Bangladesh: Part II

At this point I should properly introduce my two American companions for this journey, Adnan Alam and Mateo Eckstat (to hell with you’re 12 other names, Mateo). Both are my brothers from Sigma Nu at Tufts, and they are both sophomores studying in Community Health and Biology. Adnan was born in Washington D.C., the city’s very first birth of 1987 FYI, lived in the US for a couple of years before moving to Australia and finally settling into Bangladesh at age 7 (I think). By no means a typical Bengali, he was culturally suited for an American education when he arrived at Tufts. Mateo, on the other hand, is a Spanish-American, holding both passports. He was raised in Iowa, but often visited his mother’s family in Spain so he was not your typical Iowan, either. When Adnan planned to return home for winter break 2007, he invited all his friends to come and visit, but only Mateo and I were the only ones man enough to make the journey.

Now before I go on continuing the story of my Bengali experience, I think I first have to explain what every foreigner experiences in the public sphere of Bangladesh: staring and following. The Bengali stare has to be the most peculiar characteristics of the street: imagine walking down a street as a ten-foot-tall man a head of flaming hair. Everywhere in public, people just stare at you, from the old women carrying items to and fro, to the rickshaw driver whose heads swivel as they keep staring even as they pass you by. Mateo (my friend, the other “white” traveler from Tufts) and I were surprised that we never caused a rickshaw fatality from all the drivers who stared at us instead of paying attention to the road ahead of them. And not only do people stare, even from a yard away, but many times we were followed out of curiousity. When we visited the Buddhist ruins of Mainimati, Mateo was followed by young teenage boy for what must have been a half an hour. In another instance, our walk through Dhaka’s only major park gave us up to a half dozen men following us just a couple paces behind, and when we stopped at a vendor to inspect his goods, at least 15-20 people stood around us and stared at us shopping. Eventually Mateo and I became somewhat accustomed to all this attention, but its always unsettling. This is because the Bengali stare is accompanied by no emotion, no waving or smiling, nothing – its just a dead stare of jealousy and perhaps awe (I would suspect).

Bangladesh: an introduction

Well, I’ve finally entered a period of relative normalcy after two months of a nomadic lifestyle. Monday, classes begin here at Hong Kong University and our orientation wwek has finally eased up from the endurance feat that was the first few days here. Now I have the energy and the drive to attempt to put the experiences of the last few weeks into words.

My time in Malaysia was rounded off with a stay in a three star hotel, quite a change from the dingy guesthouses I had been staying in previously. When I arrived at the train station (where the KLIA Express departs for the airport), I attempted to check in for my flight but was denied. KL Sentral (train station) has facilities for Malaysian Airlines and a few other to allow KLIA Express passengers to check in at downtown station, over 50km away from the airport! I realized that I had purchased a paper ticket for Bangladesh and had to get one printed out from the adjacent ticketing office, no problem, right? As it turned out, I was uncomfortably close to the 2-hour check-in deadline, but there was a long line of customers waiting to be seen by the agents. Here is one instance where I am truly grateful for my mother’s inherent pushiness over the years – I refused to wait online and be denied entry onto my flight. I continually harassed the employees until some sort of manager allowed to to be seen immediately – horaay obnoxious Americans! From then on it was smooth sailing and it was enjoyable to enter the airport unencumbered with the luggage from 2 months of traveling.

I think its safe to say that my Bengali experience began even before I got onto the plane. From the train ride to the duty-free to the security line to the plane itself, I continued to meet Bengali’s who were unceasingly warm, friendly and helpful. The flight on Malaysia airlines was excellent, it was Boeing 777 with personal TVs with on-demand movies – I can hardly imagine what it was once like to do intercontinental flights without personal TVs – they are just so good at keeping one occupied. When I arrived at Zia International Airport, it was a short walk to immigration and customs and I recieved no trouble from either. The airport was of the styles of the 60’s and dingy, no doubt, but it wasn’t much worse than Newark Int’l circa 1998. It certainly was not what I had imagined for a country with a per-capita GDP below $500.

The first thing I thought when I came to the pickup area was “I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Police officers whistled while directing traffic with wooden rods. A barrier fence separated arriving passengers from the throngs of outsiders waiting for friends or family. An enormous traffic jam slowed cars from reaching the pickup point. Eventually I heard fraternal nickname, Birdo, coming through the din of the crowd and Adnan and Mateo behind the fence. Coming outside to walk through the traffic towards Adnan’s car, it wasn’t thirty seconds into unsecured bangladesh when I was approached by a child beggar pleading “Boss… Boss…” in the most pathetic voice that can come from a young boy.

Once on the roads, I was soon aquainted to character of Bengali traffic – chaos! Outside of intersections where policemen holding rods direct traffic, there is essentially no law and order on Bengali roads. Cars organically change lanes constantly, in fact, road markings in Bangladesh are pointless. However, the roads in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital of 12 million, are constantly snarled in traffic. Despite the poverty of the country, enough buses and wealthy Bengalis ply the roads so that all the major roads crawl at just a few miles an hour.

The Alam household, my “home” for my time in the country, was a refuge of Western comforts whence from I could venture out into the chaos of Dhaka. It is situated in the Banani district, one of Dhaka’s most wealthy neighborhoods, filled with luxury apartments and a few remaining houses (a true luxury in the crowded city). Every building has their own security guards and secured garages and I imagine it is similar to wealthy neighborhoods in many developing countries. The most interesting characteristic about the Alam household was the contrast with Adnan’s status in the West – in Bangladesh he is one of the elite, with a large apartment with maids and a chaueffer; in the West he struggles to get by as just another South Asian immigrant, albeit a well-educated one.

Children of Sonargaon

Prepare yourselves, I will be arriving in Hong Kong tomorrow and will finally write an entry on my time in Bangladesh. Needless to say, it was a awesome experience and an adventure that I will never forget. I have put up a decent selection on Flickr so look through the photos in the meantime. Right now I’m sitting in a very noisy web-cafe in Singapore, filled with the sounds of internet gaming. And yes, this city is so clean it blows my mind.