An onslaught of mosquitoes and winter fun

Winter in Chittagong has brought a nice break from the unrelenting sweatiness that defined me for the first few months here...but it has also brought HUGE mosquitoes. I have never seen anything like these guys before. So I have taken to my mosquito net and hoped for the best. Fingers crossed that dengue is definitely not on my January list of things to tackle! (Incubation period is a few weeks).

This last month has also brought new friends and new WELCOME adventures outside of the city. A couple weeks ago I joined the Access Academy students on their fall retreat at the new campus site. It's a plot of hilly land about 20 minutes away from our current city location. Building has minimally started, with the completion date TBD. It may be a while. But it's a beautiful piece of property, and the AUW students who inhabit it one day will be very lucky. I'm definitely planning to return to see it. It's so exciting to image what AUW (and furthermore Chittagong) will become!

The retreat was a lovely time with students. We ate delicious barbecue chicken, played an "amazing race" game, and sat around singing songs to live guitar music. One of the songs was this one, the AUW student anthem. It's beautiful and so telling about the students' experiences here. Take a listen!

Last weekend I visited the farm of a nice Bangladeshi friend. She first drove us to a (by Bangladeshi standards) quiet beach and then into beautiful hill country before taking us to her farm for a candlelit dinner on top of a roof. It's so easy to feel trapped by the dense traffic of the Chittagong streets, but these places are in reality only about a half an hour away.

This week kick started my Christmas spirit. I excitedly signed up for the student Christmas carol choir and has so much fun practicing and performing! It really brought me back to the high school choir days and substituted for the fact that I can't listen to a 24-hour Christmas songs only radio station here. On the line-up were such American classics as Winter Wonderland, Joy to the World, Jingle Bells, and...Feliz Navidad. The show also featured carols from the students' home countries, a very entertaining nativity play, and a surprise visit by "Santa" who brought the house down with Mardi Gras style candy throwing. I also sang "O Holy Night" with a small group of faculty. See video below.



Yesterday I also threw a surprise party for my Pearls with the assistance of two WorldTeach friends. I baked up a storm and brought all da goods to school. Then towards the end of our class I told them someone important needed to talk to them (ostensibly about plagiarism - our neverending topic of conversation these days). Then I went upstairs, collected my friends, and we burst in the classroom yelling "SURPRISE!" Nail painting and lots of eating ensued. So much fun. We also attended a "high tea" yesterday, an end of the semester gathering for faculty. Instead of scones we had deep fried potato balls, but I'm not complaining.

A pic of me with some of the lovely Pearls. Check out the rest of my
December adventures in the slideshow below!

This weekend will feature lots of grading after my students turn in their final essays, but some fun too. Tonight we're going to a formal (aka delicious) dinner party that is being thrown for us by a Bangladesh friend. Then tomorrow I'll go to the International Food Festival of Chittagong!! Followed by helping out with a Midnight Pancake Breakfast for the students. I better start getting hungry.

Then on Monday I'll give my final exam and soon after depart for Dhaka. I'll spend two nights there before leaving for Bangkok Wednesday. This teacher is ready to see her sister and for a break! And it will be a nice, long one. I'll be in Thailand about three weeks before spending a week in Burma.

Merry Christmas from Bangladesh, yall!

Giving thanks like a Bengali Barbie

To make a long story short, I had to return to the good ole USA unexpectedly to have my gross tonsils removed (they were certainly not suited to life in a developing country, even if I am). So home I went! I spent about a month back in Baton Rouge, first dealing with said health problem, then recovering from the surgery (my first!) and finally having a little while to enjoy being there. It was my first Louisiana fall since I left for college seven years ago, complete with some moderately chilly weather. I ate lots of avocados, drank many a fountain Diet Coke, appreciated not being a total anomaly and having freedom to move around, and spent lots of time with family (including a cute weenie dog). Then I started the looong trek back with a bonus oh-so-joyful meetup with one of my best friends in beautiful Los Angeles.

So on this sunny, crisp Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my good health, for family and friends who welcomed me home, and for the chance to return to Bangladesh and to the most fulfilling, energizing job I have had so far.

