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.

Luckily all these steps run together, and despite sleeping through my alarm for a good 15 minutes, I'm in downstairs in one piece by the time Saad pulls up.  Driving through Dhaka on empty roads is a treat; I barely recognize all the landmarks since we whiz by them and there a none of the day crowds to clutter up my view.  Once we cross the river and leave the city proper, it's even better.  The road is new, well paved, straight and fast.  It's lined by these amazing old trees that just arch over the road.  I feel like we could be in a buggy driving through a grove of willow trees down in the South; minus the occasional rickshaw and guys in lungis out in the fields.  And the hindi soft rock music, which I have to say, is growing on me quickly.  Probably better that I can't understand the lyrics though, since often that's the worst part of American soft rock.

Do you expected everything in life to be handed
to you on a silver platter?  Really?!

The fish market is pretty interesting.  It's all men and really busy.  Clustered around some booths are groups that look like they are in a huddle; evidently there is bidding going on.  I'm usually out of my league on all things here, but I'm not usually faced with fish that are close to my size, guys hurrying past me with metal bins filled with fish, the sounds of their fins slapping against each other mixing in with the din of serious negotiations going on.  I have to say, I love watching how guys negotiate here.  Key rules seem to include lots of pointing at each other, sometimes interspersed by putting a hand on the other guy's shoulder, and turning around after a final offer is not accepted and beginning to walk away before the seller yells for you to come back.  It's fun to watch; I am trying to be as invisible as is possible since I'm one of the only women, also carrying a camera, and decide not to ask the price ("Dam koto?") on a fish.  What am I going to do with a fish?!  The guys I'm with don't blink about buying several kilos of prawn, big fish, and fish that are so tiny that you can eat them whole, bones and all (crunchy--yummmmm).  I'm quite content to follow them around and guard their bags when they run off to try to find another deal.  I do consider, while standing over Saad's bag of prawns trying to see if I can sell them individually for a mark up back to the fishermen, at least for my own amusement.  But, I still only know a little (kichu kichu) Bangla.  Next time.

We bought them ALL.  Plus more.   Maybe Forrest Gump and
Bubba can help us figure out what to do with them now.

By 7AM, they've spent pretty much all the money in their wallets and each have a full cooler in their trunks.  We sit on the bench by the tea stalls, buying a couple small bananas ("cola") to hold us over until we get back uptown and eventually get a well earned breakfast.  I feel like I've gotten to see a slice of Bengali life and culture that would be hard to find on my own.

We bought all these too.......and by we I mean I
stood there and took pictures.  And intend to help with the eating
part ;)

And today, Ruthie arrived in Bangladesh!!!  She's catching a few more hours of sleep, and then we're heading over to Saad's to finish what we started:  that is, eat the fish!!  

This is the start of a week of vacation for me, so I'm pretty excited, to say the least.

I've uploaded a lot of pictures from the fish market and from Nobo Borsho, Bengali New Year's (April 14--year is now 1418!), which I've very disgracefully neglected to write about yet, but you should check out the album nonetheless!