Life, liberty, and the pursuit of rickshaw art

When I came to Bangladesh for the first time in 2007, I was captivated by the rickshaws.  They reminded me of the way that the kids in my neighborhood used to decorate our bikes for the annual Independence Day “parade” (i.e. kids on decorated bikes riding together) every year—just as colorful, just as gaudy, and definitely as colorful.  I read that you could go down to old Dhaka and buy rickshaw art.  I decided that this was the gift that I would get my friends back home.  First, I had to find it.  Luckily the driver that was with me knew where we could go, so I was able to pick out a few pieces to take with me.

When I stopped through London to spend a few days with Ruthie, she loved the pieces so much that I left the one that I’d purchased for our mutual friend Mike, who kept promising to come to visit her, in her care, for her to enjoy until he actually got out there to claim it himself (that was in March 2010).

So Ruthie had it in her head that we were going to buy more rickshaw art.  My Bengali friends scratched their heads at me a little bit when I told them this, and said that I could take her to Jatra, a high end socially conscious store up here in Gulshan.  “No way,” I said, “Ruthie wants to full experience!  I’m taking her to bicycle street.”

Dhaka’s early bird special

What are you scallion about?

 Saturday morning, I drag Ruthie out of her hotel at 7AM with the promise of an opportunity to wander through historical buildings in old Dhaka.  We are supposed to meet my friend (unnamed on purpose—he knows who he is!) at 7:15 and being a little neurotic about time, I decide we need to take a rickshaw instead of walking.  Knowing that Saad and Tawsif will interrogate me later about the prices I get, I’m motivated to bargain more aggressively than usually.  “Amra gulshan 2 jabo.  Koto?”  (We will go to Gulshan 2; how much?) “50.”  I’ve decided that 20 is my limit.  “Bish (20)?”  He says no, and I turn and start to walk away.  “30!” he yells after me.  I shake my head and keep walking.  He catches up and tells us to get in.  It’s probably more than the guys would pay, but my sense is that 100+ is the expected norm for white skin people, so I’m rather proud of myself. 

We arrive, I give the guy tk 20, and he wants 10 more.  “No way!”  I say, “we agreed to 20!”  “30!” he says, pointing at me.  Darnit, he beat me to the point; I lost the duel.  I fish out a tk 5 note and hand it to him, then turn and walk away as he yells after me.  Arrrrrgh, this negotiating stuff is harder than I thought.  Must be faster on the draw.  Clearly I need to spend more time studying Tawsif, the master pointer.

Chitter Cha-tter

One of the most beautiful buildings in Dhaka is the parliament building. 

It sits in Dhanmondi, an older section of Dhaka that I really like—to me, it feels like the Jamaica Plain of Dhaka, perhaps.  The buildings and the trees are older than in my section of town, there are some interesting cultural and arts institutions, and lot of fantastic, no frills restaurants tucked here and there.  I don’t know the neighborhood all that well yet, but have a fascination with it that drives me there whenever I can come up with the slightest reason.  Parliament building plus an invitation for dinner with my Bangla teacher are more than sufficient to get me down there on this day.

I’ve ridden past it many times, but never gone onto the grounds.   Ruthie offers the perfect excuse for me to “play” tourist.  I’ve been working on a list of things to tick off while she’s here and this is at the very top.

When the weather is nice on a Friday, everyone flocks to the parks.  Today is no exception.  Ruthie gets a taste of the intense curiosity and friendliness that foreigners encounter here on a constant basis.  All types of foods are for sale, often by roaming venders—freshly peeled cucumbers, ice cream, tea, popcorn, cotton candy—but we’re more interested in views of the architecture and the beautiful flowers on the krishnochuro trees. 

And your point is......