I am also thankful that two weekends ago I had the opportunity to see a lovely Bangladeshi farm! We were invited to the  family farm of a Bangladeshi friend and had a great day hiking through the tropical hillside to a lake and then back through a creek. It was refreshing to be away from the city and so interesting to see so many kinds of tropical fruit trees like JACKFRUIT trees and rubber trees. The farm is a working farm and actually siphons off the white sap from the rubber trees and combines it with an acid to make...rubber. I had never really thought before about how rubber was made, really.

Some photos of the glorious day (check out that critical cow eye!):



Last week, Thanksgiving week, was full of school work. But it ended with TWO great Thanksgiving dinners. On Thursday night I gathered with the small group of faculty from the Access Academy for a traditional dinner complete with stuffing, pumpkin and pecan pies, and candlelight. Then, on Friday, the other girls and I decided it was SARI TIME. We spent a fun afternoon doing makeup and hair prom-style and then went to a salon to have our saris wrapped (very.complicated.) I spent a hilarious 20 minutes surrounded by Bangladeshi women getting the full works for weddings while being fussed over by a salon worker, who did not hide her disgust that I was a total sari novice. But I loved every minute of it. Then we fawned over eachother's saris and took tons of glam shots. So fun. The rooftop faculty Thanksgiving dinner that followed was quite enjoyable, too.

So on this Wednesday after Thanksgiving I am grateful for three more things:

Wonderful students at AUW who inspire me every day

Good friends to share this experience with...

lots of friends!

And finally, the once in a lifetime opportunity to look like a Bengali Barbie!

Bangladesh, once more

I'm back in the DESH after a month away! I returned minus some nasty tonsils but with lots of excitement to continue teaching at AUW (and massive amounts of Halloween candy). Tons of work - thesis statements gone array! - prevents me from fully updating now, but after TWO Thanksgiving dinners this week and more grad school application work I should have some time to sit down and muse about my trip to 'Murica and back. Until then, check out an interesting fact about where I live...I wonder if whoever wrote this has ever been to Chittagong? HA

The rain that cancelled a weekend

This was the scene outside the gate of AUW on Thursday afternoon. Photo courtesy of Becky Rysinski.

This weekend was supposed to be spent in Bandarban, an area of the Chittagong Hill Tracts on the border with Myanmar. I had really been looking forward to escaping the bustle of the city and spending some time outside in rolling hills and green. I need sun! But unfortunately, nature had other plans.

As Becky and I attempted to leave for the bus station Thursday during what was a pretty fearsome storm, we were told - and saw - that the streets were too flooded to leave. That didn't stop a few industrious rickshaw drivers from still ringing their bells, though! Regardless, the bus station was too far away to get any transit to take us there. The guard told us to wait two hours - the streets here lack the draining infrastructure one might find in a more developed country - and try to leave again then. But that would have been too late to catch our our bus. Darn! We'll make it there! And I'm already planning an escape back to the beach for next weekend :) 

It's probably for the best that we didn't end up going also - unfortunately I am a bit sick again and really needed the time to rest and figure out da situation. It's always difficult to be ill in another country, especially one in which you do not understand the healthcare system or speak the language. But I'm making it work the best I can and do have alot of support in my job here. A couple weeks ago I had to have several routine tests done at the hospital, and a very nice nurse from AUW accompanied me. We also had a fearless Bangladeshi hospital employee who was our guide to worlds unknown, leading our way through HUNDREDS of people and always seeming to get us to the front of the line (sigh). I felt ridiculous walking through rows and rows of people, turning heads at every moment, and being a source of amusement even for the man drawing my blood!

Funny story: I left a cardigan at said hospital and thought I would never see it again. But never fear! Our trusty employee guide called and said he was holding it for me. I returned, and instead of being given the sweater right away, was taken on a VIP tour of the hospital with some important English-speaking hospital guy. And when we finally made it back to the room with the cardigan, I was not allowed to hold it until we returned to a reception and and the man had it put in a bag and delicately placed it in my hand. I am to call that man if I "ever need anything." LOL

In other updates, work continues to be empowering and energizing. This week was full of staff interviews for the magazine, and I am doing a polling workshop for the girls Sunday night. My class is going well. I am eating (and loving) lots of spicy cafeteria food, baking, writing graduate school essays, and reading it up. I am also counting down to fall break in Malaysia/Singapore in only about 2 more weeks! I'll be in Penang aka the food capitol of Malaysia for a couple days before spending the weekend in Singapore with a USC friend. Bring it on!

