barbecue in Dhaka
Last weekend our newly married friends organized a dinner for us at a restaurant in Dhamondi called Barbecue Tonight. The place was filled with locals and it was nice to get out of the diplomatic zone of Baridhara, Gulshan, and Banani. It took about 45 minutes to get out there even with light traffic on a Friday night. It is a popular spot with Bangladeshis and hard to get spots on some days but it would easily be passed by foreigners or people who didn't know about it for the much more flashier restaurants in the area. The place was a relaxed little hole in the wall with a lot of plastic tables and chairs outside. We sat in the small room inside and we were glad we did because the monsoon rains ruined a lot of delicious barbecue that night.
Our friends had ordered one of everything on the menu. First they brought out huge platters of chicken tikka and bread baskets with both nan and pataha. The nan was perfect and the pataha was a thinner, flatter bread, that is fried. It was also delicious. The chicken tikka was so tasty and very messy as you ripped if off the bone with your hands. After pulling the chicken off the bone I would wrap it in a piece of bread and add some of the delicious green yogurt sauce they had to it. The chicken was perfectly spiced, very tasty and not too hot. They also brought huge platters of legs of lamb and bowls of what I found out later to be brains mixed with other parts! A little jolting but actually very delicious. It was basically a thick, chunky gravy that was a bit oily but was good in the little wraps I would make with chicken and bread. The lamb was a bit dry and the chicken was by far my favorite. We brought wine to drink because of course they didn't serve alcohol. The wine made eating brains and huge hunks of meat a lot easier. For dessert there was faluda, a drink with hot pink and orange colored ice cream and sweet noodles in the bottom. It was yummy and sugary but I'm not sure I liked the texture of noodles in my ice cream. Overall, delicious dinner, although I always walk away from dinners at local restaurants wondering if I am going to regret it the next day. My tummy was fine with it though :)
Our friends had ordered one of everything on the menu. First they brought out huge platters of chicken tikka and bread baskets with both nan and pataha. The nan was perfect and the pataha was a thinner, flatter bread, that is fried. It was also delicious. The chicken tikka was so tasty and very messy as you ripped if off the bone with your hands. After pulling the chicken off the bone I would wrap it in a piece of bread and add some of the delicious green yogurt sauce they had to it. The chicken was perfectly spiced, very tasty and not too hot. They also brought huge platters of legs of lamb and bowls of what I found out later to be brains mixed with other parts! A little jolting but actually very delicious. It was basically a thick, chunky gravy that was a bit oily but was good in the little wraps I would make with chicken and bread. The lamb was a bit dry and the chicken was by far my favorite. We brought wine to drink because of course they didn't serve alcohol. The wine made eating brains and huge hunks of meat a lot easier. For dessert there was faluda, a drink with hot pink and orange colored ice cream and sweet noodles in the bottom. It was yummy and sugary but I'm not sure I liked the texture of noodles in my ice cream. Overall, delicious dinner, although I always walk away from dinners at local restaurants wondering if I am going to regret it the next day. My tummy was fine with it though :)
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
This is the about the 5th time I've sat down to write this and the power has gone out. It goes out at the most inconvenient times it seems like. The power cuts in Dhaka have been so bad this year because we are having a gas crisis-there is not enough to go around, especially when people are running air-cons at full blast this time of year when it is hot and humid as hell. And it is only May....
School used to be a safe haven where I knew there would almost always be internet and air conditioning. When the power went out the generators would kick in a couple of seconds later providing us with the air conditioning us Americans have become so dependent on. Since the power cuts this Spring we have been overusing our generators, which have been breaking under all the added use. Now when the power goes out at school we don't have air con for up to several hours and/or lights and electric.
