Platters to Pieces

A New Year, a New Chapter

2010-01-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

Today I finally finished reading Alain de Botton's 'The Consolations of Philosophy.' I say 'finally' because it feels like it takes me an inordinate amount of time to read a whole book lately, as likely as I am to have three on the go at once, and often to be too busy 'meditating' on the morning subway ride to read much at all. So a book feels a bit like a conquest, particularly if it is non-fiction; I get two-thirds through the climb and think I might as well turn back, it is getting dark.
'The Consolations of Philosophy' has rewarded me for my persistence, though. I didn't find it as completely riviting as 'the Art of Travel,' one of my favourite books, but I did laugh a lot, and mangle the corners of many pages as a declaration of my delight with one idea or another. Often I go back to the pages I've marked and can't imagine what pleased me so as I passed it the first time.
There are many chesnuts to hoard from this book; my present favourite is the lines de Botton ends off with, from Nietzsche:

"To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something that must be abolished, is the [supreme idiocy], in a general sense a real disaster in its consequences... almost as stupid as the will to abolish bad weather."

Consolation indeed. It is in the spirit of not denying one's difficulties, but rather 'gardening' them, that I begin a new chapter here. Hello 2010.

4 Days in Delhi

2008-05-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

The temperature in Delhi is round about 46 degrees, which is borderline mad. I say borderline because we all seem to be getting on with our days, and though folks frequently comment on the heat -- not just foreigners, either -- nobody appears to actually be melting yet. That comes in May and June, apparently, when conditions go from Really Very Hot to Fatally Hot. There is still power now, and water, which I say is positive.
I arrived in Delhi a couple of days ago, prepared for an onslaught of 'giant Indian city'-ness, the criticisms and horror stories of others' time spent in Delhi playing in the back of my mind. I was pleasantly surprised, actually, not because Delhi isn't a dirty, loud, crowded city full of people trying aggressively to get you to do things, but because it seems to not only be that. It is surprisingly spacious, and well-planned, with broad streets and green space in many areas. The cheapo tourist neighbourhood I'm staying in is predictably seedy and notably dirty, but my room is clean and quiet. I'm trying out different restaurants in search of a combination of (Indian) food I like, can afford (financially) , and can afford physically; at the same time I'm doing an informal census (head count, ha) of stoned Westerners with dreads. I think there's a dread convention in town.
My perceptions of Delhi in a few days are undoubtedly shaped by my experiences in other Indian cities, and all over India for that matter. The dirt, the people, the traffic, even the heat -- none of it is a surprise. So far I have experienced the worst touts of my life in Fatehpur Sikri, a ruined town near Agra, built by Akbar as an ideal capital but abandoned because of constant water shortage. (Build your ideal capitals near water sources people, let's all learn from this). At the mosque there I was followed by young man after young man all using the same persistent, aggressive approach of pointing out features and information to me while insisting that they didn't want any money but refusing to go away when I asked them to. Each time I managed to shake one -- not wanting the nattering, repetitive company, and knowing that there is ALWAYS a catch in the end -- another would approach me with the same 'Where you from? Nice country! French part or English part? I just want to practice my English...' spiel. One would require the patience of a saint not to get tired, and I definitely don't have that, though I do have a healthy amount of respect for the fact that people are just trying to get by and make a living, allbeit sometimes in incredibly annoying ways. I only rid myself of 'friend' number 6 by leaving the mosque (thinking to myself, 'bloody hell, this isn't worth it.')
Yesterday, on a bus here in Delhi, I was groped for the first time in my travels. Groped for the first time, that is, without my request or consent. I hopped on a city bus after visiting the Qutb Minar, aiming to take the bus back to an area where I could get some good food and some shade. People waved me onto the bus and I walked to the middle, where there was free space, the 'ladies seats' at the front all being full. I'd been on the bus for about 30 seconds before a couple more people hopped on from the back, and as they pushed past me one of them squeezed my bum. Squeezed it mind you -- not a brush, or a bump (sisters, you're all familiar with these tactics), but a squeeze. I reacted immediately with a yell, and I spun around and smacked the guy behind me across his back as he continued to walk past. He reacted with a 'surprised' face as I shouted 'Hey! Watch your hands! You just grabbed me, don't do that!' He made a face like he didn't know what I was talking about as I continued to announce to everyone and no one that he had just grabbed me, yes him (pointing), that guy grabbed my bum. I gestured my way into an empty seat at the back, with all the men looking at me, my heart pounding with a burst of adrenaline. Turns out it was the wrong bus, ha, which the conductor seemed sorry to tell me a moment later when he came to the back. I laughed and hopped off, realizing as I hit the ground at the crowded bus stop that I was really mad. Not about being on the wrong bus.
I reacted to the bum-squeeze assault for what it was, an assault, and without thinking at all my nervous system was up and revving, ready to pound someone or take off. I'm basically confident of my instincts and my reflexes, which is one reason I can travel alone mostly fear-free. I reacted quickly just the way I would have liked had I thought about it (except that, in the following moments I did think about Swami Sivananda's advice always to 'speak softly, speak sweetly, speak lovingly...' Is that supposed to include in reaction to surprise attack on one's space? Siiiiigh, probably.) In fact, in Agra a few days ago I had a conversation with Claire from Chicago (another woman traveling alone) on exactly this topic. We talked about the process that one goes through of learning what is normal and acceptable and tolerable in terms of talk and treatment from Indian men; 'I've taken to responding to groping with physical assault,' she told me. 'Fair enough,' I said, 'I think that's a reasonable reaction. ' We discussed the importance of yelling and drawing attention to the person, and also getting them away from you; early on in her travels she learned, from an elderly Indian woman, the excellent technique of hitting pests with your shoe. On a bench in a railway station she was being followed from one side to the other, she getting up to avoid sitting next to the man, and him getting up and following her to the other side until the lady took her sandal off and started yelling and whacking. Awesome.
The hard part is not to cultivate an unhealthy dislike and distrust of men here. It is very tempting. Understood in context, the attention one gets from Indian men as a woman alone is rarely appropriate and therefore rarely positive. Certainly I've met many kind, friendly, helpful men who have meant and done me no harm, quite the opposite. But so many want something from you that they shouldn't be asking for -- attention, 'friendship,' money, to talk to you (alone) about how Westerners are oversexed, to squeeze your bum. And this comes up not only from shifty looking strangers, but from passersby and salesmen of various classes. There is a challenge in maintaining a healthy skepticism and a healthy distance without selling people, and yourself short. But at the end of the day I think YES fearlessness, but no, not forgetting that the plight of Indian women is one in which gang rape and burnings are a daily reality. This sounds extreme, but it is the truth of being a woman in this country: vulnerability to violence, poverty, hunger, all manner of ill-treatment. I read it every day in the paper and I think about it when I am protecting myself and when I am pacing at the bus stop after being grabbed. This is the context of my bum-grabbing, this is the context of my everyday adventures in India, as a woman.

Blogging from Bombay

2008-04-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo readers! It has been a long while since I've posted: busy busy busy, moving moving moving, poor internet access poor internet access poor... you get the picture.

Just to 'whet your whistle' (ugh, clearly I'm rusty, I hate that phrase), here are a couple of photos from my adventures in India, which I'm about 7 weeks into now. I've been moving fairly quickly, there's so much of the country I want to see -- I've been from Kolkata to Chennai to Madurai to Mysore to Goa to Bombay and lots of places in between... It isn't terribly satisfying traveling quickly from one place to another, but it is much better than nothing.

More soon.

Ok, here's only ONE photo from my travels: on the street in Panjim, Goa, a city I like very much. It takes soooooo long to upload photos.

Srimangal: On the road again

2008-02-06T02:12:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how a few weeks living in one of the richest parts of Dhaka managed to disconnect me from the astonishing poverty of the country. In Gulshan one is constantly asked for money, true – there are a huge number of children, women, and people with disabilities begging in the area. But today I arrived in Srimangal, in the northeast part of the country, and immediately I encountered a group of street kids dirtier and poorer than any I’ve seen for a while. Any Westerner who has lived in South Asia can tell you that their thinking on the logic and ethics of giving versus not giving, to whom, and when, develops over time and has high points and low points. I had a low point yesterday when I showed anger to a group of young girls – in the early afternoon I bought them a small loaf of bread to share between the three of them. In late afternoon I passed by again and some of them attached themselves to me with even greater determination, whining, grabbing my hands, faking tears, until I lashed out with the best (“best”) of my Bangla to say “What did I tell you!? I said no! If you keep asking and asking I won’t give anything again!”
The exasperation that one sometimes feels at being almost constantly followed and asked for money is real and seems natural. There’s a kind of stress in always being pressured that can’t be denied. But why? Is it that I’m never quite giving according to my means? Or is it frustration at the sheer number of people who could use your help, too many even to give a few taka to each day? One’s ethics are challenged even within the giving one does – I know some folks who will give only to children, for example, and others that never do. ‘Children should be in school’ is their philosophy, and every time you make it worth their guardian’s while to send them out to work on the streets instead, you decrease any motivation they might have to demand an education for the child. But there are so many kids! So many that I doubt have ever seen the inside of a classroom or ever will. Not that I necessarily think that the classroom is always the best place for a kid, but better than working, surely. You often even see young boys working in shops and tea stalls; I’m trying to be more aware of this and avoid the places that employ children, but the sight is so ubiquitous it’s difficult to draw my attention to it at times.
So now I’m in Srimangal, in a part of the country covered in rolling hills and tea plantations. I’m laying low for day one, having already achieved my goals of securing a place to stay for the next few days, a bicycle to use, and a ticket back to Dhaka. It is hot and sunny at midday, so I’m basking in the novelty of a hotel room, though it is a grubby and chilly one. Tomorrow I will head out into the hills and see what I can see, and hopefully put my new digital camera to good use. My first digital camera! It hurt to part with the money when I went shopping yesterday, but nice to have been given some cash, by ‘Santa Claus,’ specifically for that purpose. Thanks Mom and Dad!

2007-12-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

Well. I burst into tears at the tea stall yesterday afternoon out of exhaustion and frustration at not being able to join in lunchtime conversations. Then today I feel like I’m cracking up with irritation – at BRCT, at my coworkers, at the stupid way that everything runs. Not at the city, though I think that all the stress of pollution, constant attention, traffic, isolation are all bearing down on me at the moment. Actually, I think they’ve been bearing down on me for 6 months and I’ve been mostly ok... or at least getting by with a smile on my face, but now – what is it? The holidays? Coming to the end of the internship? Just a saturation point? I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel good. When I’m under stress I’m often keenly aware of not being a person who controls her emotions easily. Now here I am tearing up at the tea stall. Sigh.
Well, there’s not much more of this placement and I’m under pressure to tie up some loose ends before I take off. I’ll do my best. Since I’m approaching the end I’m taking stock a little and feeling like it has been a pretty unsatisfying professional experience. Certainly it has been frustrating. But I think I will give it some more time to sink in before I put a seal of approval or disapproval on it. The Dalai Lama tells me that opinions can also be attachments anyways. At least I think it was him.
Oh Bangladesh, I like you and I hate you. I haven’t yet found the passion for the country that some people I’ve met have communicated. Maybe this isn’t my country. It is perhaps unfair to judge that from only 6 months, but so far all physical signs blaze ‘NO!’ Emotional signs are mixed – I see some arrows pointing ‘GO’ and some in neon pleading ‘STAY.’ I’m just surveying them all with suspicious eyes hoping for divine inspiration to descend when I have time to pay attention to it.

Thank God for stockings from Santa (Mom) -- or as Shohel calls mine, "Santa's leg," which is funny but creepy. He sometimes uses incorrect English only to amuse and irritate me.

Please see the tasteful photo of me with underwear on my head and a gingerbread man in my mouth. What else to do? I have so many memories of oohing and awing and laughing at people's underwear from 'Mrs. Santa' (Grandma), I felt I should do the gift justice even when flying solo. Actually, I realize I am not flying solo. Sometimes I have the illusion that I am, but at times like Christmas, when I go to get in touch with all the people who are important to me, to say 'hi,' to check in, I realize that my life is wonderfully full of people I care about. It just happens that only about, oh, five of them are here!