Breaking it down

For inquiring minds who have wondered about what I actually do at AUW, here is a "day in the life" post. Thought I'd make use of the 50 minutes I have to wait until dinner is served :) This is what I've been up to today:

5:30am: Wake-up time (Yikes!) No, I don't actually have to wake up this early. I think too much cha has disrupted my sleep cycle. I do feel decently rested, though, and enjoy having quiet time to myself in the morning. Still, I'm hoping this does not become a regular thing.

5:30am - 8:10am: Getting ready/chilling time. Today I'm donning a bright blue shalwar kameez top with some crazy colors and designs. I'll try to get pics of my wardrobe up soon for amusement. After getting ready I like to email and read the news and books. I've gotten through some great novels since being here (no internet streaming) and right now am working on Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter. My Kindle is getting a workout like never before. I'm trying to remind myself to take a break from my computer at home since I'm on it so much at school.

8:15am: Catch the van to AUW. The van comes every morning inside the gate of my apartment building and brings me back to the same spot after dinner. It's a nice perk, especially because facing the Chittagong city streets can leave one frazzled and sweaty.

8:25am: Arrive at AUW, walk up to the WorldTeach office and throw my things down on the desk.

8:30am - 9am: Meet with the effusive and formidable editor-in-chief of the student magazine (so excited about this!) and conduct an interview for open editor positions. I love having a job where my background is valued and utilized. I'll get to help the girls by providing workshops on all the different components of journalistic writing and editing as well as being a consistent resource for them from pre-production to press.

9:30-10:50am - Attend a lecture for the new media class for which I am TA. Today we had a guest lecturer, the dean of students here, who talked about how social media has impacted her life and career trajectory. I'm the point person on the students' semester-long blogging project. Good thing I learned da skillz here!

11:00-11:45am - CHA TIME, then back in the office, crossing off items on that to-do list. Luckily the copy machine is across the hall and I have finally learned how to make things double sided - a small personal victory.

11:45am-12:15pm: LUNCH TIME! I count down to every meal I get to eat at the AUW cantina (no, it's not actually called that). But the food is really that good. Today we had chapati (thin, tortilla-like bread), unlimited cucumbers and carrots, daal (lentils) and spicy good mixed vegetables of two varieties. I decided to declare as veg here so I can always get the vegetarian options; they're better and healthier. I'm not jumping off the meat ship entirely, though. I don't think I could ever refuse a German sausage!

(I interviewed a cute Burmese student yesterday as part of a WorldTeach project to profile students for donors of the university, and she raved and raved about said cucumbers and carrots. She said cucumbers and carrots are expensive rarities in her home, and she could not believe the cafeteria served them every day and you can take as many as you want!! It's small things like this that add so many bright spots to my days).

1-2pm: More interviews for the magazine. These ladies make me smile :)

2:30-3:50pm: Make-up Language & Composition class with my Pearls. Unfortunately I was sick over the weekend and had to cancel Sunday's class. (A breakdown of my inevitable and hilarious first visit to a Bangladeshi hospital is to come!) Today we worked on verb tenses and strategies for their first narrative essay assignment. Teaching for me in Kosrae was difficult, here it is enjoyable and fulfilling. I love my students' engagement in class and their commitment to their learning. I also relish reading their writing assignments; each has a unique voice informed by her culture and background.

4-5pm: Meeting with my two Pakistani students who unfortunately had to arrive late for the semester.

5-6:30pm: More to-do list time, cha drinking, and blogging!

6:30-7: DINNER. Yes, it deserves all-caps. Tonight's included more chapati (sometimes we get naan!), spicy daal, a mildly sweet and creamy vegetable curry, and some SE Asian-style mixed veggies.

Now I'm waiting for the 7:30pm van to take my fellow volunteers/friends/colleagues-all-rolled-into-one back to our building. Tonight's plans will include a gathering with the girls to watch more West Wing, eating cookies, and doing some reading. Then I'll get up tomorrow morning (hopefully later) to happily do it all over again. And...already almost October? Time is flying!

My addrezz

I am an avid user of electronic communication, but nothing beats getting a handwritten letter or card in the mail when you're away from home :) Here is my address, for those who have requested it:

Helen Moser
The Asian University for Women
20A M.M. Ali Road
Chittagong 4000 Bangladesh

I would also love to send YOU a beautiful handmade Bangladeshi card, so send me your address if you don't think I already have it.