We pride ourselves on being a tech-savvy school and we have MAC lap tops and an outstanding tech department. However, we can't always rely on this technology with constant and extended power outages. Both in our classrooms and at homes-I can make a visually stimulating Keynote presentation or a Prezi but if the power goes out and the projector can't do its job it's no use. We can't exactly ask our kids to do a tech stuff at home either. A lot of the websites we use at school are inaccessible from home-we get special permissions and shields that allow us to access more web sites but a lot of them basically don't like that we're in Bangladesh or their networks don't extend that far. Therefore we can't ask students to go on these sites at home. If you assign homework that requires the internet you will undoubtedly get multiple excuses about internet not working, which more often than not are completely legitimate.
Back in the fall we didn't have internet for a few days because there was some problem with the cable that gave us internet. It ran under the Indian Ocean from India to Bangladesh. It took several days to repair it.
It is amazing the things that you get used to-if the power went out in a restaurant or school at home it would be a huge deal and would cause a big disturbance. Here, people don't even respond, they just keep right on doing whatever they were doing, just in the dark. If the internet was out for several days or even hours at home, people would act like the world had ended.
Think I'm headed for a heavy dose of reverse culture shock in about a month...
School used to be a safe haven where I knew there would almost always be internet and air conditioning. When the power went out the generators would kick in a couple of seconds later providing us with the air conditioning us Americans have become so dependent on. Since the power cuts this Spring we have been overusing our generators, which have been breaking under all the added use. Now when the power goes out at school we don't have air con for up to several hours and/or lights and electric.
We pride ourselves on being a tech-savvy school and we have MAC lap tops and an outstanding tech department. However, we can't always rely on this technology with constant and extended power outages. Both in our classrooms and at homes-I can make a visually stimulating Keynote presentation or a Prezi but if the power goes out and the projector can't do its job it's no use. We can't exactly ask our kids to do a tech stuff at home either. A lot of the websites we use at school are inaccessible from home-we get special permissions and shields that allow us to access more web sites but a lot of them basically don't like that we're in Bangladesh or their networks don't extend that far. Therefore we can't ask students to go on these sites at home. If you assign homework that requires the internet you will undoubtedly get multiple excuses about internet not working, which more often than not are completely legitimate.
Back in the fall we didn't have internet for a few days because there was some problem with the cable that gave us internet. It ran under the Indian Ocean from India to Bangladesh. It took several days to repair it.
It is amazing the things that you get used to-if the power went out in a restaurant or school at home it would be a huge deal and would cause a big disturbance. Here, people don't even respond, they just keep right on doing whatever they were doing, just in the dark. If the internet was out for several days or even hours at home, people would act like the world had ended.
Think I'm headed for a heavy dose of reverse culture shock in about a month...
Friday, April 30, 2010
SAISA track
It is almost May, which means we are in the home stretch. Can I start counting the days yet?? I am in a constant state of getting excited that home is so close while trying to enjoy my favorite things about Dhaka while I still have the chance. I am trying to stay open to new experiences while here and do some things outside of my normal routine. That is easier said than done right now because this has been a crazy busy month. I am certified to teach secondary English and have been interning in the Humanities department all year long but the chance arose for me to be a long-term sub in a Science classroom. I figured 6th grade Ecology and 8th grade Astronomy was within my range of science knowledge (or at least I could fake it) but anything much more complicated would have been over my head! Since we got back from Spring Break I have been planning and carrying through teaching science. It has been a good opportunity to practice my classroom management skills and my students are amazing and supportive and are doing well, which means I haven't been doing a total crap job. It is so different being the main classroom teacher-so many different student needs to think about and the cycle is endless-when one assignment is planned, carried through, graded, another one looms ahead. This is especially true when I have very minimal science background and I'm staying one step ahead of my students all the time.