I'm so lucky, nonetheless, to have formed some lovely friendships here, ones that I'm reluctant to shift into the long distance realm. Damn travelling for that, I tell you. It seems nice in some ways to have friends flung across the globe, but many times I want them all in my pocket, or perhaps in a pantry that I can enter at any time. Isn't that what we do anyways, really, create little (or big) pantries stocked full of friends that we rely on for the various ingredients of our lives. That's a statement, not a question. I'm thinking of extending that metaphor to reflect the real pantries I've known over time -- the ones full of petit fours in the restaurants I've worked in; the one at our old house, where I once cut myself on a razor hidden on the top shelf...

What does that mean?

Hmm.

Rangamati, Chittagong Hill Tracts

2007-12-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

In order to enter the Hill Tracts, foreigners require permission from the District Commissioner of the places they will visit; dominant discourse says that this is a dangerous place, in which the ‘tribals’ are terrorists likely to kidnap you at any moment. The indigenous peoples are considered by many to be exotic, backwards, and hostile in comparison to the majority Bengali community. Hostility, where it exists, is not well understood; the government has gone to great lengths to prevent the history and present situation of the Hill Tracts from becoming public knowledge. What I know is this – this area has traditionally been inhabited by a variety of indigenous peoples, the largest group being the Chakma. Since Bangladesh ‘Independence’ in 1971 there has been a systematic program of taking over the Hill Tracts from its inhabitants – land has been snatched and Bengalis settled by force. The Hill Tracts was militarized as Bengalis were given incentives to migrate to the fertile area – indigenous resistance was controlled and often suppressed by military violence including systematic rape and murder.

In this area where agriculture is the foundation of life, the practices and land rights of local people have been extremely degraded. The jhum (‘slash and burn’) agriculture practiced by many indigenous people was criticized as being backwards, though it is effective and sensitive in the context. This backwardness was used as an excuse for putting the land into the ‘more capable’ hands of Bengalis or the government. Land ‘ownership’, traditionally understood to stem from inhabitance and cultivation, was disrupted by government demands for registration and titles, which most people did not have or know to pursue when Bangladesh started demanding them. Since 1992 it has become impossible for indigenous people to register the land they live on and cultivate; according to Bangladesh, therefore, they live on government land from which they can be evicted at any time. In the 1990s there was an intense and prolonged uprising, about which I know only very little. Now you hear it talked about from time to time in the dominant Bangladeshi context, mostly as a situation of terrorism which was eventually resolved by the military and a 1997 Peace Accord (more on that later). I have read that the 1980s and 1990s were a period of escalating state terrorism – rape, murder, destruction of villages. When villages were razed, the people who did not flee elsewhere were put into government organized villages, in which they were extremely vulnerable and dislocated from their livelihoods. Many people fled over the border to India and into camps there; at times groups of those were forcibly ‘repatriated’ by the Indian government. Others came back on their own, or I’m sure worked out various things over the years – I have heard that some have become stateless, not recognized as citizens of Bangladesh, India, or any other country.

There seems to be little or no government recognition of the atrocities perpetrated by them in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and no recognition of the injustices heaped upon the indigenous people and their lands, which precipitated uprisings over the years. If you remember Major Alam, who I wrote about a few posts ago (see me feeding his fish) – he told me that one of his postings was “combating the insurgency” in the CHT for three years. It made my skin crawl a little to sit with someone who had “combated the insurgency,” as I had some idea of what that meant. Seeing the world quite boldly in terms of justice and injustice, it is hard for me to wrap my head around the misguided thinking that allows people to purposefully and violently abuse and destroy others. I suppose the ‘other’-ness is part of the point in this case, what has made it possible for Bangladesh to direct military might in this way. But, really, my work at the Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma Victims basically shows that once people – military, police, whoever – are invested with the license to perpetrate violence, anybody can be fair game – indigenous people, Bengalis, non-Bengalis, who cares? Power and control is what matters.
What I find particularly sickening at this point in time is the contradiction between the rhetoric of a free, independent Bangladesh and the real history and present conditions of indigenous people in the Hill Tracts. Victory Day just passed, December 16th, and on this day Bengali Bangladeshis celebrate their liberation from the tyranny of West Pakistan, which tried to keep them down, not respecting their rights or their language, ultimately violently undermining their very existence. There are a number of reasons why I am amazed by Bangladeshis’ ability to celebrate this ‘victory’ with a straight face, not least the tyranny of its own state machinery since 1971. But the case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts really gets me, because it is a bright and shining beacon of hypocrisy.

The rhetoric of ‘liberation’ is of freedom, self-determination, and pride in cultural and linguistic heritage. People in the CHT remain under the thumb of the government, their movement, gathering, and communication restricted. Many people lack access to clean water, electricity, and education in their mother tongue. The military is everywhere out here. People are allowed only two set market days per week – that is, two days per week on which to come from the hills into the towns to sell their produce. This seriously undermines peoples’ ability to support themselves – having to sell their produce on those days or not at all, they must take whatever low prices are offered by the mainly Bengali traders.
At the same time, no access to mobile phone communication is allowed in the CHT. In Rangamati there are shops that you can go to with your phone, to attach an antenna that allows you to access far off towers and talk for a few minutes, but those antennas are illegal. Even a large indigenous development NGO that we visited while we were here cannot use mobile phones or get adequate internet access. I found it nice not to be surrounded by people chattering on cell phones for a few days, but I’m on vacation – lack of mobile access restricts peoples’ ability to function in a national and international economy that otherwise heavily relies on this kind of communication. In most every other part of Bangladesh one can at least have the opportunity of access to a mobile network.

This afternoon we had a long, big lunch of noodles, shrimp, pakora, fish, vegetables, rice, rice wine, and rice beer, at the home of a Chakma woman who works at a local NGO that Mikey did some work for. Her family members told us of the fear of disappearance – as Bengalis continue to come and settle in Rangamati, they fear that it will not be much longer until the Chakma as a distinct group and culture dissolve and disappear. “I think of the next 10 years, and I am afraid of this,” said her nephew. What kind of fear is that to cope with, the disappearance – elimination – of your people?

Sidr

2007-11-17T04:35:00.000-08:00

Some photos from the effects of the cyclone on Ramna Park in Dhaka. I would also take photos of my stack of soaked books, but I'm trying to get over it. They're just books after all. It is funny that the A/C that I never use is only good for 1) birds to nest in, and 2) channeling water into my room during storms. It was quite the storm, and what we got in Dhaka was not much compared to on the coast. You can read about it at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7099497.stm. We lead a cushy life here in Dhaka, some of us. Worrying about our books and our generators running out of fuel while there is a food crisis on the horizon for this country. I've already informally heard reports that people are beginning to starve in the north where the floods were worst a few months ago. The first harvest of rice is coming in and it sucks. Up there there is supposedly a certain plant that people only eat in times of famine, because it is disgusting but it grows everywhere. They say people are eating it now. They also say ('they'!) that media censorship is in evidence all over the place, with TV stations recently having been directed that they are forbidden to use the Bangla word for 'famine' in their broadcasts. It is confusing and strange to hear that, but everything here is strange and confusing. The situation here is worse than it looks to my naked, generator-lit eye...

On being shellfish

2007-11-11T01:21:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting conversation about cultural differences with my Bangla teacher today. The conversation was, ironically, entirely in English, which is one of my frustrations with the classes – my teacher enjoys speaking in English too much. We were talking about love and marriage, after he asked me whether I was planning to get married when I returned to Canada and I explained that that is not generally how things work there; I can’t simply decide I’m going to get married, the expectation is that there will be some meeting, courtship, and love that takes place before that decision. He was surprised at this and I must admit that since being here I’ve been thinking a lot about the inefficiency of that system. As humans I think most of us crave some sort of permanent joint relationship, but in our culture and in this time in particular, there seems to be more and more obstacles to getting that companionship. Could we not make it a little easier somehow?
Later we got around to talking about joint families and when children do or do not leave home – we discovered that our cultures seem to have opposite assumptions about what is right to do and why. He was surprised to hear that my brother and sister live in apartments away from my parents, though they are both unmarried. He wondered why I was still at home, if leaving was normal and I explained that studies are a reasonable excuse for being 29 years old and still at home. “If I wasn’t studying, people might think there is something wrong with me or my parents,” I said. “But here,” he replied, “We think that if you are unmarried and not living at home then there is something wrong. We think a girl whose is unmarried and has her own apartment has probably become bad. Bad means – become a prostitute or shellfish.” After a beat I gathered that he meant ‘selfish,’ but shellfish is much funnier and more interesting. I’m searching for a way to use being shellfish as an effective metaphor for the life of a single, independent woman. Am I a shellfish woman?

Why I’m here

Late on Monday night I returned to Dhaka from 8 days away on a ‘field visit’ to Khulna division, the southwestern-most part of Bangladesh. It was a work trip, visiting Victims’ Associations, BRCT’s Community Health Workers and Task Forces Against Torture. We were all over the division, in the biggest cities and most remote villages, many of which are practically within spitting distance of the Indian border. Khulna division is apparently known for having a high rate of violence, maybe because of its proximity to the border – we met a lot of people on our trip who are living with the effects, long term and short term, of being beaten by the border security forces, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR).
On our first few days away we held two sets of workshops in Satkhira town about ‘Health and Human Rights,’ bringing together health practitioners, academics and human rights workers to discuss the concept of health as a human right and ways to advocate for health on that basis. At the same time I went to nearby villages to visit Victims’ Associations and see how they were faring in their activities and development. We also conducted the first of a few ‘Mobile Treatment Clinics’ – a half day of health services (doctor, physiotherapist, counselor) offered free of charge to torture survivors at a location in the community, in one case at someone’s house, in another at a local health centre. It was an enlightening experience; after four months with BRCT it was good to finally get a look at their work in Khulna, a major project representing the bulk of their current work. The work of an observer like me is sometimes fun and sometimes deadly boring – there is little immediate satisfaction in sitting, watching and making critical notes. But as an observer and a foreigner I was uniquely free to chat with people, to respond to the hordes that inevitably gathered to look at me.

There were children EVERYWHERE – our photos from the trip are full of images of me surrounded by kids smiling and waving. I was amazed by the population density in the rural areas – places that were described to me as ‘remote’ were still full of an extraordinary number of people. I began to be able to see what it means that Bangladesh, a country about the size of Newfoundland, has a population of 147 million.

People are really struggling to make a living. By sitting in on some initial interviews with torture survivors treated at our clinics I learned that most of the guys and their families were living off of 2000 taka a month, which works out to about a dollar a day. For the whole family. This in the context of ever rising prices of necessities like onions, oil, and potatoes. These are items that are increasingly smuggled across the border from India as well; the Indian government has put a hold on exports of onions and dal as there has been some sort of production shortfall this year. But the prices are rising here and people need to eat; a number of the survivors I met had been involved in smuggling something or other (saris and cloth are hot items) when they were caught and beaten by the BDR.

This is a photo of me in a boat in the Sundarbans looking extremely comfortable to be sitting between members of those Bangladesh Rifles. We had the very odd experience of arriving at the boat launch where a friend had supposedly arranged for a 3 hour boat tour for the group only to find that the boat we expected was not there. We were directed, I’m not sure how (I rarely understand what is going on if I don’t ask!), to drop by the home of Major Alamgir of the 7th Battalion, perhaps to arrange for the boat we eventually got, it wasn’t clear to me.

