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:
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.
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:
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| Check out my feeeeet! |
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.
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| My Bengali downfall |
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