We are in the middle of Ramazan, here in Dhaka. Most of my (Muslim) colleagues are fasting from sunrise to sunset. So much for lunch dates and cups of tea. Iftar, the breaking of the fast, consists of many delicious, mainly fried, foods. Since I’ve been with hungry people all day, I am also hungry at 6:40PM when the sun finally goes down. So I’m not above buying something off the street, usually jelapi, which is like crispy fried donut dipped in syrup. Not hard to see why people usually gain weight during Ramazan, since that’s just one of the many options. Iftar is followed by dinner, in case you were wondering.
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| Taking a mid-morning break for sweets in Rangpur |
Mango season is winding down. I think I hit an all-time record this year in terms of consumption, at least for June and July. Last month I went to Rangpur, up north. My trip’s timing ironically corresponded with mango season, and the destination ironically was one part of the country well known for mangos. Our driver was particularly entrepreneurial. I thought my 20 kilograms would be a lot; then I saw that he had bought about 100 kilograms! My colleague and I barely fit in the car with all the mangos! It was pretty epic. Another irony: I acquired a real fridge while in Rangpur (I was planning to take it a few weeks later, but my friend got evicted when her roommate called the cops on their landlord, who hadn’t noticed that they’d been paying the utility bill for the whole building—a lot of money being paid off scamming the foreigners. Unfortunately it ended with him throwing them out, instead of anything resembling justice). But back to my side of the story, which is: I got a fridge and a washing machine! The fridge enabled me to spread my mango consumption out over a few weeks—I was worried I would turn orange otherwise (my hair has already turned a dark, reddish color which I’m assuming is due to the iron content in the water). Muri, which is essentially rice krispies, is a staple food here, and mango, milk and muri is a classic breakfast for villagers.
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| Mangoes riding shotgun |
Another normal breakfast food is suji, aka cream of wheat! Now that surprised me when I first tasted it. Now that the mango season is ended, I am slowly transitioning to breakfasts of suji with pecans and craisins. I realized that since I’ll be back in the states relatively soon, I’ve got to clear the pantry for more American food! Yesterday when rummaging I found marshmallows (pink ones, from Australia), and since I had a look of muri around, you know what I made? Pink rice krispy treats. Betty Crocker comes to Dhaka.
I made three new years’ “resolutions” this past year. 1.) convince my parents to visit me. That turned out to be the easiest! 2.) Learn to put on a saree by myself. I watched a youtube video that made it sound really simple, and that led to a bit of a disaster. I was going to a wedding, but couldn’t figure out how all the folds in the bottom half connected to the thing that goes over your shoulder, and it got more and more hopeless. Eventually, my boss’ driver (who is a woman and was waiting with him downstairs for me to appear), came up and rescued me. Not my finest moment. I’m sure there will be opportunities to wear sarees again later this year. I’ve got quite a collection now, mainly thanks to Saroj’s hand-me-downs. I’m convinced that sarees come from a time when women really didn’t have a lot of work and needed something to do to entertain themselves (akin to prisoners redoing their corn rows every few days), but maybe once I figure out all the folds, I’ll be less hostile. They definitely look fierce when well done.
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| Placebo effect never looked so good. |
Resolution 3.) See a BRAC program outside of Bangladesh. Two weeks ago I went to Sri Lanka for a conference (staying on the beach makes any topic sound interesting!). After a few days of gorging myself on the awesome buffet, walking along the sand and dipping my feet in the warm (but rough) water, and talking about randomized control trials with a bunch of researchers, I sneaked down to Galle to see BRAC’s microfinance program in Sri Lanka. It was pretty cool to see the BRAC machinery and work in a very different context. Sri Lankan women were much more economically active—many had full fledge businesses—I saw a grocery store, a black tamarind paste maker, wood furniture carpenter, spice grinder, among other things. It was fun, but the language barrier is as hard as ever (here I’ll catch 50-80% of what’s going on, depending on topic and accents). One woman had lived in Dubai for 4 years as a maid and had learned some English, so she did a lot of translating for me.
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| Buffalo Galle won't you come out tonight... |
It’s good to go to places where you can’t communicate at all to remember how awesome language is. Also awesome was the avocado and ice cream drink that I had after a long day in Galle (have I mentioned that I’ll try anything if it’s on a menu?). My final day, I took the day off, and went to a place called Kandy to see “The Temple of the Tooth.” And no, that has nothing to do with cavities! An Indian prince and princess somehow smuggled one of Buddha’s teeth down to Sri Lanka, and the king had a temple built to house it. I arrived a few days early for a major annual festival when they have a big parade, with elephants carrying a replica of the tooth in a procession around the city. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my day trip to Kandy; it was a small town compared to Dhaka and it was nice to have sidewalks to walk around on. I attracted much less attention that I do here. After wandering the city, I climbed up one of the hills to a nice little park with beautiful flowers and a great view of the temple. It was a very relaxing day; a good end to a packed trip.
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| Everywhere you want to be |
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| Do you want a hertz donut? |
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