This is a photo of me looking extremely comfortable feeding Major Alamgir’s fish out of a bottle. Seriously. This is apparently something they do – I was afraid one of the bigger fish was going to jump up and suck my arm off or, alternately, that the jostling mass of fishies was going to jostle me and my bottle right into the water. After our brief trip on the boat we were obliged to return to the Major’s house for a cup of tea. We had the kind of awkward visit that only a bunch of human rights workers can have with a commander of border forces. Our boss introduced us, telling the organization’s name and clearly sparking some recognition on the Major’s face; the boss attempted to skirt the issue of what we really do by saying that we work in ‘health,’ which is how he is trying to reframe BRCT’s work to be ‘less threatening’ to the government. Ha. “We work rehabilitating and politicizing the people that your men beat the crap out of” would have been a more accurate statement. As resident foreign entertainer I quickly took up my position talking talking talking, asking questions to learn more about the Major while appearing charming and hopefully averting any large confrontation. He was part of the UN forces on the Kuwait border for a few years and later ‘fought the insurgency’ in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. “When he says ‘fought the insurgency’ we all know what that means,” said my boss a few days later when I brought up how odd an experience it was meeting the Major. Akram admitted that he was reluctant to even take tea at his house, as it is best for us to avoid any appearance of being friendly with the people who victimize the people we work with; I wondered how it was ok that we accepted the trip on a military boat. Huh. It was an odd experience. I kept an eye on the barrels of the guys’ guns, always trying to stay out of the line of fire. All government forces in Bangladesh carry arms that appear unnecessarily large and they wave them around at times like extensions of their pointer fingers and not like the tools of violence that they are.

Back in the 'Desh, Back in Bed

2007-10-25T03:13:00.000-07:00

Oh, how my writing gets delayed! This time by what the doctor today pronounced a 'severe bacterial infection.' Woot! Actually he said, "Well, it isn't an outstandingly severe infection... but it is severe." Please send your prayers for health this way, I need them. That and some Ciprofloxacin.

For your reading pleasure as I recuperate and work to bring you all up to date in my adventures (misadventures, clearly) -- I started writing after I got back from Eid holidays last week, but didn't get far:

From Dhaka to Darjeeling

A few days ago I returned from a short trip to India. Some friends and I took advantage of the Eid holidays to get the heck out of Dodge and after brief fears that we would not be able to travel, having left our travel arrangements too late at the very time that most of the population of Dhaka was heading out of the city, we left early in the morning to travel to the border by rented car. Rented car and driver, I should say – none of us would be keen to drive in this country, it being terrifying enough as it is when the driver is experienced with the ways of the Bangladeshi road. On the twelve hour ride to the border at Burimari we certainly had some hair-raising moments – buses, of which there are many, many, many on the roads here, travel at shocking speeds with total confidence that anything in their way will get out of it. I saw some very close calls through half-closed eyes, once even instinctively curling myself up away from the right side of the car, so sure were my senses that the door I was leaning against was about to get squashed. These moments have a humourous quality in retrospect, but road safety is no joke people! The roads of rural Bangladesh are definitely the wildest I’ve seen so far.

We arrived at the Indian border with less than an hour until the crossing closed, at which point we discovered – me for the second time in a week – that one has to pay a departure tax by bank draft before leaving the country. Why, you might ask yourself, did I forget this little tidbit after my experience of traveling an extra 12 km by rickshaw to pay the very same tax the week before? No idea. It didn’t even cross my mind until my friend Simon began loudly expressing disbelief that this was a real tax and I had to admit that yes, I had previous acquaintance with the very real tax. Cue the familiar experience of traveling back to a bank to pay the tax, this time not so far away, but with under a half hour to get there and back to the border. The two of us who went to the bank made it just in time; we found the door still open, but the teller chopping up cucumber with which to break the fast in mere moments. As a coordinated tag team cultivating friendship while urging speed, we got the receipts and literally ran from the Bangladesh gate to the Indian border where our other friends were waiting anxiously with our bags. Halfway between Bangladesh and India I broke into hysterical laughter, which did nothing to speed up my awkward running – wearing sandals, carrying a backpack and with your pants slightly falling down is not the ideal way to sprint. But oh, it was awfully funny, as was the total lack of urgency on the Indian side; I think we could’ve stopped for an iftar snack, hung out with our new bank friends for a while, and still have made it across.
India! In the darkness at the border post we saw hundreds of fireflies.

After having traveled another few hours from the border to Siliguri and rested there for the night, we set out in the morning for Darjeeling by jeep. It was a beautiful drive, through tea plantations and up into the hills; as we climbed it grew cooler and damper. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for tea and momos – momos are yummy steamed dumpling type things, filled with whatever you want I imagine, always veg for me, and dipped in chili sauce. The different food – Tibetan and Nepalese in origin – was definitely a highlight of Darjeeling for me, since I haven’t had much of a love affair with meaty, ricey Bangladeshi food. In Darjeeling much of the population is Buddhist, so vegetarian food is plentiful and I had some nice experiences with soups full of fresh, crunchy goodness.
Once in Darjeeling we climbed up and up through the steep streets on foot, to a square at the top of a hill, where we found a nice hotel with lovely views. It would be three days before the skies would clear enough to see the Himalayas, but when they did, wow! From the rooftop patio at dawn I could exclaim nothing but ‘oh my God!’ I’ve never really seen mountains up close before; I’m sure even if I had they would pale in comparison to the peaks one can see from Darjeeling. Kanchenjunga dominates and is eight thousand five hundred-odd metres high; Everest is also visible, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint which peak it was. I had a funny experience when on the day after I first saw the mountains I talked to a friend who told me that, according to traditional thinking, if you are privileged enough to see Everest you can ask God for something and you will get it. I rushed back up to the viewpoint when I heard this and apologized in Everest’s general direction for not having known before, then I said a prayer. No positive results so far, but I’ll keep you posted – my method was flawed, so perhaps I missed my chance. Or perhaps you need to really know which one is Everest before you make a wish on it.

More soon...

Julie pays her first bribe (Our girl is really growing up!)

2007-10-04T05:25:00.000-07:00

The day started early, at 6 am, with my new phone chiming its alarm that I find so pleasant I like to listen to it a little while before I turn it off. No desire to get up yet, body still tired and aching, I didn't rush quite enough and emerged downstairs to find Aminul, the driver, annoyed that I was late. We ran to the car -- I swung myself inside and he closed his door on my fingers. I yelled and sputtered, no Bangla words coming out, just 'Ah! Ah!' and wild pointing. Fingers released I sputtered some more, some colourful English of the four letter variety. No terrible harm done, just a little blood and a little pain. On with the morning.
I made it to the train on time and began a journey that was really very pleasant -- first winding through Dhaka, discovering the slums next to the railway line in many places. This is where they are 'hidden.' Many thatched huts, in places up on bamboo stilts, packed full of people and spilling out onto the tracks to go through their morning routines. Dhaka really isn't very big, size wise, so we quickly emerged into countryside where the sky and land and water opened up before me in all its flat glory. I should have taken photos, maybe, of all these things, but I was too lazy and also pondering my philosophy of not taking photos of people up close without their permission. I have not been a tourist much in Bangladesh and so have not had to consider whether that is indeed still my philosophy, but I think it is.
It is not surprising, of course, that the country outside Dhaka is different, but the contrast is great. Small flats boats driven by single polemen are needed to cross over even short distances left unbridged. In many places there are long foot bridges consisting of a single bamboo pole on walk on and another to hold with your hand; no chance of crossing with something like a bicycle on that -- I saw a young boy and his bike being ferried across on one of the boats. There are fishing nets everywhere -- the 'Chinese' kind like I saw in Kerala. They are a series of poles to which a net is attached, sunk into the water and brought up by a kind of cantilever action later in the day. And rice -- rice growing everywhere, though I didn't notice people cultivating it until later in the day as well -- it is Ramadan, I guess, even farmers need a lie in after getting up at 3 or 4 for Seheri.
In Akhaura, near the border with India, a rickshawallah quickly found me, helped me buy a return train ticket and get on the road to the border. I was trepidatious at first, but the crowd assured me yes, he is good, and that is a reasonable price. It is hard to tell sometimes when on your own, and in Bangladesh I haven't had as many experiences of passersby piping up 'no! Don't pay so much!' as I had in India. Maybe I'm getting ripped off less here (hahahhhhhaaaa).
In any case he was enormously helpful, Mohammad Selim, as he pulled me 6 km through gorgeous countryside, talking about the usual -- Bangladesh, Canada, wanting to go to Canada, marriage, family, work. Passing one pond full of the waterlilies that are the national flower, he hopped off the rickshaw and waded in to get me a little bouquet, which was very touching to me.
I arrived at the first border office, Bangladesh side, to discover there was a 300 taka departure tax to be paid -- not in cash, but by bank draft. So back we went, 6 km to Akhaura, me feeling bad to have Mohammad Selim pull me the whole way again, but unwilling to part with my passport to have someone else do it for me. It was very hot, with the sun high in the sky -- I opened my umbrella over my head, being too tall (as is often the case) to fit under the rickshaw cover. I tried to cover the rickshawallah too, with no luck and later discovered that all I had managed was a bad sunburn on my left forearm. Oops.
I was happy to hear that Selimbhai was not keeping fast. 'Na, na,' he said, pointing at his belly, the bike, and the sun. Indeed. We popped into a 'restaurant,' shielded from fasting eyes by palm thatch screens and I was heartily refreshed by dal puri and milk tea. By around 2 pm I was back at border office number one, successfully paid up and shunted to the next office, leaving Mohammad Selim behind to continue alone on foot. At the next office I noted the demeanour of the official at his desk -- now friendly, now unfriendly. When it was my turn he started counting days on his fingers -- my visa says that I may stay in Bangladesh for only 90 days at a time, though I may come and go as I please. I proudly showed him the calendar and how I had calculated that 'haha!' today is the 90th day exactly, since I arrived on July 5th. Perfect timing. He continued to count on his fingers while I feigned patience, adopting my 'cheerful submission to authority' face, which is a complete fraud. I don't know if he made it up on the spot, or if he was pointing out a genuine mistake on my part, but he announced that I had miscalculated by not including July 5th as the first day. In my head I thought 'what kind of stupid counting system is that' as I began to feel nervous. I displayed surprise, confusion, deep regret. He asked me if I understood what I had done wrong and I experienced sudden flashbacks to childhood, nonspecific feelings that I had been asked that somewhere before.
He started processing others before me as I sat sweating and eventually said 'what can I do for you, you know? It has been more than 90 days, which is illegal. So what can I do?' How does one answer a question like that, other than with a blank stare and apologies, both of which I tried. Then he asked me how much money I had on me and I prepared myself to pay the fine I read is called for if you overstay your visa. But no -- no fine -- 'I will stamp your passport, ok, but you must tell no one, because it is not allowed. Completely forbidden. And you will give me money, as you wish.' Oh lordy, my first bribe. Then he processed a few more people ahead of me and I wanted to say 'is no one seeing this!?' But when have I ever stopped to help a foreigner grappling with Canadian immigration? No, there is not much that others can do for you if they themselves require the man's stamp. So I paid him US$10, which is a lot of money over here. He asked me if I was happy with the agreement -- 'you don't mind, no problem, right?' as though I had any choice. Then he had the nerve to get up, shake my hand, and pat me on the shoulder as though we were now buddies -- which is, in the Bangladeshi context, a wildly inappropriate thing for him to do to a woman. Then he told me to be careful not to tell the Indians because they would 'hold me.' Lovely.
I emerged from the office in mild shock, feeling wronged and marvelling at his guts. Just next door they take no cash, certainly at least in part to avoid any allegations of corruption (or actual corruption). And in the city the news everyday is the Anti-Corruption Commission and its drive, with people being arrested in droves for all manner of 'graft,' non-payment of tax, et cetera. And yet he baldly says to me "I will do something 'illegal' if you give me money." Curious. I should have given him much less -- US$10 =700 taka, which is a shitload of money. And possibly the 90 days thing was bogus; I imagine he saw a chance and he took it. When he asked me how much money I had on me I made the mistake of given a semi-accurate account, thereby forcing myself to give what I thought he would most want from my stash.
Of course at the Indian office they didn't lock me up, being more interested in chatting and sending me happily on my way. I saw from the logs that the last 'foreigner' to pass that way was in January.
Once in Agartala my long day continued as I realized I didn't have enough rupees to pay for a room. I sat in the state bank for one and half hours to change a few travellers cheques; as I waited I watched the screensaver on a nearby computer. Shots of mountain, flowers, religious icons, and oh! Niagara Falls! Absurdly, my eyes welled up with tears at the sight -- home. Home where, really, the same bureaucratic idiocies are perpetrated every day, except in slightly better English and under slightly less intense sun :) This place can be so very tiring.
Now here I am in Hotel Welcome Palace, Agartala, Tripura, a place oddly subtitled 'Tripura's Truly 3 Star Hotel.' I guess that's as high as they're comfortable aiming here. The room is a bit dingy, but air conditioned and with cable TV, which was really my only demand for this trip. I want to watch at least 40 channels of Indian TV, including 5 in English. I want to be blessed by Star Movies showing obscure choices from the 90s and I want to watch flashy commercials for products I've never seen in a language I can't understand. Tomorrow I will sleep and explore and drink copious amounts of India tea with great satisfaction. Then Friday I will head back. I am nervous that I may have to face the same man again on the way back and am weighing my options if he gives me a hard time again. I'm not worrying, though, subscribing instead to the great wisdom that 'worrying is like wishing for what you do not want.' Indeed. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Love to you all,
Julie.

