I bet you thought I had dropped off the face of the earth. I kind of did, relatively. And ironically, I was writing a lot of blog posts, but I'd lose steam when each was about 90% done, and then it became obsolete.
Life here has been busy! I've been on the road a lot--exploring the Bangladesh interior (seven layer tea after a day of biking through tea country in Sreemongal), wandering through Delhi--and hosting a ton of guests. Who knew that Dhaka could be such a tourist destination?
It was really fun to have my parents out here last month. I struggle to find the words to make sense of Bangladesh to those who haven't seen it firsthand, so it was fun to take a break from the explaining and just let Dhaka do the talking. We took a true May family vacation--epic bus ride, arriving late at night only semi-sure about where we were staying, and lots of breaks for food and tea/coffee. Dinajpur is not known as a huge tourist destination (despite its lovely landscapes and large Hindu temple), so I joked to my dad that we were testing the theory of, "it's not where you are, it's who you're with." Luckily it's still funny.
Downtown Dinajpur!
We stayed at the local BRAC Learning Center. We were local celebrities within 10 minutes.
When I told my mom that I was exploring new fields, she didn't know that I meant fields, literally.
This last week, guests descended from the U.K. (Toby, doing his PhD dissertation from BRAC; friend from the Harvard Boxing Club) and China (Mike, hanging out; friend from NYC/Chicago/China). Originally I put Toby in the room with AC, partially because he's a softy and partially because he's here long enough to earn roommate (i.e. rent paying :) status. Within two days though, Mike had buddied up with Toby is sufficiently to ask if he could move into the AC room. I meanwhile enjoy the balmy nights in my mosquito net princess bed.
I have a thing about forcing my guests to get out of Dhaka to see rural Bangladesh. Not because it's "the real thing" (it's silly to say that a city of 15 million is not "real," it'd be like saying NYC is not really America. Wait, don't New Yorkers think that are their own nationality?), but because it's beautiful, calm, and does possess that heartland quality is more apparent in small towns and villages. Shazzad offered to take us to the village where his dad grew up and many of his relatives still live, so off we went to Matlab.
We arrived after an epic rainstorm, and the car got stuck in the mud. I was really proud of my American boys for helping pull it out. Covered in mud, wet and dirty, they decided to jump in the river. At that point I got wet and mud-covered too. I could not flag down a boat to take us for a ride. Luck may be better now that the rains are really getting underway and the rivers will swell.
Mike discovered the lunghi on his trip--what many Bengali men where at home and working class men, like rickshaw drivers, wear outside. It was love at first touch. I took him to buy two to take home with him once we got back to Dhaka--it was all I could do to get him to return the one he borrowed in the village from Shazzad's nephew.
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Hanging out after swimming and eating. Shazzad, me, Mike (with lunghi) and Toby.
Mike and I spent a day in old Dhaka. It was a nice demonstration of how far my knowledge of Dhaka and Bangla have come. Finding rickshaw art was hardly a challenge. I've mastered the art of using rickshaws to get around the parts of town that I don't know, while enjoying the ride through the back alleys and busy streets. Even in the rain.
Mike and I went to Lalbagh (red fort). But we aren't so sure why it's called a fort since it's mainly a tomb and a mosque.
There have also been local events going on that take me outside of my comfortable little bubble. Korail, the slum just south of my home, was bulldozed last week and over 3,000 people were left homeless. It was terrible to see; it looked like a cyclone had ripped through the neighborhood. Many were sleeping on the streets or cricket field. Water, electricity, and sanitary waste facilities were in very short supply.
Already, the areas have been largely rebuilt. Slum dwellers have to be resilient to survive. But there is no guarantee that this won't happen again. In fact the government is saying that it will remove all the "land grabbers" in the area within two months (all slum dwellers are technically illegally living in these areas; there are almost no legal housing options available to the poor).
Many at BRAC have been working to both help those affected directly by the eviction, and to raise awareness. I have been involved mainly with the latter. A piece a colleague and I wrote appeared on a blog today: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/04/poverty-health-slums-bangladesh. We've sent it widely to others and are hoping to get some international attention to catalyze the development of sounder urban policies.
I'm heading to Northern Bangladesh today to learn more about land and property rights, and what it means to approach them from human rights perspective. Always more to see, do, and learn. And occasionally, write.
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