Finally, a quote I love, complements of Jenn Glinski, a fellow volunteer and friend here:

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”
- George Santayana

The Pearls will be reflecting on this in their first narrative essay. Wish them luck!

A happy deshi routine

*While the outrage in the Muslim world over the YouTube video has spread to Bangladesh - there have been protests in Dhaka and Chittagong - they have been quiet, peaceful, and far away from me. This situation has made me more conscious of going out alone and does worry me a bit, but overall I am safe and happy.*

This week is my second "real" week at AUW, and I've now fallen into my normal, busy bee schedule. My Google calendar is filling up by the hour. On a typical day I either teach my Access Academy students or TA for my new media class, attend meetings with faculty and students, tutor at the writing center, and in the time between email, plan for my classes, drink cha, eat delicious free meals at the cafeteria, do grad school application work, and constantly look at said Google calendar. For me being both busy and productive yields contentment, and I'm happy to have finally fallen into this routine. I'm feeling great here at this wonderful university.

I love my Access Academy Pearls! I don't want to blog too much about them out of respect for their privacy, but I have been so impressed with their class participation, critical thinking skills, how much they genuinely want to learn, and the respect and appreciation they have shown to me. One of my students even approached me after class to ask if I could prepare a list of novels she could read in her free time to help improve her writing. Their in-class questions are also a source of personal delight. "Ma'am (they insist on calling me that, as they do all of their teachers), why did Gloria Steinem call her magazine Ms. instead of Mrs.?" YAY.

Update: I'm now officially the advisor of the AUW student news magazine! Excited!

What to do when we're not at school is something the other volunteers and I joke about a bit. Other than spending time in our apartments reading, watching the West Wing or other DVDs from AUW's extensive, if disorganized, collection, and doing other forms of chillin' the options that exist out in the city are basically shopping and eating. I enjoy both of those activities, but one can only look at so many textiles and eat so much naan! Or maybe not!

Off to another gloriously free and hopefully spicy dinner at the dining hall :)

My little corner of the world

On most days I'm at the AUW oasis from when the 9:10am van drops me off until after dinner at 7:30pm. So I was very happy last week to get settled into the WorldTeach office and have my own little space to work and chill comfortably between classes, writing center hours, and endless trips to make copies. It's also conveniently across the hall from my twice-daily cha (milk tea) procuring place! Check out the office haps:

Where I'm sit to work (and email and chat!)

These are a few of my favorite things!

The grand view behind me, made quite lovely when the sun sets.

It's a collaborative workspace. Love these ladies!

Bengali Beach Bliss

The first time WorldTeach Bangladesh ventured to the beach (a beach called Patenga, about an hour, traffic-filled van ride from our apartment) all illusions of quietly reading in the sand, or even just sticking our toes into the Indian Ocean were shattered. Instead, we spent the day being surrounded by crowds who encircled us, asked us to be interviewed for local television, and not-so-stealthily took pictures and video. Ever seen the move when a person stands in front of you so that both of you can be in the picture "together?" Awkward. On the upside we did get to hang out for the local police in the “VIP” tent, but overall it was not the retreat for which we had hoped.

Enter Cox’s Bazar. Last weekend, on WorldTeach’s dime, we took a van over some very bumpy roads (gotta love the back seat – ouch!) for about four and a half hours to reach…serenity. Cox’s Bazar is one of Bangladesh’s top vacation “destinations,” a smaller beach town where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal with some beautiful beaches. That’s what I’m talking about! We spent one night at the loveliest of lovely Mermaid Eco Resort (highly recommend and very cheap, by American standards), where we slept in romantic thatch huts, laid in hammocks, ate freshly caught crab and pasta, and finally got to stick our toes into the ocean. 

See the shots below - I almost felt as though I were back in Kosrae. When it's time for another Chittagong respite, I'm buying a bus ticket and heading south.

A welcome coconut...had nuttin' on the ones we got from our backyard in Kosrae, but still a nice treat!

Interesting Mermaid lobby mural.

Thatch roof paradise.

Hammock time! Catching up on my Eugenides and soaking in the quietude.

Our "romantic" bungalow. 

Bridge to the Bay.

Beautiful Bengali beach.

Time to frolic! Tons of children followed us on the beach and then were our heroes in
rescuing our belongings when the tide came up too high, too fast.