On top of this I have been assisting coaching our SAISA track team. We just had our super huge SAISA track meet last weekend. Anyone can come out for track and from the group that comes out they compete for slots at the end of the season for our SAISA team. In the SAISA meet we compete against international schools from other countries. We competed against 3 Indian teams (New Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai), 2 Pakistan school (Lahore and Karachi), one team from Kathmandu, Nepal, and one team from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Most teams had long traveling periods, the Indian teams flew through Bangkok to get to Dhaka, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense other than its a cheaper flight. I thought traveling from Mary Washington to Salisbury, Maryland for hockey games was a long way! My definition has been redefined. The coaches and athletes stay with host families from school for 4 nights and they usually pair up students of similar ages. There are 2 more teams in our conference from Pakistan but they don't really travel anymore because they are located in dangerous areas. It's a shame because the international school in Islamabad has the only real, nicely laid spring form track that is 400 meters in our conference along with amazing facilities. We run on a 200 meter track that is chalked out on our turf. Not great but still we are much better than many of the other schools who have dirt tracks riddled with pot holes. A 200 meter track with no banked curves makes the inside lane very difficult, especially for our guys running their 100's and 200's and 400's. The 5th and 6th lanes are actually ideal for those events whereas they are not on a 400 meter track. There was a lot of stepping out of lanes on these races that we let go and didn't punish the runners for like you were normally do in a serious meet.
Again, being young (I was the youngest coach there) and being on the "other side" of everything for the first time in my life (the teacher instead of the student and now the coach instead of the runner) was an interesting learning experience for me. There was a huge range of coaches-some like me were pretty young and/or green at coaching track. Some had been doing this for 25+ years. Some coaches completely had the right attitude and were there for the kids. We would help out their runners, throwers, jumpers whatever with technique tips and encourage them so they could perform their best. Others seemed more concerned with their own egos and walked around touting their resumes and pushing their kids to the absolute limit to get those extra team points. It kind of makes you wonder why they were out there in the first place?? I guess that is to be expected though. On top of this we had Bangladeshi timers and markers. This was often times difficult because of the language barrier-when they missed a time or a mark instead of asking one of the coaches who might have gotten it they just made it up. This could either severely help or hurt a runner. In true Bangladeshi style, several of them had their cell phones attached to their ear the entire time. Bangladeshis have awful cell phone etiquette as a culture. The man in the shot put supposed to be measuring throws would not put his down and was trying to talk and take measurements and doing an awful job of it. We had to tell him multiple times to get off his damn phone and do his job.
Our meet was 3 days long-3 full days in 90 degree weather and constant humidity. It didn't even rain once to cool things off. They did put a tent up that covered a lot of the track and had covered places for each team to relax but I did not stop sweating the entire weekend and I wasn't even running. El Gatorade did flow. While exhausting and freaking hot with very few breaks I was incredibly proud of some of kids-those that put in the work were able to cash in. We had a school record broken in the high jump and many of the kids turned in stellar performances. The previous weekend we had a DISA meet, which is with local teams that was one full day. These are the only 2 meets of the season, however, and they come at the end of the season so there is a lot of buildup. We tied for 3rd place out of 8 teams, which was very good. New Delhi runs away with 1st place every year because they are about twice the size of other schools and have athletes that only do track all year round whereas our athletes tend to go from sport to sport to sport. We have come in 2nd the past couple years but with a brand new team of assistant coaches and some age groups that weren't very strong third was very good for us this year.
We had a medal ceremony at the end of every day where every kid who places (1st-6th) gets a nice medal because they are so cheap to buy in Dhaka. They had a podium stand set up and on the last day there was a long ceremony where they recognized the senior athletes and stand out athletes of the meet. All the kids were really supportive of each other and cheering each other on, which was nice to see. Track athletes are generally pretty nice because I think the cocky-ness element that is present in a lot of other sports doesn't exist (as much) in track-you are all running hard and sweating and suffering together, especially in Dhaka, Bangladesh when it's 95 degrees and humid. SAISA is high school and middle school combined so we had athletes who were 10 years old up to athletes of 18 competing on the same track. So many of our students got personal best even if they didn't place or get first. Good, busy, tiring weekend and now I'm glad it's behind me and looking forward to having my afternoons back!