In all relationships, one has moments where you say, “ok, this is built to last.”  In my friendship with Ruthie, that moment came in Slovakia.  She had planned out a great itinerary for our spring break trip through Eastern Europe, and I had decided that we needed to introduce an element of spontaneity to get “the authentic experience” (darn that Anthropology 101 class for teaching me about “the gaze”).  So I suggested we hop off the train at a random stop, in…..Slovakia.  Ruthie asked me to do just a little research, but at our hostel the internet was down, so I pressed on without any real information.  We got off at Cuty and got to see why some places don’t make it into the travel guides.  Cuty had no hotels, no ATMS, a weird guy who followed us around, and nowhere for us to spend the 4 hours until the next train to Brno except the train station or sitting in the rain at the bus stop.

We've been spotted doing weird things on three continents, in at least 7 countries!  And
spotted posing as raptors.....a lot.  Dhaka watch out!

I had failed.  I had wasted several hours of our precious vacation time in a sleepy town that left much (everything) to be desired.  Ruthie had every right to explode on me for a hair-brained scheme, poor planning, etc.  But instead, we were filming post-modern shorts on her camera, taking gangsta pictures with our hoodies and sunglasses (in the rain), and just having a blast.  And instead of being the moment that broke our friendship, it’s ended up being one of the stories that we tell often and with a great deal of fondness—it proved that it’s who you’re with that matters most for having fun.  Sure it’s easier to have fun in a place like Prague where there are beautiful castles and things, but the scenery only takes you so far.  Luckily you can find weird guys anywhere (but more on that later).

Case in point: once Ruthie was awake and we got some coffee in her, we plopped down in the posh lobby of the Westin while we waited for my friend to pick us up.  Naturally we were drawn to the egg shaped chairs that spin, and before you know it, the camera is snapping, we’ve got our sunglasses on and we’re doing gangsta humpty dumpty impressions.  When in Rome, right?

Not a country yolkel anymore, thank you very much

Hatching schemes, as usual

It's a scramble to get us moving again. We've got such big eggos that they weigh us down.

Fishing for compliments

Yesterday morning, my friend Saad convinced me to let him pick me up at 4:30 and join him and some colleagues at the Mawa fish market, which is located right on the river and is about as fresh as you can ask for.

It's 6AM!  It's like Macy's after Thankgiving everyday!

A 4AM wake up is tough any day, but here's complicated by several factors: I have to inform the guards who control the keys to the front door that I need them to be around at that time, the lift is turned off at night so I have to be awake enough to come down 7 flights of stairs by cell phone light, and of course (because it's me and I've been making "lock it up" jokes), there's the front door locking/unlocking to think about.  Our door is one where you need the key to lock or unlock it.  We used to have two sets of keys, and then there was no problem with my erratic late night/early morning comings and goings.  But then, two weeks ago, I was riding in a rickshaw and some guys in a car snatched my purse right out of my hands, and with the purse, went one copy of the key (along with my mobile phone which had accompanied me around the world.  Luckily my wallet was in my pocket!  Yay for jeans!).  So we're down to one key.  I thought that getting another copy made would be no problem.  Ha!  I should have read my own blog on my experience with locks in Colombia to get a clue.  Turns out that our key is unusually thick, so finding a place with the right width to make the copy is a bit tricky.  Luckily, aided by my expanding Bangla vocabulary, I arrange with one of the maids that I can wake her up so that she can lock the door behind me.

Life is uncertain, eat!

Yesterday was a day of culinary discovery.   A new coffee shop called the North End (uhhh, sound like Boston?) opened in a nearby neighborhood and I’ve been trying to get there for weeks.  Their hours at 7AM-8PM and they are closed on Fridays, so it’s been tough to get there with my work schedule.  However, I have an eye on performing here sometime, so I managed to convince my friend Farhan to go with me to check it out.  We ordered two lattes and when I went up to introduce myself to the owners (who, coincidentally are FROM Boston, so that North End reference, yeah, it should sound like Boston!), I noticed that their cinnamon rolls looked amazing.  Freshly iced, gooey, warm.  Mmmmm.  So I ordered us one—breakfast was at least an hour behind me, a distant memory in food time.  It did not disappoint, even Ann Sathers, my favorite post-run Swedish restaurant with huge cinnamon rolls, could learn a thing or two from these guys.  I will be back shortly—I think that I might make it my unofficial office.  Good coffee, quiet space, wifi—assuming I can pace myself on the cinnamon rolls, it’s just about perfect.