Water, water everywhere! (And not a drop to drink).

Catching a boat to a private beach!

Roommates enjoying getting rowed around.

Ladies with their toesies in the silty sand.

Oh hai!

Come along on a rickshaw ride with me!

From Rickshaw ride

I'm getting back to my journalism roots. Click the image above to experience what it's like to be on the back of a rickshaw. Still not quite like being there, but getting closer!  Enjoy the ride :)

Hot off the press

My TA course assignment:

Course Number: ASIA 3410 (CS3410)

Course Name: New Media

Course Description:

This course offers a unique blend of communication and development studies, policy analysis, and technology based innovation research. New Media is a global phenomenon, emerged in late 20^th century, which symbolizes the near omnipresence of on-demand media content across the world. New Media encompasses online social networking, voice and data based communications, and digital audio-visual contents. It works as a catalyst of wide scale media convergence in every sphere of human society. This course looks into history of New Media, its place in global communication anthology, its present socio-economic impacts on developed as well as developing countries, and the participatory and “democratic” nature of its information dissemination process. Major issues related to Freedom of Expression, Privacy, Social Mobilization, Empowerment, Right to Information and the possible roles of New Media on defining those will also be discussed, based on contemporary case studies (e.g. Arab Spring, London Riot, WikiLeaks, Facebook, 4G Network, etc.). Finally, this course focuses on the key challenges and opportunities of New Media in the coming years, especially from the Global South’s perspective.

Pretty perfect!

DHAKA-TAY

 When an unannounced break from orientation presented itself, the group decided to make way for Dhaka, the capital city!

When you are going to somewhere in the Bangla language, you add an –ay or –tay at the end. Kinda like Pig Latin, minus the first letter switcheroo. So far it’s the favorite thing I’ve learned.

We all boarded a big bus bright n’ early Monday morning, expecting to travel 6-7 hours (without traffic) and arrive in a city that was bigger, more crowded, and grittier than Chittagong.  We were warned that we would be pushed and grabbed on streets overflowing with people and to keep close track of our belongings. Still, with the promise of real coffee and shwarma, we ventured.

The bus was surprisingly comfortable and traffic slight, and in about 8 hours we pulled into the bus station. I had taken the position of trip planner and booked a hostel for everyone, not sure if it actually existed due to lacking communication on their end.  But a nice driver was there to transport us, and off we went to what was overall a decent, if slightly eccentric and malodorous, accommodation for two nights. Not sure where they got their design advice.

Immediately I was overwhelmed by how different Dhaka was from my expectations and  from Chittagong. And this was a welcome change. Our neighborhood, Baridhara DOHS, was full of beautiful residences, greenery, and quiet streets good for walking. The first night we stuck in ex-pat territory, which in Dhaka means the neighborhoods of Baridhara (where the embassies are), Gulshan, and Banani. We took a rickshaw ride and then a nice stroll from Gulshan over a lovely bridge into Banani. What was noticeable was what was missing: calling out to us in the streets, people following us, and intense staring. Dhaka has far more foreigners, and thus we probably aren’t as much of an anomaly there. It was nice to breathe again and just to walk. I was enamored.

Capital city view from a bridge

Dinner consisted of a delicious schwarma sandwich from Shwarma House followed by GELATO. I love Bengali food, but my stomach also craves variety.

Shwarma time! Plus a mint lassi :)

"Are we really in Bangladesh?"

The next morning we again woke early to make it down to Old Dhaka before the streets got buck wild. This required about a 1 hour CNG ride, me sitting on laps part of the time, over rough and increasingly tinier streets, at the mercy of always aggressive drivers. You gotta have the right stuff to endure a ride like that, and I always smile thinking of putting my family and friends into that situation and what their reactions would be.

Our driver let us off at Sadarghat, the main boat station. This is where Bengalis catch boats small and large to cross the river to destinations beyond. It’s really a beautiful sight. We ventured by the river to see the action and then wandered the dense street nearby, which appeared to be the unloading ground for lots of fruit. I have never seen so many pineapples! We also saw the Pink Palace, some kind of historical building, and then decided to hop on a boat ourselves for a lil go around. We negotiated a price (that didn’t stop the driver from following us after asking for more money, sigh) and had a grand time cruising and waving.