On top of this I have been assisting coaching our SAISA track team. We just had our super huge SAISA track meet last weekend. Anyone can come out for track and from the group that comes out they compete for slots at the end of the season for our SAISA team. In the SAISA meet we compete against international schools from other countries. We competed against 3 Indian teams (New Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai), 2 Pakistan school (Lahore and Karachi), one team from Kathmandu, Nepal, and one team from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Most teams had long traveling periods, the Indian teams flew through Bangkok to get to Dhaka, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense other than its a cheaper flight. I thought traveling from Mary Washington to Salisbury, Maryland for hockey games was a long way! My definition has been redefined. The coaches and athletes stay with host families from school for 4 nights and they usually pair up students of similar ages. There are 2 more teams in our conference from Pakistan but they don't really travel anymore because they are located in dangerous areas. It's a shame because the international school in Islamabad has the only real, nicely laid spring form track that is 400 meters in our conference along with amazing facilities. We run on a 200 meter track that is chalked out on our turf. Not great but still we are much better than many of the other schools who have dirt tracks riddled with pot holes. A 200 meter track with no banked curves makes the inside lane very difficult, especially for our guys running their 100's and 200's and 400's. The 5th and 6th lanes are actually ideal for those events whereas they are not on a 400 meter track. There was a lot of stepping out of lanes on these races that we let go and didn't punish the runners for like you were normally do in a serious meet.
Again, being young (I was the youngest coach there) and being on the "other side" of everything for the first time in my life (the teacher instead of the student and now the coach instead of the runner) was an interesting learning experience for me. There was a huge range of coaches-some like me were pretty young and/or green at coaching track. Some had been doing this for 25+ years. Some coaches completely had the right attitude and were there for the kids. We would help out their runners, throwers, jumpers whatever with technique tips and encourage them so they could perform their best. Others seemed more concerned with their own egos and walked around touting their resumes and pushing their kids to the absolute limit to get those extra team points. It kind of makes you wonder why they were out there in the first place?? I guess that is to be expected though. On top of this we had Bangladeshi timers and markers. This was often times difficult because of the language barrier-when they missed a time or a mark instead of asking one of the coaches who might have gotten it they just made it up. This could either severely help or hurt a runner. In true Bangladeshi style, several of them had their cell phones attached to their ear the entire time. Bangladeshis have awful cell phone etiquette as a culture. The man in the shot put supposed to be measuring throws would not put his down and was trying to talk and take measurements and doing an awful job of it. We had to tell him multiple times to get off his damn phone and do his job.
Our meet was 3 days long-3 full days in 90 degree weather and constant humidity. It didn't even rain once to cool things off. They did put a tent up that covered a lot of the track and had covered places for each team to relax but I did not stop sweating the entire weekend and I wasn't even running. El Gatorade did flow. While exhausting and freaking hot with very few breaks I was incredibly proud of some of kids-those that put in the work were able to cash in. We had a school record broken in the high jump and many of the kids turned in stellar performances. The previous weekend we had a DISA meet, which is with local teams that was one full day. These are the only 2 meets of the season, however, and they come at the end of the season so there is a lot of buildup. We tied for 3rd place out of 8 teams, which was very good. New Delhi runs away with 1st place every year because they are about twice the size of other schools and have athletes that only do track all year round whereas our athletes tend to go from sport to sport to sport. We have come in 2nd the past couple years but with a brand new team of assistant coaches and some age groups that weren't very strong third was very good for us this year.
We had a medal ceremony at the end of every day where every kid who places (1st-6th) gets a nice medal because they are so cheap to buy in Dhaka. They had a podium stand set up and on the last day there was a long ceremony where they recognized the senior athletes and stand out athletes of the meet. All the kids were really supportive of each other and cheering each other on, which was nice to see. Track athletes are generally pretty nice because I think the cocky-ness element that is present in a lot of other sports doesn't exist (as much) in track-you are all running hard and sweating and suffering together, especially in Dhaka, Bangladesh when it's 95 degrees and humid. SAISA is high school and middle school combined so we had athletes who were 10 years old up to athletes of 18 competing on the same track. So many of our students got personal best even if they didn't place or get first. Good, busy, tiring weekend and now I'm glad it's behind me and looking forward to having my afternoons back!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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