Discovering Dhaka

As it's been over a week since I've arrived, I'm feeling quite settled into my home, my work, and my routines. After a few days of just lying around the house and figuring how things go in this country, I've been keeping myself busy with shopping and adventures with the other interns. They are unfortunately leaving in a few weeks, but at least they’ve been able to help me out and are quite cool people.

My first adventure was the archetypal first rickshaw ride, which I bravely took in the dark and to somewhere I had never been. So it goes, my destination had actually moved locations a few years ago so another rickshaw driver (who could speak English- some do, some don’t) convinced me he could take me to the new location. You simply can’t get along here without putting trust in complete strangers, as backwards as that sounds. But I safely made it to the “Bagha” Club, which is where the British expats gather for drinks and nightlife every Thursday. My friends were there (thank goodness, because my phone wasn’t working and I couldn’t get in touch with them) and it was a good time. Just like back home- the boys talking about how high they got last week, the girls talking about how ridiculous the boys are, the random old Frenchman hitting on all of the women, and deep conversations about existential philosophy.

The next day we (our fab four group of 2 Americans and 2 Brits/2 guys and 2 gals) took a trip to Sonargaon, a village about an hour away from Dhaka, but to be honest, there aren’t any great attractions in Bangladesh. The government doesn’t have the resources to preserve what it has, so things crumble and fade. At least it was a nice break from the city. The next day us gals went to a different part of Dhaka to see the National Museum and part of Dhaka University. We seemed to be the most popular exhibit in the museum though.

We also braved the cultural divide with exotic restaurants like Pizza Hut and British Burger. British Burger is more exotic than you would think, Pizza Hut is quite similar, except with a Bangladeshi sense of service: “You’re pizza will be ready in 17.5 minutes, thank you!”

I’ve also started working at BRAC, which for now means doing background research and refining my interview questions, and more difficult work like, er, blogging (yes, I’m at work right now). Everything seems to be going OK and I’m finding social science to suit me well. Although it’s Ramadan, there is a restaurant in our building where we get lunch for about $2 a meal, then my family has a feast (Iftar) every night at sundown. I try to eat lightly during the day, but Iftar is my downfall. I’m going to start exercising soon, but the jilapi (fried dough soaked in sugar syrup) and other delicious friend and sugary treats have already made their way to my thighs, sigh.

Aside from the stories, it’s difficult to convey the differences in everyday life here. It’s the luxury, culture, and energy of a city, but add to that heat, poverty, bugs, routine power-outages, and really bad driving. I’m not sure whether Dhaka will delight or disgust me by the end of these next 12 weeks.