2007-10-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

Oh Allah, where does the time go? I look up and all of a sudden it has been weeks since I've posted. Things really changed at work once our ED came back from Canada -- no blogging on office time now, let me tell you!

This is just a quick one, unfortunately -- I'm on my way to India early tomorrow morning for a brief visa renewal visit. I'm going to try to make it relaxing and pleasant, 'cause I could use some relaxing and pleasant. Next week the Eid holidays are expected to begin and I hope to vacate properly -- me and pretty much the entire population of Dhaka, I understand. I guess major holidays are when it becomes obvious that most city dwellers are from somewhere else, have family somewhere else. I'll go in a few days to stand in line for a train ticket, which I think will be great fun; I've been wading through various kinds of bureaucracy lately, standing in a lot of 'lines,' and really feeling that I'm living in a very small place with a whole lot of other people. My skin colour gets me to the front of the odd 'line,' but not many. And when it does I'm at the stage that I don't feel much guilt, more gratefulness. I'll take any breaks I can get. Oh, fatigue. Must...recharge...battery...

Our Eyes are Watching God

2007-09-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

5 Ramadan

6:05pm. The azan has just sounded and the city descended into sudden and satisfying quiet. It is iftaar, time for breaking fast, on the fifth day of Ramadan. After a few days I have begun to feel the different rhythm. With everyone getting up in the middle of the night to eat before 4:30am, the city feels lazier in the morning, the shops not bustling until well into the afternoon. And in the afternoon, how they bustle! Our office closes early, around 3 or 3:30, and everyone heads home to rest. On their way they buy drinking coconuts, water and Tang, and traditional iftaar foods – dates, puffed rice, chickpeas, pakora, and fried eggplant. Everyone clears off the street in time to break fast, followed by special evening prayers. Yesterday walking around I heard the Quran played in shops and markets, sung in Arabic and spoken in Bangla. The food on the street is tempting, and on Friday (1 Ramadan) I enjoyed iftaar for the first time, but the foods are cooked earlier in the afternoon then set out in bowls. My motto lately is if I didn’t make it and it isn’t hot, then I won’t eat it. So far this has served me and my beleaguered stomach well.
This past weekend I had a lovely adventure with a few friends – we took a road trip to Cox’s Bazar, the world’s longest sea beach. Seriously, the beach looks deep and long, but its impressive length didn’t sink in for me until Mikey mentioned wanting to walk the whole thing – which would take five days. That’s a long beach. We caught a super luxury night bus on Thursday night and reveled in giant leather seats and intense air conditioning (but still no bathroom even at super luxury level!) I barely slept, of course, though I’m always hopeful that I’ll have spontaneously attained the ability to sleep without horizontality; no luck with that yet. In the morning the six of us rolled into Cox’s Bazar and up to the apartment of another friend who lives there and works for the World Food Program. Cox’s Bazar is on the southeastern-most finger of Bangladesh, pressed up against Myanmar (Burma). There is apparently a huge refugee camp nearby, and a large Burmese population; there seem to be a number of UN offices operating out of the town.
We went to Cox’s Bazar in part to participate in the International Coastal Cleanup efforts there. We spectacularly rolled up on the beach when everyone else was finished and heading back to their hotels. Undeterred, we launched a solo garbage pick up, weaving along the beach with our sights on completing a very ambitious stretch. I don’t know how much we picked up, ‘cause my brain quickly turned to mush in the blazing sun; if there were a best-dressed garbage-picker prize available, I definitely would have won it though, in my sweaty salwar kameez and turban fashioned out of the event t-shirt. When Simon announced a pause for a swim I certainly didn’t need to be told twice. I had a lovely first experience swimming in a Muslim country – fully dressed in tunic, pants and shawl I discovered that it wasn’t too uncomfortable, but not very conducive to kicking. Swimming this way was a neat counterpoint to last year’s experiences in Goa, where it was all naked white flesh and local men staring from the beach; at least this way they could stare but not see much. There is comfort in this. And the power and joy of swimming in the ocean will not be stopped by a little extra clothing (unless of course you’re talking about jeans and running shoes).
The next day we took off from the beach town to Ramu nearby, where we visited a Buddhist monastery and a bunch of temples. It was a beautiful, calming experience – it felt good to take off my shoes and sit in the shade of a garden, but more than that it felt good to visit Buddha and spend a little time in prayer. I’ve been consciously upping the volume of prayer in my life since Ramadan began, though I would say I’ve become more prayerful in the past few months anyways. I think going to the temple felt good because Buddhism is a faith to which I feel a strong affinity and clear correspondence of morals, but it was also the first time I’ve walked into a religious space since I came here. It was refreshing (see below for a snippet I wrote the other day, in which I mention my new mission to attend mosque). Oh wait! Actually that’s not true – I’ve been in a few Hindu temples, what am I saying? Ah. It must be the Buddha.
Interestingly, some of the temples were pointed out as being specifically Bengali temples, which was something I hadn’t thought about – I assumed that all of the Buddhists would be of Rakhine descent, and indeed most of them are. We spoke with a couple of monks and the head of the monastery; before we left Belle treated us to a lovely image of her providing some quick physio to a monk with wrist pain. It is originating from his neck, for all you physios out there. There was something so touching about the impromptu treatment and his pain-twisted face; thankfully he was smiling when we left, having received a little relief.
On this note, the past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about my work and how I can be useful in a country like Bangladesh. The need for health workers of various kinds is extraordinary for example and here I am with a social work degree. I am of use in my place, but how will this extend in the future if I do not want to be in an office leading research? What to do – Please email your answers ASAP :) These past couple of weeks I’ve started to hear about some interesting things going on here in terms of ‘alternative development,’ and I’m keen to learn more. On the other hand I’ve also met some folks, one in particular on his way back to Canada after a few years here who reminded me of just how sick and backwards the dominant ‘aid’ and ‘development’ paradigm is. We had a brief conversation in which we quickly sussed each others leanings (respectfully, mind you) – he said to me something like, “so you’re probably one of those people who thinks that the World Bank is a bunch of neocolonialists…” I smiled sweetly. The World Bank is hiring here, you know. And good for somebody who takes a job from them – the man did tell me that eventually I will realize that I have to go where the money is. Thankfully I live on a different planet than the one he speaks of – I live on this miraculous globe on which morality and the guidance of the heart are more important than money or influence. I’m glad I live here, because it is a pretty happy place. I certainly do appear alien at dinner parties, though – I catch myself listening listening listening and speaking only when moved and even I think to myself ‘what a weirdo.’ But this is good – I figure I am slowly finding my place here if I am beginning to feel uncomfortable and odd on an ideological level not only a cultural-linguistic level. At the same time, perfectly, I am meeting others who are like me – asking similar questions and seeking out ways to make themselves genuinely useful. Thank God for that. We’ll sort it out together.
I’m reminded here of something that I heard Ursula Franklin say on a CBC ‘Tapestry’ podcast. CBC podcasts are another thing I’d like to say ‘Thank God’ for, as my mind and evenings are enriched by listening to discussions with spiritual thinkers and great writers (‘Writers and Company’). I was on a roll with them for a while until recent annoyances with internet access arose (one of the reasons you haven’t heard from me in a while). Anyhoo Ursula Franklin said this, which I think is very apropos the structural violence that the World Bank embodies:
“Violence is the resourcelessness of the powerful who choose not to use the collaborative resources that are available to them.” The glimpses I’ve seen here of the world of international development has revealed some good people trying to do good things. It has also revealed a great volume of the violence of bureaucracy, and good intentions paired with slight disdain. The disdain is also a sort of violence, I think, and tells of unwillingness to really, deeply think differently in order to collaborate. That’s my two paise on that; I’m practicing not letting glimpses turn into giant, complicated constructs in the mind. There seems to be a real epidemic of that, whatever you want to call it. Arrogance? Making an ass out of u and me?
Peace to you all, I hope you’re well. I am loving life and still detesting cockroaches, sadly, especially when I find them in the fridge. I mean, really, there’s a limit isn’t there? There should be.
Allah haphez,
Julie.

A few days ago... Where to begin? It’s been a few weeks, I know. Ramadan might be starting tomorrow – word is that it has started in the Middle East. We must wait to see the moon tonight and then we’ll know. I’m excited and yet unexcited. Ramadan will be a new experience for me; ‘til now I’ve only experienced it through my Bangladeshi coworkers at Bar Italia. I remember then I would usually clue in only after a couple of weeks, noticing after lunchtime ‘Hey – Ali! You look terrible!’ Oh. It is a very important time, and Eid al Fitr, which comes at the end of Ramadan, I would compare (if forced) to Christmas on the Western Christian calendar, in terms of significance and the amount of stuff one is expected to buy. I’ll let you know in October if that’s an accurate assumption, as I’ve gleaned it only from advance reports.
My unexcitement at Ramadan stems, perhaps childishly, from my feeling of inability to participate. I want to go to mosque for prayers tonight with everyone else and see if Ramadan starts. It has been pointed out to me that, yes, the mosque across from my building does have a section for women – ‘buuuuuuuuuuuuut,’ I whine, ‘I won’t understand what’s going on or know what to do!’ I have received introductory lessons in How to Pray, so I think I could keep up with the standing and sitting after some practice, but the talking and listening part would be a challenge. I think I hereby set this as a goal for the rest of my time here – I will attend mosque at least once, even if I have to go alone. I MUST be able to make some girlfriends who would take me. Ok, I’m on it.
I have also been saying to myself that I will undertake a beginner’s fast. I’m still planning on it. I’m certainly feeling healthy enough that it will be possible. I’m going to wait for a week, though, to observe the Ramadan routine first – I’m nervous about how one gets and eats food at this time, what’s open when and what have you. We shall see. I will certainly report in on whether, as Catherine suggested, I am not a person who should fast, for the sake of those around me as well as my own sanity. This is very likely true. But perhaps then I will fit right in – maybe Dhaka will become a city of listless, weepy, irritable people. Listless, weepy, irritable, and closer to God.
Tonight I’m meeting a few friends and we’re hopping on an overnight bus to Cox’s Bazar. This is a beach resort type place, on the south-eastern finger of Bangladesh – it boasts the world’s longest sea beach. This weekend there is an annual beach clean up, and we’re going to attend, and hopefully have a little relax and a look around at the same time. I’m looking forward to it. Just after my Shob-E-Barat entry I managed to get out of Dhaka for the first time and was it ever refreshing. I went to Sonargaon, which used to be the capital of Bengal once upon a time, until the Portuguese came and declared it too vulnerable. One good move by the Portuguese, I suppose, because now it is a flood prone area, whereas Dhaka is not (not the centre, anyway).
Sonargaon was beautiful to visit. After an intense battle to get instructions to the bus station, I got on my way in the morning. I had made the mistake of casually asking a colleague who was around – ‘At which bus station do I catch the bus to Sonargaon?’ Very quickly this person was calling that person who was calling another person and arranging a car to take me… I ungraciously took off down the stairs waving and shouting, ‘No, no! I’ll figure it out! Ok, thanks, bye!’ Then I asked the friend I should have asked to begin with, one who listens to me when I say ‘I-WANT-TO-GO-BY-MYSELF.’ And hooray for that, because I LOVE to travel alone. Even the short, one and half hour bus ride tickled me enormously. Once there I visited a big Rajbari (‘King’s House’) housing a museum; it was surrounded by a large, beautiful grounds in which I wandered and was stared at. There is a place nearby called Panam Nagar, which has a beautiful street of old, largely abandoned buildings of various vintages. I had a hard time getting the stories straight, and was so happy to be out of the city and in the sun that I didn’t really care, but I gather the abandoned street is around one hundred years old, but built on part of the ancient city. Many of the gorgeous buildings are crumbling; people do live inside some, with plastic sheets and mats as front doors.
Near the end of the day I met a nice British couple and wandered around the countryside with them a little, poking our noses through a village, which was lovely. It appeared fairly wealthy, with a number of pukka houses; it was nested in rich, green vegetation, a joy to my Dhaka dust-and-shit abused nostrils. We were trying to get to see an old temple to Shiva, but the way was flooded. I accepted an air conditioned ride back into Dhaka with them, the convenience of the offer over-riding my desire for another solo journey. Back in Dhaka, life has been looking up in many ways. I’ve been getting out a bit more: I accepted an invitation out for dinner for an acquaintance’s birthday and enjoyed myself so immensely that it occurred to me (genius that I am) ‘perhaps I should try to see people more often.’ We went out for Japanese food, which was part of the charm; I genuinely almost wept to eat spicy tofu maki and miso soup. At that time I had just recovered from illness, you see, so vegetarian protein appeared a precious, beautiful thing (of course, it still is :) ). We also had a couple of drinks and played charades, which must be soulfood on some level, because it really refreshed me. Since then I’ve been out with a Westerner at least once a week and having some fun. This is nice just for its own sake, of course, but also helps me cope with the negative parts of my isolation in Central Dhaka. Isolation in the middle of this crazy city.