Embarkation time

Starting our adventure on the river

Bengali ladies in the sun

We're on a boat! (Photo courtesy of Meghan Daniel)

Banana truck!

Pineapple mayhem

I think they were after some fruit

Bananas for sale

A street vendor

The stoic street guards of the Pink Palace

Now we were famished. After seeking a famous kebab place that never materialized and getting very lost many times (Dhaka's streets are circuitous and unmarked), we picked a random restaurant and had a delicious breakfast of roti (kinda like a flour tortilla – yum), a vegetable dish, biriani (Dhaka’s famous rice dish), and cha (essentially milk tea) for an exorbitantly cheap price. We then wandered around Old Dhaka for a while longer, stopping through a Hindu market street and some empty (!) fabric stores before catching rickshaws to Dhaka University. There the group got comically separated, but this gave my friend Amie and I a chance to meet a real, live Bangladeshi student. We checked out the beautiful, green campus (complete with a pond!) and then utilized said student to show us to our friends and have some interesting conversation. He explained that Dhaka University is Bangladesh’s biggest and most prestigious university. For every one student who attends between 60-100 want to. Compare that to even the most selective US institution. Wild.

While most Bengalis are Muslim, there is still a sizable Hindu population.

Clothes out to dry in the streets of Old Dhaka.

Dhaka University

An academic oasis

Then the group set its sights on a delightful break from the bustle: North End Coffee. It’s the talk of AUW faculty, and for good reason. Chittagong only offers Nescafe powder coffee, or alternatively tea. I think the cha tea is delicious, but I have been missing a good ice latte. North End is on a crowded, dusty street near the US Embassy, but walking inside tricks the mind into thinking one is back in the United States at any trendy coffee shop in any town. We chilled to the max there. I had a delicious soy ice latte and a gooey cinnamon roll :)

That night a smaller group and I checked out a delicious Korean restaurant, where I dined on dumplings and bimbimbap. So good. We closed the evening with a trip to the top of the Westin, the city’s priciest hotel, where we got a grand view of the biggest city in the most densely populated country in the world by night.

The following morning was our last. Becky, my roommate, and I had to leave earlier than the rest of the group to make it back to AUW in time for teacher orientation. (Good thing, because the rest of the girls suffered a 14-hour night bus with some window shattering action). We joined everyone for one last latte at North End, had one more meal at Shwarma House, and then CNGed through dense stop and go traffic (nausea) to get back to the bus station.

Dhaka, unsuspecting cosmopolitan gem, I’ll be back!

The Trojan in Chittagong

It will be a wee bit too early in the morning here (not to mention impossible, due to internet speed) for me to catch USC's first game. But today is still GAME DAY, and I'm doing alot of fighting on from Chittagong.

The ability to "fight on" is essential for life here. Sure glad I'm a Trojan! Chittagong is certainly an interesting home, but it's also a difficult one. When I've asked people who have been here longer than I, like some professors at Thursday night's lovely faculty dinner, if they "enjoy" Chittagong, I've gotten various equivocating answers starting with pauses that hang in the air. I understand. AUW is the reason I am here, and within its walls I am myself, free to walk and talk and roam as I like. I am comfortable dressing fairly freely, smiling, engaging both men and women in conversation, and performing gestures like shaking someone's hand.

But outside campus, deep in the city's harried streets, I move quickly to avoid blatant and elongated stares stares, calling, and sometimes even touching. I should not speak to men, nor smile. The smells and noises of the city are unfamiliar and jarring. I sweat profusely under culturally mandated conservative clothing. I cannot hope to be a "normal" shopper in a market or store, nor to really understand everything around me. I am always charged exorbitantly higher prices and constantly feel that I am a target to be taken advantage of. Groups of men form around my friends and me in public places, making it impossible to do quiet reading on a beach or go for a pleasant stroll.

But through all this, I remind myself to fight on, to keep going out there and trying to comprehend it all. I also remind myself that I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. These crazy streets represent a way of life that so many people in this world have, and that so many people do not understand. These crazy streets, chock full of fruit and food and people and animals and vibrant colors, sounds, and smells are giving me a window to it all.

And slowly but surely I am learning how to be a somewhat successful navigator of mayhem. The other day I did a long walk by myself to get money, inquire about bus tickets, and go grocery shopping across town. Alone I was able to blend a bit more seamlessly into the mix. And anyone who knows me knows I self-describe as directionally challenged. Whenever I move to a new place I struggle at first but know the day will come when I actually understand how to get around. That day has come in Chittagong!

