My first weekend day

I wake up in the morning to the smell of breakfast fires. I am luxuriating in the simplicity of this lifestyle. Wake up, take breakfast, work, take dinner, work out, read, practice Bengali, sleep. I have stopped shaving my legs and caring about the he said she said. It’s nice.

I went to the market with Bryan and found conditioner and a hair brush. A young man gave me a piece of candy for free at the store. I took this candy from this stranger and ate it. And didn’t die. Score. It was delicious.

I am sitting on the porch now. The air is languid, thick and humid. In the darkened houses you see the light from warm dinner fires not cool TV sets. At exactly 7pm the muslim prayers tumble over one another from different parts of the city projected by loudspeakers on top of mosques. Dogs howl in tune. The effect is both eerie and magical. The Arabic lifts and dips in a way American singing never does.

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea

Bangladesh

My back and neck were in so much pain after the motorcycle ride. I could barely move. I was thankful the day’s trip out into the field was far enough to use a car. This place is so peaceful. The lush beauty of the rice patties are picturesque. We went to a few Thursday meeting in field offices where female distributors were reporting their findings to the team leader. The multitude of hierarchy keeps everyone organized and accountable.

When introducing me, Dr. Hasmot explained I was from New York. From office to office all the women shook their heads solemnly and said “bangalibengalibengaliOSAMA BIN LADIN bengali.”

Cows would occasionally stick their heads into the windows during the meeting and moo very loudly. No one skipped a beat.

Social Economic Status (SES) is determined here by what their house is built from. The highest SES is brick, than tin, bamboo and lowest being straw.

On the weekends all the staff head up to Rangpur because it is where most of them live. Bulbul and I follow and stay at the Rangpur Jiva guest house. The guest house is similar to our faculty house with a few added perks: A guest lounge with over 5,000 dvds (I plan to borrow some) and a treadmill, multiple beautiful porches and many more conference rooms. Bryan, a graduate student from Baltimore, lives here full time working in Rangpur.

Tomorrow I hope to go to the Joo (how they pronounce Zoo) or the market.

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea

My First Day at Jiva

I woke up in the middle of the night from a thunderstorm louder than any I’d ever heard before. The rain coming down sounded as heavy as a waterfall. Monsoon season.

After breakfast, Boubol and I were picked up by a car and taken to the Jiva office. It is everything a tropical, rural workplace should be. It has a bright, dreamy feel with large wooden doors open to small porches that look out to trees and lakes. All the facilities are fittingly outdated and worn and fans keep the air’s water from settling.

I was introduced to every staff member, around 50 in total, and every person’s title and place in the project. So many names and so many nods.

I was called down to the courtyard to get on the back of a motorcycle to go to the field site. The ride was scary enough to make any American mother scream in horror. I loved it.

We whipped through the small town and made a right onto slivers of dirt paths between vast rice patties. We parked in front of a school and around 20 kids came out and followed me at a distance. I played a game with them where I would abruptly stop and turn around to look at them. The first time I did this I thought they were going to scream with fright but when they saw my large smile they knew it was a game and giggled for the rest of my trip.

I followed field workers into little tin huts to check on pregnant women and their multivitamin intake. The huts had no light and were tiny and beyond cramped. But they were covered in scraps of fabric to add color. The women were very shy and their heads were covered with scarves. I almost stepped on a chicken and I screamed. They all thought this very funny.

I took a sip of water and offered my bottle to one of the workers. “No no, it’s Ramadan!” I’m a douche.

On the way back, on the motorcycle, we got caught in a traffic jam. A man saw me, gaped, and then shook his companion’s attention. The companion was confused and didn’t know where to look. I felt like saying “He’s saying look at me. Because I have less melanin than you and all that implies.” I should learn that in Bangla.

I came back and took part in a meeting during which I suggested something the group hadn’t thought of yet. Boboul was pleased with me but the rest of them (men), did not seem to hear me. I think it’s more because of my lower rank than because of my gender. Time and my pushy nature will tell.