Have a Talk with God

2007-08-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Shob-E-Barat, an Islamic festival and a national holiday. Actually, the national holiday is tomorrow, but tonight are the festivities. Tonight is the night in which all that will happen to us in the coming year is written by God. It is also the night on which God is closest to us – usually in her distant seventh realm of heaven, tonight he descends as close as she can to us, and stays there the whole night. The mosques are full of men praying through the night. I can hear singing from the one across the road and the only things open are the little shops and snack stalls that have fuel to offer.
I have not yet begun my prayers, but they will come. There is so much to pray about, let alone for. When I get into the fors I shall have to restrain myself, only having all night to work with. I think I’ll begin with the obvious ones: a pony, a big wheel, a baby brother. Typical ‘please God give me’s. From there I’ll quickly move on to the less glamourous but more pressing fors: strength, endurance, clarity, health, and a few day trips to get out of Dhaka and out of my current funk. Actually I won’t call it a funk, not having lived with it for long enough to give it such a long term- sounding name; I will call it shock and fatigue and that should characterize it pretty well.
Past few days I have recovered from illness part three (Thank God. Oh yes, must work that in) and am eating like a horse, if horses are crazy about potato chips and care packages from Canada. Who knew that Ryvita could make a horse so happy? Despite this my mood is shaky – I am tired when I wake up and weepy on and off through the day. A good, solid manifestation of culture shock, I would say, though mortified by my tears. Crying from stress perversely makes the stress worse – it relieves some tension, but brings on fear of vulnerability and of appearing to be a basketcase. There is none of the release available from having a good cry on someone’s shoulder (not that I’m much of a fan of that anyways); if I had a shoulder I was close enough to have a good cry on, this stress may have been diffused before I came to the crying part. Ok, not likely. I’m a crier. And as I alluded to in an earlier post, the Canadian foreign service rates Bangladesh a ‘5’ on a 5-point scale of hardship compared to living in Canada. So, really, let’s all shed a few tears together just for that, shall we?
My coworker Shohel, who is my closest friend here, has been a witness to a few of my tears. That scares me, though he is very kind and supportive; I want to appear tough and composed, resilient. Instead I’m afraid that what I suspected is true – that the ‘emotional stability’ required by international work (that’s what the lit-tra-chure says) is not something actually in my possession. I’m infinitely crackable, in fact, and something much bigger than a chink in the ole veneer (Veneer! Drink!) appeared last night when I saw a lady who looked pretty much dead lying on the median in the road. I actually gasped she looked so dead; it isn’t at all unusual for people to be on the medians and sidewalks, but I’ve never seen anyone dead before. I didn’t know what to do except get the hell off the median. A gap in traffic seemed long in coming. On the other side I still didn’t know what to, so I kept walking to a place I could sit down – the park. From there I, absurdly, translated my internal hand-wringing (‘What to do? What to do!?’) into a text message to Shohel. Maybe there are less-expected things to ask advice about via text message, but I can’t think what they might be.
I did nothing, of course, other than say some prayers, it being unlikely that if I dialed 911 someone would come and take her to hospital. Shohel advised that I need not worry at all, saying that here there are many people on the street and someone would be taking care of her. I was skeptical and guilty as I walked home, but a little heartened to see that she had turned over (and could therefore be said to be not dead) and that indeed there was a bottle of water and a few things by her. Someone was maybe taking care of her.
This brings me back around to something, what is it…. Oh yes, tears and prayer. Culture shock, the inadequate term, encompasses, among other things, the fighting of a battle over register – where should my reaction to A or B register? I have my own inclination, yet I look around to note the actions and reactions of others and to measure, if I am smart, to some extent the appropriateness of my reactions as compared to theirs. Culture shock is not just finding things different from where you’re from, seeing things that are extraordinary to you, like women approaching death on the median. Culture shock is watching your reaction register at a level so different from that of the people around you that that difference shakes you just as much as does the face of the dying woman.

‘I was really disturbed by seeing that woman last night,’ I said to Shohel this morning, still working through it on a walk to the corner store. ‘Yes, you told me,’ he said. ‘How is your juice?’

It was good; mango. I finished it in silence.

A day indoors

2007-08-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

What is this place? What is this place that I am in and how can I know it?

6 p.m. on the first full day of curfew. I left the building briefly this afternoon to buy a chocolate bar, having struggled mightily to get down some kind of lunch. The shopkeeper asked me, in Bangla, what I thought of the curfew – ‘Bhalo? Bhalo na?’ Good? Not good? I don’t know. I know what I think I think, but I don’t have the words to tell. In Banglish I got out that I think violence is not good, that today has been good in the sense that it seems calm. But that didn’t come across clearly at all, nor is it a clearly formed opinion – our corner seems calm, but beyond our corner I cannot see (I can’t go out!) And what meaning does ‘calm’ have when it is fear that keeps people quiet? I am afraid of the unrest. Maybe, stupidly, I am more afraid of it than of law enforcement. This is my conditioning and my ignorance. I can maintain this position because I have not had to go out today – I have not been questioned or chased by police.
The shopkeeper told me he thought it was not good, the curfew. If cars go in the street then something something. Shops are supposed to be closed and that means a loss for him. He is not closed mind you; the few little shops by our building are open. There are young men playing cricket in our road, as if it were Friday afternoon: I stopped by them long enough to get a brief introduction to Cricket 101. ‘Your country plays cricket!’ they tell me, like I’m an idiot who is not paying attention. How can I not understand cricket!?
I walked up onto the roof long enough to get some air, some wind up my skirt, but otherwise I have been parked on my balcony all day reading ‘Brick Lane’ by Monica Ali. It is about a Bangladeshi woman in London, but is so much about Bangladesh itself. It is funny, at least I find it funny, a Canadian in Dhaka reading about a Bangladeshi in London and from the book I am learning so much about the country I am in. Where am I? What is this place? How is it that I feel I come to know it best through its literature, rather than through living here? What will tomorrow bring?
Sirens again. In the past few hours I had begun to see rickshaws, autorickshaws, even buses resurfacing. But now the sun is on its way out, maybe it is time to get off the street.

P.S. I keep thinking of a man I saw rollerskating in the park the other day. He had actual rollerskates, like the 4-wheel kind you strap onto your shoes, it was fantastic. I keep meaning to mention it, because I laughed and laughed, hiding my smile with my scarf. I was jealous, though.

Illness and Unrest! Diarrhea and disorder!

2007-08-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

August 23, 2007 7p.m.
Greetings, loved ones – this will be an entry in pieces, I’m afraid. I began writing last night but grew too tired to complete my thoughts; this evening the situation has changed a little, expanded, and I want to write about that too.
Today as I write we are approaching my first curfew! It begins at 8 pm and it is 7pm now. The sun has just set and I am feeling expectant; I hear sirens go by from time to time and I think “there goes the ‘law,’ to enforce ‘order’ where they have created disorder.” My mobile phone seems to have no network at all, which irks me because I ordered my friend Shohel to call when he arrived home. His way home is through Dhaka University and tonight he has walked that way.
Ah! I paused to take a breath and noticed there is something burning in the middle of Nayapaltan, the street that I frequently struggle to cross to get to the market. Whatever it is is burning bright orange and as I watch it I also realize that it is remarkably quiet out there for a Dhaka evening. Everyone must be close to home now, or else rushing to get there. I wish I were not alone because I want to point these things out to someone – there is fire, there is quiet, there are sirens.
I am wondering about what this fire signifies. It marks exactly the place where a bloody crosswalk is needed, that’s for sure. But I don’t think that’s it. Anger, I suppose. We are angry and we have burning to show it. I am concerned about the violence. In my bourgeois way I watch the protesters on TV and fret about the stone-throwing. Who does it help? But then if I were beaten by someone in law enforcement, I would hope my friends might toss a few stones in protest, you know? And it sure doesn’t seem to be the police who are getting injured in these exchanges.
Oops, fire is doused, show’s over. I wonder who put it out.
Maybe in half an hour I will experience Dhaka in silence. I wonder if it is possible. I’ll let you know.