Also, an exciting update about what I will be doing here: I came to AUW under the guise that I would be a TA in addition to doing writing tutoring and other support tasks. But now I will also be teaching! Another volunteer and I were asked (just a few days ago - that's AUW for ya) to take over for an instructor at the Access Academy - in short the preparatory year for the students before they enter undergrad - who bailed last minute.

I will have my own section of language & composition with 15 girls from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, India, and Afghanistan. My group will be known as the "pearls." Each group level has a gemstone name (gotta love all-girls schools), and I especially requested that one! The class will meet three times a week, plus office hours, all year. I was a bit hesitant at first to be thrown into teaching again, but after giving it some thought I am quite excited. I really think meeting with a small group  for the whole year (and working on writing - yay!) will be an incredibly meaningful way to get to know the students and their backgrounds, and to contribute to their education here. And the Access Academy has a wonderful team that is providing us with much support in planning and curriculum building. I will also likely still be a TA and work at the Writing Center, but I am waiting (patiently or not!) for my assignment.

So excited to meet my pearls later this week :) More to come soon on this week's fabulous escapes to Dhaka and Cox's Bazaar. And, as always, FIGHT ON!

Mehndi Magic

Yesterday was a day for Bengali beauty. I started the morning by getting some authentic Henna (called mehndi here) on my hand and wrist. Women here do henna to celebrate Eid and also for their wedding day. The kind and patient neighbor of some of the other volunteers offered to show us neophytes how it's done. As demonstrated by my last post, I definitely needed some help.

Anushka, a lovely Bangladeshi girl living in our building, does
 meticulous henna work on my hand and wrist.

Posing with the artist!

The intricate design in its full glory. The brown liquid dries, cracks off, and then...

becomes this finished product, pretty orange! Now I'm Bangladeshi stylish :)

After henna fun, another volunteer Amie and I decided to go to a salon that's popular with AUW staff for $4 pedicures. It was 45 minutes of bliss and probably the most thorough rework of my legs and toesies to date!  Loving it! 

The news out of Bangladesh...

"It is a powerful blow against an institution that has flourished and helped millions of poor people largely because it is in the hands of women."

Read this New York Times article  about what the Bangladeshi government is trying to do right now with The Grameen Bank, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning microfinance organization. Grrr corruption.

Eeeeeeeep!

Creeping the halls of AUW, the biggest spider I have ever seen.

EID MUBARAK, yall!

The Bengali celebration of Eid is upon us here, marking the end of fasting and the return of the other eleven months' way of life in Chittagong. I'm excited for the streets to re-awaken and to witness what this city will be for the rest of my tenure. I'm also already plotting a street food eating crawl! Eid Mubarak, yall! (Mubarak, by my understanding, means something like the "merry" in "Merry Christmas.")

We have orientation sessions during this time, but the Bangladeshi people around us are spending seven days celebrating the end of Ramadan. They eat lots of food and mishti with family, dress up in saris and do henna.

Now of course I wasn't going to miss out on the henna! Our field director kindly gifted us each a kit (costing $0.50 - confirming my suspicions that Florida beach stores selling tiny henna designs for $15 a pop are making ridiculous profits off pre-teen girls) and we went to work. Unfortunately my drawing skills, especially when using runny liquid that stains, are less than rudimentary. I am planning to get professional henna done for the next celebration day. But I am not totally ashamed by what resulted:

Check out my feeeeet!

Henna designs are made on hands and feet using a brown, thick liquid. You must wait for the liquid to dry and crack, then rub it off. The design stains on your skin in an orange color and lasts for an amount of time that I cannot attest to yet.

Another big part of Eid is mishti (meesh-tee). Isn't that a fun word to say? Someone here has already claimed it as their first cat's name. Mishti are Bangladeshi sweets, made almost purely from ghee (clarified butter) and sugar/honey, and then fried. There are lots of different types of different colors, but not much flavor variation. Mmm the taste of pure fat. This further confirms my scientific hypothesis that every country has its delicious donut!