As we’re paying, I ask if I can get a coffee to go.  "No," the owner says, "I haven’t been able to find a supplier for lids.  There isn’t a big enough take out market here."  “Fascinating!” the little sociologist in my brain says, scheming away on how to solve this so that I can get take out coffee.  Obviously I can just bring my thermos, but it’s far more interesting to think about how to create a takeout culture, particularly around my favorite vice, coffee.  Farhan looks at me and laughs, “When I see that smile, I get this feeling that you’re going to stay here forever.”  On a bit of a sugar and caffeine high, I am inclined to agree with anything.

A-TEN-tion!

Ten Good Excuses for Being Negligent of Blog Writing (please accept my humble apologies!)

Good cheers in old Dhaka.  With a fellow Hahvahd alum.

1.   I finally got to play soccer!  Yay for the Banani soccer crowd for letting me come out and join them.  My gender was for the most part a none issue—although once when describing who was on what team, I was referred to as “lady”.  And another discussion in bangla seemed to be whether we could move to shirts vs. skins and I might have been the reason why that got vetoed.    After the game, we all shook hands and they invited me back tonight!

2.  I’ve started a band.  My partner in crime is Showvik, a Dhaka University Law Student who loves “music from the 1960s” and plays the guitar and harmonica.  I, the weak link, am struggle to add the little shaking maracas to my singing.  We took on Dylan and the Beatles at our first rehearsal on Friday, and then performed at my place and at Showvik’s aunt and uncle’s house north of town.  We have some invitations to perform, so we’re working hard on getting a decent set list!  Suggestions for the name of the band are welcome.

3.  I made a female friend and she took me shopping for clothes.    Then we had tea at her house.  Talked about girl things.  It was fun.  Here the norms on touching is that you are really touchy feeling with people of the same gender, so she hugs me a lot and we hold hands.  I think it’s great.

4.   Not to be outdone, my guy friends also took me shopping for clothes.  There was no hand holding, but I did end up buying a pretty cool blue plaid shirt.  And one of the guys bought the same one, same size.  We are going to look awesome when we coordinate our outfits sometime soon.  I’m also psyched because he’s got a huge plaid shirt collection and now that I know we’re the same size……..

Grounded? Or the Daily Grind?

So when a friend from college emailed me in February to tell me that some of his friends at Stanford business school were coming out here for a school project, I thought, "Sweet!  I can get them to bring me some stuff".  I emailed my brother Travis to ask him to assemble a package for me, which he very generously did, and then we arranged for him to meet the Stanford people.

The Stanford students successfully make it here and are SOOOO busy with work, that we are unable to meet up.  So they leave the package with the office manager at the organization where they work.  He calls me to come get it, I of course, having schemed this far, have more schemes up my sleeve.  I call a friend who works there to see if she can get it delivered to her office.  Score.  She takes it home with her and gives it to her husband, who works at the American recreational club (10 minute walk from my house), and I pick it up from him there on Thursday.  It's super heavy and loaded with goodies!!!!  I strut back over to my friends at the bar and we break open a variety pack of ghiradelli chocolates.  It's a lot easier to make friends when you come bearing goodies!!

The goods! Minus the chocolate that didn't make it home.....

In going through my loot, I notice one small problem.  Travis lives near Blue Bottle Coffee, which has some awesome roasts, and he'd bought me a serious supply (depending on how whether I monitor my drinking, it could last anywhere from two months to six).  BUT, I while pressing the various bags to my nose to breathe in that lovely smell of good coffee, they were whole beans, not ground.   NOOOOOOOOOOO!  I exclaimed at the American club.  My friend Heather reassured me that she had a grinder, so I could just come over sometime.  But not in the next week because she'd be traveling.  A week without coffee?  Yikes.  Time for a Plan B.

I think I missed a turn somewhere......

If only life actually worked this way.  Too bad I'm not an ambi-turner.

And yes, I was lost when I saw it.  So I cannot find my way back there.....