[August 24, 11 a.m. Yes, it is possible for Dhaka to be quiet! It was so striking a difference, I made a recording to eventually compare with a normal night. I'm sure we'll have one of those soon. The curfew continues this morning, much to my confusion, as I somehow thought curfews only applied at night. A couple of people came to the office today, but have since rushed home, the government having declared today a 'holiday.' Ha. I think I'll pretend it is a rainy Sunday in Scarborough and go back to bed :) ]

A day earlier: As I write this I am sitting on my balcony on the 16th floor, watching the sun go down. Actually, no – my balcony faces east, so what I mean to say is that I am watching the sky change colours and turn dark. I like Dhaka and my neighbourhood in particular so much at this time; the way the buildings glow a little pink, the green of the coconut palms seems to deepen, and I feel tired but relaxed after a long day and a short walk around. I went to a different market than usual to get my vegetables this afternoon; instead of heading north into Shanti Nagar, I crossed the main road into Segun Bagicha, where there is a small indoor market. I am pleased – I hadn’t yet found anywhere I liked to buy vegetables (needing the right combination of a kind vendor and good quality produce). I had been buying from one guy in Shanti Nagar just by default, sort of – the kid working with him spoke to me in English the first time I was there, so I went back. Today my Bangla is better, so I can get by with that and a little miming, so I feel good about my new source of veg.
It has been a tiring day, though I did very little work. I acquiesced this morning to the good suggestion Shohel made yesterday – the suggestion that I should go to the traveller’s clinic. I hummed and hawed and ‘oh they’ll just give me drugs’-ed, but then I woke up sick again this morning for the fourth day in a row, so I made a sniffly announcement that “yeah, I think you’re right, it is time to go.” Not that a visit to the traveller’s clinic at the ICDDRB (basically a diarrhea hospital) is such a huge ordeal – I was reluctant to go because I’m so disappointed to be sick again! Again! What kind of joke is this, three times sick in seven weeks?
The fact that there is such a thing as a ‘diarrhea hospital’ here tells you a lot about the epidemic proportion of the problem in Bangladesh. The commonness of it is cold comfort, though, and frankly I expected myself to be somehow immune, being young and healthy and tough. I’m not feeling so tough now. I’m feeling weak and tired and thin, and it is the thinness that got me to the doctor. I do not think of myself as a ‘thin’ person and so looking in the mirror and seeing someone with skinny arms and face is very disturbing to me. I tell you this not to scare you, dear family and friends! ‘Cause I will be fine! Just to illustrate for you my distress. Thin! ME! Intolerable.
The doctor was great. He was nice and funny and accustomed to foreigners and so well-equipped, I think, to respond to my concerns (i.e., ‘I want to stop getting sick, but if I can’t eat raw vegetables I will go crazy’). They did some tests and he gave some helpful advice about staying healthy. It obviously isn’t easy to do. It is so strange: I thought that knowing the basics of food and water safety would be all I needed to prevent illness. I guess I have some more work to do – chlorine drops to buy to soak my veg and a conversation to have with the cook at work. Sigh.
This bodily suffering of mine is small fry though, compared to many. The ICDDRB has been so inundated by patients since the flooding began here that there is a large tent wrapped around the building to care for them. I could look at my own situation this way – I have been essentially healthy for 35 of the last 45 days. I struggle to clean my food and water, but it is basically possible. I HAVE food. I HAVE water. In particular, I am not forced to drink filthy floodwater, though I know it makes me ill. These are blessings and, perversely, privileges.
Moving on from the workings of my digestive system… I went to a lovely park on Saturday, in Dhanmondi. Dhanmondi was described to me as having at one time been ‘New Dhaka,’ before the even ‘Newer Dhaka’ appeared and spread. The park is around a beautiful lake, the first I have seen in the city that is not completely filthy. We arrived at first in front of ’32 Dhanmondi’ – the house that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman lived in when he was assassinated in 1975. He and almost his entire family were killed all at once – only two people survived, one of whom is his daughter Sheikh Hasina, presently the leader of the Awami League and in jail on a number of charges that may or may not be fabricated. Sheikh Mujib’s house is preserved, rather grotesquely I think, mostly as it was found on the day they were killed. Where each family member was killed is highlighted. Spots of blood are ‘preserved’ under plexiglass. Certainly the definition of what is and is not acceptable to show is culture-bound; I found myself having a lot of ‘I can’t believe they’d display that’ reactions. I have visited places in North America where bullet holes have been preserved, but not blood alongside photos of the dead as discovered. It was too much for me, in the way that the details of violent crime in the newspaper (here and in India) are too much for me. I don’t need to know, to see so much. I would prefer not to.
It was interesting to visit, though. Mujib is considered by many to be the ‘Father of the Nation,’ as he was the one who declared Independence from Pakistan and eventually became Bangladesh’s first Prime Minister. That was only a few years before he was assassinated. Such a history of bloodshed this country has, at times it is overwhelming. I wonder how it shapes people’s character, but I don’t know – it would be foolish to think that A +B = C: Violence – Number of Years Since Event = Something or Other.
It is definitely a volatile place – yesterday and today there have been demonstrations at Dhaka University in response to yesterday’s beating of a few students and a teacher by the ‘Joint Forces.’ The military has apparently been camped out at Dhaka University since December last year, as well as at many other institutions, I’m told – at the University they set up shop in a gymnasium. Yesterday there was some small dispute over the use of the gym and beatings ensued. Today there was much marching in the street, stone throwing, and demands for the Joint Forces to get out of the university immediately. Fair enough, if you ask me – there is no call for the military to be camped out all over the place in civilian spaces. Unless of course we’re living under a military dictatorship? (The question of the hour!) The head of the military appeared at the hospital to speak with the students and was refused entry. Shohel tells me that in 1991, under General Ershad, it was an incident just like this that brought down the government. Interesting. But what does it mean!? I wish I could speak Bangla and get in on the discussions at the lunch table; I get filled in, but it isn’t the same as being able to follow the conversation and ask questions.

Check this out

2007-08-14T23:50:00.000-07:00

Two things: a nice picture of me and an insightful commentary on what's happening in Bangladesh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6943873.stm

Level Five Hardship Quotient

2007-08-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

The heat is almost unbelievable. It is so powerful: intense, persistent, beginning first thing in the morning so that I wake with a head-to-toe sweat. I am fatigued even before rising; for two days now I have been using the air conditioner (relatively) without shame, because otherwise I can neither sleep nor think, nor anything else. Just sweat. Face sweat, hand sweat, arm sweat, leg sweat. It’s hot.
The electricity is off and on more frequently at the same time. In the office, when the electricity goes, work slows almost to a stop – anyone who uses a computer takes a break and reads the paper, again. It isn’t long before those who were reading the paper anyway stop doing that as well and lightly wield the news as a fan instead. I find it too taxing even to wave my arm to circulate the air; I tend to just sort of sit and stare and pretend to continue to read. It comforts me to exclaim about the heat, as well, which I suspect comes across as a bit idiotic to the locals, I don’t hear them doing it. Isn’t that the content of some stereotype about Canadians: ‘Sure is a hot one!’ ‘Cold enough for ya?’ that sort of thing? I can’t remember, my brain has melted.
Despite the brain melt, it has been a good week. I look back at last week’s ‘shit, shit, and shit’ commentary on Dhaka and have to smile – it is apparently not possible to look on the bright side at all times. Perhaps it would be too blinding to do so, or numbing. It makes me think of a common punishment for students, which my Bangla teacher told me about (he was trying to threaten me at the time, but it didn’t work very well. I work for a human rights organization). He said that students who don’t do their homework or fail to memorize assigned lessons might face corporal punishment, or have to stand on a chair in the corner indefinitely, or stand outside and look into the sun until the teacher says they can stop. Heeee… I smiled meekly and answered quickly when he asked if such punishment was used in Canada. The last two are, of course, forms of torture, and if implemented by agents of the state should be considered so...hey, wait...
But I’m getting off track – what I want to say is that I’ve been loving this city this week. Maybe the heat really has addled my brain, or perhaps I reached a step up at the mark of one month in Dhaka. I did some fun things this week. I ate faluda at New Market and didn’t get sick. That was a triumph. I went to a dinner hosted by the High Commissioner at the Canadian Club and I didn’t totally hate it. That was a surprise. I met some nice folks volunteering for various periods through VSO, as well as the other CIDA interns. I also met some of the High Commission staff, and the head of CIDA, Rajni Alexander, who I enjoyed because she asked a couple of probing questions about my work here. Everyone still makes the same face when I hit the word ‘torture’ in my job description; I don’t know if I expected that to be different here, or if I am just a little lulled by constant talk of torture in the office, but it made me laugh a little on Tuesday night. People are interested to know who is being tortured by whom but for some reason it is challenging to give the real answer, “many, many people, by many, many other people,” without losing my listener’s attention. I’m working on developing concision in the profile I give.
People are also concerned that working in an organization for torture victims might be awfully disturbing for me on a daily basis. At the moment the truth is a little humbling – I’ve read some really heavy stuff, particularly an old commission on indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, but what is disturbing me on a daily basis is my own ‘torture by academic literature.’ One can’t underestimate the power of the academy to inflict unusual pain and suffering, haha. Not funny. But this is my life: the realities of poverty and torture and flooding and genocide on the one hand and, then, connected by a loooooooong, ever-so-thin thread – my work and daily life on the other hand. Strange.
Speaking of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Thursday was Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I hope you all wrote a letter urging quick and just settlement of land claims in celebration! There were events all day at the Engineers’ Institute not far from my house, and I was very excited to be able to walk over there after work and meet up with a few of my Canadian friends to check it out. We made it in time for the ‘cultural program’ – the singing and dancing. There were thirty different groups represented there, and every one performed in some way. It was hot and packed and ROWDY— in short, fantastic. I don’t feel I could do any of it justice by trying to describe in typed words, with one exception: there were two women who performed a dance with wine bottles balanced on their heads. And the bottles held lit candles. At the same time they palmed tin plates in fascinating ways; the climax was when they hopped up onto water jugs and further balanced on single feet. It was highly impressive, and fueled much speculation about how long one has to practice to be able to perform something like that. The backdrop on the stage was a mural of the Bangladeshi landscape with the words “Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Language and Culture.” It is unfortunate that I didn’t attend the panel on issues facing indigenous communities in Bangladesh; I would have liked to hear what people are saying about these things. I also think that as an organization we should have been there in solidarity, and I’m starting to think about how I can advocate for things like that. As I get to know the organization a little I notice it doesn’t seem to have a lot of ties with other NGOs who are part of the same movements. How can you be part of a movement and yet work in isolation? This is one of the questions prominent in my mind at the moment – if I can manage to stay awake long enough I will eventually start to prod and ask.
Yesterday I went to the market to pick up some clothes I had made. I bought the cloth and had it tailored because I was finding that I had to do my laundry too frequently for my liking! It took a while to find someone at work who could recommend a tailor, but I persisted – the sewers in the audience will know that not all tailors are created equal. As far as I’m concerned it is a great nuisance to find you have wasted your money on something that is ill-fitting. These clothes turned out perfectly: the tops require bizarre contortions to get into, but then look beautiful on. It was fascinating to be at the market on a Friday evening – it was packed with swirls of people throughout the huge, sprawling complex. Generally there are sections to the market: a bedding section, jewellery section, book section, pots and pan section, various cloth and clothing sections, you get the picture. Part of the market is covered, but much of it is essentially small shops on winding outdoor courtyards, and I find it quite enjoyable to wander in it. Especially in the evening as the sky overhead turns shades of orange and purple as it slowly darkens. I found special joy in the market yesterday, too – I was so happy to see groups of university-age people standing in the courtyards and winding through the rickshaw traffic outside, with posters stapled to their shirts and buckets in their hands, collecting money for flood victims. It is the first I’ve seen of this, and the first moment I’ve had in which I knew something I could do to try to help. In some ways it is a small thing to give money (if you have money to give), but I was moved by the ease with which market goers reached into their wallets and pushed bills into the volunteers’ hands. Regardless of the need or cause it is my experience that in Toronto we tend to avert our eyes and give a wide berth to people asking for money. Many a time I have done the same and only after passing by stopped myself and questioned why my instinct was to grasp rather than give. Yesterday I was glad to think ‘yes, let us give freely and easily,’ though we don’t necessarily know how much it will help. I wish we would always give freely and easily according to our means, not according to our fear.
On that note, I must go. On with the day.
Allah haphez,
Julie.