I took dinner, had some tea, hung up some scarves on the wall and am now writing on the computer in the dark because the power went out.

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea

My Trip to Gaibandha

I took a rickshaw all by myself to the ICDDRB and bargained him down to a reasonable price! Booyakasha. At the ICDDRB I met with a few doctors who had previously done work with drowning in Bangladesh. They gave me good advice on the conflicts I might expect. Women think that their children drown due to evil spirits so when they find their unconscious child, they will often swing them over their heads to get rid of the evil spirit.

I said goodbye to Dhaka and all the people there and made the 10 hour journey deep into rural Bangladesh. My driver did not speak English very well so our conversations were mainly me looking something I wanted to say up in my phrase book, saying it, him repeating it and smiling hugely, answering, and then silence.

The drive was incredibly bumpy and the buses swerving out of our way at the last second made my jaw hurt from clenching so much. So I looked out my window rather than the front.

The country passed by with intense heat, smells, accented with garbage. Clearings would show vast rice fields with women hunched over with babies at their feet. Men stared into my car and when I made eye contact they returned it with such fierce intensity, without trace of humor. I try not to make eye contact.

I stopped and took lunch at a sit down cafeteria that served me Dhal and endless rice. My driver didn’t join me because he was fasting for Ramadan. I prayed to my own God of Road Safety that the fasting wasn’t hindering his driving.

People live in tin slabs propped up as shelters or in straw huts. An old man wore a shirt that said “You want me, don’t you?”

When we got to Gaibandha, my driver said “You have arrived!” I looked around and saw only rice patties. “Jiva is that?” I said pointing to a rice patty. “NO, No ahead,” he said laughing as if I said the funniest thing in the world. Language barriers have reduced my humor to a five year old’s.

The faculty house: 2 stories, filled with rooms to sleep in. There is one conference room with round table, one tv room with TV and two ancient work out machines, a kitchen with dining room table, and a backyard with a garden.

My room has a desk, a chair, a bed and a few night stands. I have the suite room because I’m staying for so long and get my own bathroom. There is a brilliantly powered AC. My purple mosquito net makes me feel like a pretty pretty princess. I have a white lizard in my bathroom that I have named Fred.

I met the other resident, a doctor originally from Mongolia, who is going to be living her for two years. She seems very nice and had to finish dinner early to meet her Bangla tutor. I want one of those!

I unpacked, downloaded another book on my kindle (I’m averaging a book every few days), and settled under my net. This place may drive me insane. But if I can break through the insanity and hold out, I think it’ll be the best experience of my life.

I flossed tonight for the first time in years. Because what else is there to do?

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea

My First Adventure

I decided to go on an adventure. The “C & G”’s are small, caged, slivers of a car that take you from place to place for only a dollar or so. Like one of those rides at the fair where you are caged and flipped upside down, one grabs for the cage of the C & G and fears for her life. The C &G’s love to face speeding traffic and swivel between cars and trucks. My C & G was hit in the back sending me reeling toward the gate. The thoracic herniated disk that I was conveniently diagnosed with right before the trip loves Bangladesh.

I have been practicing my Bangla constantly so I strutted up to a C & G and told him to take me to Ashnan Manzil or the pink palace. “Yes yes of course” he spit at me with red stumps of teeth and took me across the city to an Asian International Trade Expo. My second attempt took me to the pink palace after 2 hours of wading through traffic. I have never seen driving this bad. Not in India, not in Costa Rica, not even in Baltimore.

The pink palace was 20 minutes worth of cool and then I got another C & G and took the 3 hour ride (seriously) home. The drive back went through a dense market place filled with colors and cha and sweat and garbage. We got stuck in a monsoon downpour and I became drenched to the bone with equal part rain and sweat. I am really looking forward to rural Bangladesh. I went home, got a chicken roll from down the block, showered, napped and then met Katie and company for dinner at café mango.

The pollution here is palpable and tangy. I wonder if muslim women, because of their covered nose and mouths, have a lower prevalence of upper respiratory infections.

Asalam Walaikum,

Chelsea