In the first week here I accidentally bought ONE KILO of a certain type of mishti. The bag contained so many that it lasted in my fridge for about two weeks, even though I shared with eight girls openly. Oh, the deliciousness of cultural miscommunication. Biting down into a mishti is always a gooey, oozey, decadent experience. Mishti stores in Chittagong outnumber Starbucks in Seattle. They are in my face, all the time, and super cheap. Luckily it's (usually) too much pure sweetness to eat more than one.

My Bengali downfall

Shopping in a Fishbowl

Shopping illuminates that blending into the background isn't gonna happen for me here. I've run into two differing scenarios:

1. Stores

Bangladeshi stores are never short on staff. It's common to walk by a tiny store and see six men (the public space is largely male-dominated) sitting behind the counter, waiting for a customer to arrive. The selling strategy is much more aggressive than that of most places in the States, or you could say they feel passionately about customer service!

I've gotten alot of "special attention," no doubt because I am a foreigner. On one solo grocery shopping trip, an attendant literally followed me around the store while I shopped so that he would always be on hand to help. At Khulshi Mart, the store across the street from my apartment, the fruit section attendees (all 5 of them) always offer their assistance with alacrity. They smile when they see me, pick out ripe fruit for me, try to communicate how to eat it, and then assist me in weighing it.

Beautiful dragon fruit, purchased with the assistance of my friends at Khulshi Mart

On a recent shopping trip to a mall to purchase a comforter (for that hard bed!), the men laid out every choice for me, made suggestions, and allowed me to step up on the display - pretty sure this is something that is actually not permitted. I have never seen more smiles than when I committed to buying something.

I always try to graciously accept this attention with a grin and say "dondobad" (thank you). I certainly appreciate it, but I also already miss my shopping autonomy.

Update: Just ventured to Khulshi Mart and scored a free dust pan from some of the workers! I love free stuff, thus I'm liking this excessive customer service more now!

2. Bazaars 

I used to call the end-of-semester outdoor markets at USC "bazaars" and them cats would laugh at me! Now I'm laughing at myself. I had no idea.

I'm sure a Bangladeshi native has a completely different perception of bazarring. But to me, a bazaar in the most densely populated country in the world involves almost pushing myself through dense, animated crowds and over muddy pathways while completing losing all sense of direction and location. If I knew how to say "excuse me" in Bangla I'd need to say it constantly. There is stall after stall selling clothing, household wares, shoes, and fabrics...beautiful things, but everything starts to look the same. The vendors yell "hey sister" at our group on repeat and the stares and gawking don't end. My favorite part is that when I enter a stall to look at one thing, the vendor always pushes an alternative suggestion of what to purchase. So far I've been offered a number of sparkly, flimsy tank tops while searching for culturally appropriate tops and bottoms. Major LOL.

Haggling here is hard! Usually I enjoy a good barter, but I've been unsuccessful at reducing the "marked up for Westerners price" by more than 10 taka. Hopefully I'll lose the newbie look and get better at it, but realistically I know that is unlikely. It is frustrating to know that I am always paying higher prices.

Another major aspect of weaving through markets is that beggars inevitably follow us around, some persistently and aggressively. A recent low point was thinking to myself that I needed to walk faster to lose a man with a cane who had been on the pursuit for 15 minutes. I felt terrible thinking it, and I feel even more terrible writing it here. Children also constantly chase us and tap us and sometimes even grab us to ask for money. It is only when a local tells them to stop that they do. In baby taxis people have surrounded our vehicle when we're stopped in traffic, poked their hands inside, and touched us while staring and asking aggressively for money. It can be very unsettling.

I'm tepid in putting these events and my thoughts on this topic into print. Seeing such terrible poverty all around me is obviously quite difficult emotionally, and I aim not to sound glib or insensitive when describing it here.  One especially hard part is that we've been advised not to give to people on the streets - it's unsustainable, the money often is taken from the children and given to a ringleader, and it can also compromise our safety by drawing the attention of many more people who could swarm us. But being in these situations has been heartbreaking, amplified by the feeling of not being able to do anything. I understand that people here have the perception that Westerners have alot of money, and in many ways they are absolutely correct, even though the members of my group are all on a small volunteer stipend. I wonder what these people think of me and my friends when we refuse their outstretched hands. I'm planning to start carrying around small amounts of food to offer instead of Taka. But if any of my dear readers have any insight on the subject, please pass the wisdom along.

Pausing in a courtyard for a short break on a harried bazaar trip