2007-08-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

Another sunny Saturday in Dhaka. I feel very small and detached when I look at the front page of the paper every day, which shows ever more intense flooding, even in the eastern parts of this city. How can that be, I wonder -- we haven't had rain in the city for a few days, so I assume there is a river to the east that is overflowing. I can't see it from my window, so I don't know it to be true. Yet there it is on the international news feeds.
Apparently I am living in a different world. I've had a full and pleasant weekend -- I was feeling relieved to have recovered from 5 days of illness, and excited to get out in the rainless air, so the first thing I did was spend the morning in Ramna Park. On Friday mornings it is sparsely populated, and though I was very matter-of-factly wrangled into some photos by passersby, I feel I managed a brief spot of 'solitude in the open' that is very hard to come by. Ok, I had a little help -- I gave some women a few taka after they very kindly asked a group of young men that were standing by my bench staring at me a question that I couldn't muster "Eh, she doesn't understand Bangla and she's trying to read an English book. Why are you still talking to her?" Thank you, nice ladies. A little later a young couple came and sat by me and shone a light on something I wasn't quite getting, by saying -- "If you are reading alone in the park you must be very sad! I don't think anyone else comes to talk to you like we are, do they?" Ha! Oh, I restrained a snort as best I could. But I appreciated the totally incorrect perception, because I hadn't realized that along with people being curious, they are trying to be nice to me.
I find it very awkward to struggle everyday with being stared at. It is difficult at times to deal with gracefully, and I so want to be graceful. And gracious. Yesterday afternoon I went to visit Ahsan Manzil, a 'Pink Palace' of the former Nawabs, down by the river in Old Dhaka. It is a huge, beautiful building from the mid-1700s, with a museum full of odd, luxurious things that they used to use there -- silver spittoons, for example. The giant skull of Nawab Abdul Ghani's favourite elephant (yikes). There were a lot of people there. I went with a young guy from work who was tickled that I invited him (I'm mildly concerned that we may be dating now and I don't know it :) After wandering around the inside in a crush of people, stopping to read the English signs and make a small child cry (my first in Bangladesh! Yes!), we sat on the huge sweeping staircase that faces out onto the lawn full of people and garbage, and beyond to the river. It took about 3 minutes for us to be completely surrounded by people, staring intently and listening to the questions asked by those who spoke some English.
It is interesting to notice what people ask me about -- 'What is your country? Why are you here?' of course. But a little girl yesterday asked me nothing but 'Apni ki khaben?' -- 'What do you eat?' Good one. 'How do you like our country?' is a common question, but yesterday I was taken aback when my pat answer didn't fly. This guy wanted to know 'what do you like about Dhaka?' Hmmm, I said the people. The people are nice. 'Only the people!?' he said, clearly unsatisfied with the answer, 'but what else? Isn't our city wonderful?' Mmm, ahhhh, yes, right... well the, uh, trees are...Sometimes I go to the... hmmm. I scrambled for things to say I liked. I felt like a terrible snob. But then, later, thinking honestly to myself about it, I could admit that it is not easy to like this city. People from Dhaka seem to adore it. I am enjoying it -- I am enjoying much of its character, the life that takes place in it, the spots of beauty and interest. I would not have wanted to insult my audience, but if I could have I would have said something very much like this: ' Let's look at nuts and bolts, shall we? The city smells, tastes, and looks like shit. At every corner there are people essentially living out of doors, in piles of garbage. The gutters reek. Garbage is not taken away but is left in open bins in the street. All electrical wiring seems to be bundled on the outside of buildings, hanging all over the place, and people are routinely electrocuted when they touch the wrong wire. The traffic is shocking and kills people daily. The air pollution is shocking. The poverty is shocking (and I haven't even visited any of the slums.) Unemployment is high. Goodness knows what's going on with the government...' In short, what, really can I tell you, dear Dhakaite, who wants so much to chat with me about the city? 'I am happy here, but I find most of your home repulsive?' Siiiiigh. 'People are nice.' Please lets leave it there.
On a different note I was asked the other day to weigh in on disaster management. People want to know if we have flooding in Canada, and what we do about it -- this week I could point to the news from Newfoundland and say, actually, yes we do have flooding from time to time. Of course I've no sense at all of what we do about it! It, uh, goes away eventually? I get the sense from the media here that coverage of the flooding is high, but the response and help available for victims is not proportionate to the need. I saw an excellent quote from a woman 'flood victim' the other day: the paper said 'Mrs. So and So expressed frustration with all the attention from journalists-- "How are we doing? How does it look like we are doing!?! We've been swimming around in this soup for 7 days and the water keeps rising. Are you going to keep standing around asking me questions, or do you have some help to offer?"' Zing.
I would much prefer to pitch in than to criticize.
Khoda haphez (God be with you),
Julie.

Expatriate Games

2007-07-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Today, Saturday, was a beautiful hot, sunny day in Dhaka -- the first full sunny day I've seen since I've been here. I took some advantage of it, but only walked outside without sunscreen for about 30 seconds before I remembered that that was an awfully stupid thing to do :) After Bangla class, I had 'brunch' at the Canadian Club, to which I have recently gained access, and soaked up some of ths rays reflecting off of the pool.
The Canadian Club. I've been a member for two days and I've already grown disillusioned with it. It is nice enough -- beautiful, in fact: spacious, clean, well-kept. Everything Dhaka seems not to be. And the pool, oh the pool -- I could have wept with joy when I saw it. I very nearly did weep, though, when I learned that I wasn't allowed to go in, as Saturday 9-5 is a time reserved for High Commission staff only. Oh, I don't much care for that little rule. Exclusionary bastards. And, mind you, there weren't actually any High Commissioners swimming in the pool when I was there -- I was, in fact ALONE in the complex -- but I couldn't bring myself to just run and jump in, trusting that the staff weren't likely to bodily pull me out. It would probably be them who would get in trouble if caught, not me.
So that was the end of my brief honeymoon with the Canadian Club. I know that the occasional beer there will hit the spot all right, but I'm otherwise quite focused on the down-sides (which include: inconvenient swimming times for the little people like me; it looks like a prison from the outside; it is next door to the US consulate, which looks even more like a prison -- maybe it is, haha; and... oh I don't know what else. I'm simply bitter and uncomfortable with the stilted luxury of it all).
It was very odd to talk to a few Canadians this weekend. I met up with a couple of people I met at my Bangla school, a couple working in Dhaka through the Aga Khan Foundation. They live in Banani, the part of Dhaka mentioned in my last post -- referred to by these folks somewhat ironically as the 'Soho of Dhaka.' I suppose that's what it is. If Soho is just a concentration of wealth and has a 'Dominous Pizza'. Anyhow, they are nice people, and I'll likely see them again, though I am loathe to spend too much time in that part of town. I feel like a ping-pong ball after this weekend -- I called them up on Thursday partly because I realized I was feeling the stress of the constant attention I've been getting in my neighbourhood. I thought it would be wise to start to cultivate some relationships with other folks who aren't from here. Now after a couple days of chatting with people who aren't from here I feel intensely like avoiding Westerners as much as possible for the rest of my stay. I remember feeling a little like this in India: like there is a community to be engaged in, but a community that somewhat resembles the Twilight Zone. Real, and yet not real. There, and yet not there. Or, more to the point, HERE, and yet NOT here.
So ping-pong, I'm back in my office, revelling in my isolation, and pondering my allergy to white people (haha). In other news, I went to seen the National Assembly building today -- I wish I could say I had photos to show, but at the moment I don't. It is an extraordinary building, monumental, with enormous grounds, and in fact world renowned for its architecture -- one has to admire from afar though. Under the State of Emergency parliament is not sitting, indeed there is no parliament to sit; security also just generally keeps people away from the building for 'safety.' Across the street from the assembly is the mausoleum where Ziaur Rahman is buried -- he was the President who built the National Assembly, before he was assassinated in 1983. The mausoleum is stunningly beautiful, and designed to be connected by a long path to the assembly, surrounded by manicured gardens. Our guide, the workmate of one of the Canadians, had a lot to say about the importance of Zia to Bangladesh, in particular his contributions to stability and democracy. I had some questions about that, knowing that Zia achieved power during a long period of martial law... but what questions can one safely ask when ill-informed? Perhaps anything, you would think, but no -- everything political here seems to come with a strong bias, polarized to the two biggest parties. I find myself, then, listening for people's biases and a little timid to ask questions that might reveal my own. And what is my bias exactly -- general ignorance, can that be a bias? An assumption that a military ruler cannot be a good ruler. A vague knowledge that somewhere along the line enough people were tortured under military rule that my place of work came into being, and somebody or other is probably responsible for that...
I don't know. I have a lot of questions. All my posts so far seem to come back to politics: maybe I need to get down to doing as much reading as I am writing.

Bangladesh Zindabad

2007-07-24T01:14:00.000-07:00

This was written on July 21st -- sorry about the delay in posting. We had some really intense rain on Sunday and the internet has been out ever since...

As I write this entry I am sitting in a coffee shop in Banani. This is, as far as I can tell, one of the rich parts of town – chains of international businesses are here, international banks, and it is nearby where most foreigners live. It is also where my Bangla school is located. Coffee World (“Where the World Meets”) would be a fairly swanky coffee shop even in Toronto, with Latin-flavoured elevator music and drinks and sandwiches that are extremely expensive by local standards. It is a bit of a respite, though, in that I don’t yet have any other ideas of where I can sit quietly for any length of time, other than in my room. In my part of town there isn’t a lot of hanging around being done, except by men on the street, and though it would be funny if I sat down on the curb and started writing a journal entry, I can’t imagine it would end well. I would either be run over by a rickshaw with an inquisitive driver, or my head would explode from too much attention (it may do that anyway).
Today it is grey and rainy and therefore well-suited to writing in a coffee shop. Yesterday was a little nicer and I was occupied in quite a different way – a friend of mine from work, Shohel, showed me around some of Old Dhaka, the part of town he lives in. The character of the place struck me as typical of an ‘old’ town – very narrow lanes and potted roads, which were navigable yesterday only because it was Friday. I loved it. We walked down past Sadarghat, the port area on the Buriganga, and even on a Friday morning it was packed with men – buyers and sellers, of fruit in particular. I’ve never seen so many pineapples in one place before, I was awed. People were crowded around trucks, bidding on crates of mangoes – I wanted to get in there and bid myself, you know, take up a little fruit trading on the side, but I was far too occupied with sinking in the mud and generally holding up traffic with my lack of assertiveness at squeezing through small spaces.
It was quite a lovely morning – we went to Lalbagh Fort, to Dhakeswari temple (the city’s main temple), and to Shohel’s house, where I made my first awkward attempt to be polite in a Bangladeshi home. I fared best with his 4-year-old niece, who was quite happy to pretend to be shy while playing a kind of peek-a-boo around a corner. She has a hole in her heart, incidentally, though she seems quite healthy. Her mom and dad are going with her to Bangalore, India next month for the surgery she needs; it seems like quite an ordeal. They are traveling so far to be confident of good treatment, and will stay there for 6 weeks while she recovers.
The last thing we saw in the morning was the memorial, near Dhaka University, to the martyrs of the 1952 Language Movement. At that time, when Pakistan was new, it was decreed by the West Pakistani rulers that “Urdu and only Urdu” would be the official language, despite the fact that 50% of the country (what is now Bangladesh) did not speak or understand Urdu, but rather Bangla. The martyrs were killed during a student demonstration that was part of the Bangla movement; they eventually won recognition for Bangla as an official language of Pakistan.
Interestingly, I think, the monument that stands today is not the same monument that was originally erected – the original was destroyed by Pakistan army barrage in the 1971 war; I saw what was left of it at the National Museum last week. Yesterday afternoon I continued on to the Liberation War museum itself. It was a sobering experience – it is not a huge museum, but the movement and war for liberation are meticulously documented through photos, newspaper clippings and artifacts, starting from the Bengali contribution to the anti-colonial movement. Many of the photos were so graphic that I skimmed over them, deeply disturbed by the disgusting things that people do to each other. I was moved by the individual stories of people who resisted and died in the war in one way or another, particularly women. I was also moved by the observation of a Western chronicler of the massacre, who was quoted as saying the level of carnage accomplished in a short time was made possible by the fact that most of the world neither knew of nor cared about Bangladesh. This very same ignorance and/or lack of caring continues to facilitate so many atrocities today.
I was moved by this museum to ask myself what is ‘liberation’ exactly? And specifically, what is the meaning of ‘liberation’ for Bangladesh when 35 years down the line the heroes of that liberation have all been assassinated, and the country is considered one of the world’s most corrupt and poverty-stricken? Not to put too fine a point on it, but even blunted it rubs a little. Of course it is, in a way, a terribly arrogant and privileged question to ask – people who lived through the events of 1947 to 1971 (and oppression and starvation by the British before that) might volunteer to clarify what is bloody well meant by liberated and not liberated.
Still, in my privilege, I think of this question in relation to recent political developments. I thought people seemed outwardly quite calm about the caretaker government, and the elections put on hold, until Sheikh Hasina (who has in the past been Prime Minister, and most recently leader of the opposition) was arrested the other day. My office exploded with speculation about what it would mean; people worry about violence, about instability. They also assert that she is not guilty of the charges laid against her, which tells you something about the way they winds of allegiance blow in my office. My eyebrows were resting somewhere around the ceiling, as I am skeptical whether guilt or innocence is really the point in the current anti-corruption drive. The newspaper reported 368,000 people arrested on corruption charges since January, 150 of them ‘high level’ politicians. This process has been undertaken by the caretaker government, which has itself been illegal for a few months now. It swears that elections will be held by the end of 2008, and in the meantime special, expedited prosecutions are taking place. It is in this context that I turn the word ‘liberated’ over in my mind.

