Just Arriving

So I made it. I’m here in Bangladesh. Taking in the sights on the car ride from the airport to my all I could think was, “Am I really supposed to survive here for 3 months, seriously?” The sky has been gray all day with on and off rain. It is hot and humid, which fogged up my glasses as I left the plane and later my air-conditioned van. The roads are a crazy mixture of tiny-green motorized taxis, big battered buses plastered in thick metal and paint, a few nice cars, some motorcycles, cycles, and rickshaws, trains along the road with children playing on the roof, people walking across highways, and then my private van.

My host family is very well educated, and therefore has a nice (shundor) flat in the Embassy district of Dhaka. They have a few children, but the youngest is leaving for China tomorrow so I will be the only child. I have my own little room, which is all I really need, but the rest of the house is very nice. It’s ironic that in the most densely populated country in the world, I have more living space than I have in the past three years.

I hear this is one of the better districts, so I was expecting something like Chicago or New York, but just skirted by the slums instead of suburbs. Not so. The juxtaposition between rich and poor is constant and in-your-face. I went shopping for clothes today with my host-mom and again we had a private driver and went to an actual mall. Once I know my way around a little better, I think I’ll start walking around by myself. Although you wouldn’t believe it if you looked around, this area is probably one of the safest and wealthiest in Dhaka.

For the next three months I am challenging myself to meet locals and get to know the people I work and live with. There are some language barriers, but I don’t consider them barriers, just an excuse to communicate using other means. We have 2 maids so I am furiously trying to learn Bangla especially to talk to them because they are very nice but don’t speak English, except a few words. But today, and probably the next few days or weeks, I will be the awkward American. I try, but I trip over furniture and words interchangeably. I must be taught how to eat, the bones picked out of my fish.

Random note- to find out what time it is in Dhaka, add 10 hours to your time (US Eastern Time), 11 hours after daylight savings. Yes, I’m communicating from the future!