Love to you all,
Julie.

Julie Chamberlain: Searching Woman

2007-07-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

I’m recovering nicely from a stunning head cold I had over the weekend. It was awful, I felt weak, and its certain connection to the air quality in central Dhaka had me thinking ‘that’s it, it is never going away. I’m going to be hacking and sneezing for six whole months!’ Thank goodness that no longer appears to be true.
The worst of the cold coincided with a few days without rain, and on Saturday night I sat and watched the most extraordinary lightning storm before I went to bed. You see the odd lightning storm at home, I guess, if the conditions are right, but they rarely are. Here the heat was thick in the air and the cracking and explosions of electricity in the sky flashed white and orange, pink and blue. It seemed to blow back and forth across the east side of the city, culminating in four or five lightning strikes (that I saw at least), and finally a fantastic, cooling rain. Hallelujah. When it rain it rains hard.
The downside to this beautiful storm that I sat and watched from my balcony is that it was undoubtedly dangerous to the many people who live more exposed in the streets of Dhaka. It reminded me of how many people are struck by lightning while working in the paddy fields of Maharashtra each year; my oohs and ahhs at the spectacle were tempered by crossed fingers, hoping for safety.
On my way home from my first Bangla class tonight I saw a man curling up to sleep on the median of a highway; he spread out a piece of paper, rolled up his shirt for a pillow, then lay down. I slowly passed by in my air-conditioned car, one of the 4X4s and drivers from my work, which I have access to most anytime I want. It made it easy and safe to get to the other end of town for my class, but it is a strange luxury for me. The kind of thing that irks me, that I would be reluctant to indulge in if it weren’t for the safety aspect.
My first Bangla class was good. I had a good few laughs at myself trying to pronounce sounds that don’t exist in English. I discovered that I aspirate an awful lot of my consonants for no known reason, which made me feel like a bit of a freak; maybe that’s why people occasionally ask about my ‘accent’ – I’m unconsciously overbreathing Ks and Ts. The funny thing about starting class this evening was that I had my first moment of real language frustration earlier today. One of the guys at work had put together a short ‘drama’ (theatre piece) on the theme of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and with some social work placement students was trying it out in front of all the staff for the first time[1]. It was of course in Bangla, but I understood that it was a story of maltreatment of a domestic worker – misfortunes were blamed on her, she was excluded from family life, and she was beaten for perceived mistakes. It was very well done, very powerful, and I appreciated the use of song and rhythm to convey feeling.
After they performed there was an open forum in which the ED invited anyone to stand up and say what they thought about the connection of the piece with human rights. I understood the request, but didn’t get any of the lengthy comments that people made. Person after person stood up and expounded on their reactions to the piece, and I watched and listened and noted when the group paid attention, when they nodded in agreement or didn’t, and when they laughed uproariously as they did at the comments of the Deputy ED.
It was the laughing that got me. It is so depressing to witness a really good laugh that you’re not a part of! It was the first time since I got here that I began to feel that, ‘oh, this sucks, I so want to be part of the group’; I was having flashbacks to being in India last year and sitting through literal days of information I couldn’t understand. It can be so deeply frustrating, especially if you are intent on being engaged with others and with what’s happening around you. And then I was asked to comment. I was mortified – how can I comment when I have no idea what anyone else has said!?! (That’s a question telling of my mindset, I suppose, but there you are.) I spoke very briefly about what I saw and heard, said nothing of any insight or interest, the end. It was horrible. Language is such a pain in the ass. You want to get to know people, and have people know you a little and instead, boo – if my coworkers got anything out of my speech it was likely a confirmation that ‘aami Bangla jani naa’: I don’t speak Bangla :)
Work is going well, though. There are around 50 staff that I am trying to get to know, trying to mingle at the lunch table (another setting in which I understand/say very little). What I am doing right now, and probably for the next few months, is working on research related to the ‘Victims Associations’ that the organization facilitates. If I haven’t mentioned before, BIHR/BRCT is basically a two-pronged organization: on the one hand they work on monitoring occurrences of torture, reporting them, and advocating for systemic change to prevent torture and gain reparation for people who have been victimized. On the other hand they are a group of social workers, physiotherapists, psychologists, and lawyers, who work to treat survivors of torture and support them in their various struggles – for health, for economic survival, for redress (and particularly having their names cleared, as laying multiple false charges is a common intimidation tactic), and to engage their broader communities in prevention of further torture. That’s where the ‘Victims Associations’ come in: they are groups that support each others’ rehabilitation, often have some joint economic ventures, and engage in education and advocacy in their villages. BIHR/BRCT would like to evaluate the effectiveness of these groups, and to that end I am working on researching related, if not similar, ideas in order to situate Victims Associations within the world of social work practice. So far it is highly unglamourous work. I sit in front of a computer which I have appropriated from a coworker and read academic articles all day in between long bouts of waiting for PDFs to load. In the past few days I have explained what I’m working on to a few workmates, and inevitably they ask, ever so tactfully, ‘and, tell me, do you enjoy this work?’
Haha, oh goodness, no! I’ve always hated literature reviews, actually, which why it is awfully funny that I repeatedly find myself next to them in a sentence. I like the analysis part, usually: actually thinking about the ideas, trying to jam them together or pull them apart and then creating an argument for why anybody should care. The searching part is dire. I am consoled by the purpose of the work and its usefulness to the organization, by tea breaks, and by the title I have been given by a coworker: after a look at what I’ve been up to so far, he declared, ‘You’re the searching woman, Julie, the searching woman!’ Oh, indeed. Indeed. I’m having cards made up ASAP.
Peace,
Julie.

[1] One of the many approaches used by the Bangladesh Institute for Human Rights/ Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (BIHR/BRCT), where I work, is drama – to educate the rural public about rights, torture, and psychological health.

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

2007-07-14T05:51:00.000-07:00

The end of my first day off work, at the end of my first week in Dhaka. I took it easy this morning despite feeling a sense of responsibility to get out and into the world, to soak up as much of the city as possible. My respiratory system is notifying me that it has already soaked up quite enough of the city, thank you. God bless our natural cleansing systems, though – I get some joy out of my coughing, runny nose, and sore throat, thinking ‘that’s it body, you get that crap out of there!’ Go team. I’ll let you know if I still feel the same way if I get diarrhea on this trip.
The assaults on the senses, on the body, are of course what one registers first in a new place, which is perhaps unfortunate. What if our sensation and comprehension moved from subtle to obvious, rather than the other way around? The other day while on a walk to Ramna park I glimpsed a book for sale with the title “Dhaka: Dust, Dirt, and Destitution,” and I thought, ‘Ouch!’ Surely the residents of Dhaka would like their city to be known for something else? I don’t know yet, it is the broad strokes that get transmitted first and farthest.
Thank Goodness for this park, and for my coworker who showed it to me. It is perhaps a bit bigger than Trinity-Bellwoods in downtown Toronto, and well covered with all kinds of plants and trees I don’t know the names of. Palms certainly, flowery things… Before and after working hours (I can only testify to the ‘after’ of course) there are many people getting their exercise here: speed walking mostly, or using the jungle gym for grown-ups. It is cooler here, with plenty of places to sit – there is a small area only for women, and a section I think is especially for the canoodling of youth. Though you can certainly still hear it, the din of the traffic – the roar, the honks, the ringing bells of bicycle rickshaws – is muffled just enough to clear one’s head ever so slightly.
The ever present noise does make me yearn for a clearer head at moments. I am reminding myself that with time I won’t hear every ring and bang and honk; as my brain gets used to my surroundings, I hope to be able to block some of them out. This is also the case with people. Sometimes I want to engage with everyone and at other times I can imagine how welcome an invisibility cloak would be. I went to the National Museum this afternoon, which was packed, and I experienced the same thing I have everyday on the street: intense, curious stares that 9 times out of 10 turn to averted eyes if I myself chance to look. I like people (sort of[1]) – I don’t mind if they stare, I would too. I don’t mind if they laugh, talk about me, or insult me in Bangla (I wouldn’t know at this point anyway), and I don’t mind if they approach me and ask me what my country is, my name, my occupation, my marital status, my level of education, where I am staying, and what my mobile number is. I do generally lie and say I don’t have a mobile, but otherwise, what the hell, here I am in Bangladesh. And all these folks came for a look at the history of the country today, and instead got a good, long look at a Canadian.
There were some genuinely interesting exhibits. There was a mat woven out of ivory. Seriously. No idea how that can be done. “This is the most impressive example of ivory work known in Bangladesh,” stated the placard, and I thought, ‘Rather!’ (In an English accent for effect). There were a lot of beautiful black stone carvings of Hindu gods and goddesses, Buddha and Bodhisattvas, from the many hundreds of years of varied religious history across the country. There was also clothing and jewelry from a number of indigenous peoples, which was fascinating but disturbing, as surely it should be with the people to whom it belongs. If they’re still around, which they may not be from the little I yet know of treatment of ‘tribals’ in this country.
Speaking of genocide, the exhibit on the 1971 Liberation War[2] was quite moving. I didn’t understand a lot of it, as it was mysteriously mostly in Bangla though other exhibits were in both English and (a political statement, perhaps? A shout-out to the language movement of the 40s and 50s?) There were photos of the bodies and mass graves of the victims of the genocide, and of the 6 million people who were displaced to India. There were weapons and skulls and the remains of the Bangla movement monument that was destroyed by the Pakistan army. There was a ridiculously normal-looking 1970s office chair that Sheikh Mujib apparently sat and did leader type things in (‘So-and-so realized that this was an historical chair’ read the caption, hilariously). Interestingly, on display were a lot of posters, stickers, and buttons from the American and British movements in support of Bangladesh. I was moved by the urgency of the slogans, and by the fact that they were part of the exhibit; it reminded me of all the work that does go on at home against atrocities like the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and the occupation of Palestine. In Canada I often feel that the cries for awareness and help fall on deaf ears; the display of the double LP of the Concert for Bangladesh made me think our support and pressure or lack thereof does mean something to people who are themselves struggling. “Bangladesh, Bangladesh,” sang George Harrison…
It has been a good week. I’m constantly hot and dirty. I’m so far glad I live alone, because it gives me the space I need to think. I have good work to do, that I feel capable of doing, and my co-workers are nice and speak an impressive amount of English (thank goodness. I’m hoping to start Bangla lessons next week). More soon on what my work at the Bangladesh Centre for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims/ Bangladesh Institute of Human Rights is all about. For now here’s a link to the Asian Human Rights Commission website, which BRCT is an active part of: http://www.ahrchk.net/ Click ‘No Torture’ on the left-hand side to see what’s going on around here, and read torture-related urgent appeals.
Love to you all,
Julie.

[1] It is complicated. I think I'm living testimony that one can be a social worker without being terribly, well, social.
[2] The very ‘Coles notes’ version of the Liberation War is this. After Partition in 1947, what is now Bangladesh became East Pakistan, and what is now known as Pakistan, West Pakistan. The 1971 war was one of intense and brutal aggression on the part of West Pakistan (the dominant province and centre of government) in response to rebellion and agitation for Bangla separation. With the intervention of India, West Pakistan ultimately surrendered and Bangladesh became independent. The killing and rape that was perpetrated by West Pakistan in 1971 was so extensive and systematic that it is known as an attempted genocide.