Wild Animals

We live in an urban environment.  On a daily basis our eyes are primarily on where to step, how to avoid being hit by  bus, CNG or rickshaw, but every now and then we look up or pause and notice what's around us.

Within the last week here are a few of the things we've seen.  As a disclosure - I did NOT take these photos.  It would be challenging to snap photos while dodging traffic!  However, these are exactly what we saw.

Brahminy Kite

Lesser Goldenback

Small Asian Mongoose

We've see multiple mongooses - they live beside Lake Banani.  Makes me smile and think of Riki Tiki Tavi.

Nobody here but us chickens

   Walking down the street I saw a vendor selling chickens.  He was ignoring the chickens, yet they were all remaining right there.  I looked more closely and realized why -- each chicken was tied by one leg to a comrade.  It kept them in one place until the vendor needed them.

   Chickens are not, by nature, very bright, nor are they particularly cooperative, so they never will walk in the same direction at the same time.  I think there's a lesson here.

Football Diplomacy

Football Pitch

   We have been away for a conference up at the hospital the past few days and have just returned to Dhaka.  It was a tiring weekend but a very good one; wonderful to see people we knew before and to meet new ones.
    I confess I have harbored a fear for my children.  We took them out of school in the States and dropped them in Dhaka, where, truth be told, they do seem to be thriving.  But we plan to take them out of Dhaka after this school year again and plunk them in yet another school at the hospital where we will be working.  I worried for their social situation.  It appears I needn't have worried.
    This weekend the boys played football (US: soccer) nearly every minute they were conscious and so made immediate connection with boys up there.  Mary came home and said, "I made five friends on the playground!"  And Anne? we never worry for Anne in that way.  The children returned exhausted but happy and confident, so I did as well.

Banana Coke

In Bangla, each spoken vowel 'belongs' to the consonant before it - i.e. this is Ko-Ka _ Ko-La.
But in the script, the vowel can follow, precede, be under or even bracket its consonant. In this case the 'O' vowel has an ে before and an া after the consonant ক (k), making েকা (ko).  Can you see the great swooping curve they made of the ে in each word?
Pretty clever use of grammatically correct Bangla to make a recognizable logo.  Maybe I'm just punchy, but it's also funny because because Kola means Banana, so I see this and think, "Banana-Coke!".

TCD

Bonnet and Tip

Meet Bengali-Dolly.  

   Mary has treasured Bengali-dolly since 2011, when we were last here.  Bengali-Dolly typically can be seen in a Sari.  Today she tried on a traditional 19th century American bonnet and liked it, by all accounts.  She's a cross-cultural doll, you see - rather than utterly westernizing her dress or, alternately, rejecting western clothes entirely, she has blended them into something new.  She is becoming a 'TCD', or third-culture doll.

Value

Looking at each other 

We have a few days before formal language school begins, yet.  Though I have been studying and we're still outfitting the apartment (it takes a couple of hours just to go purchase the simplest items), today there was an hour when I was not doing anything.  I felt a little uncomfortable - good grief, I should be doing something!

Where does our sense of identity and value come from?  I suspect there are a variety of very common sources.  Do you draw a sense of value from what you accomplish each day or from your job? I think these two are quite common.  Do you find your identity in what others think of you?  How you look?  In some group membership? What happens when any of these falter?

Annie (5) and I had this interaction today:

"Annie, do you know why I love you?"
"Ummm... because I did my work and my teacher was happy?"
"No, though I'm glad you did"
"Because I'm kind and tell the truth?" Oh, it was very tempting to say 'yes'!
"No, though those are good things."
"Because I hug you?"
"Oh, I like hugs! but no, I love you because you are my daughter."

As a very young child you know you have intrinsic value, that you are loved unconditionally by your parent.

Daily life #2

I didn't expect to be writing a medical post so soon!

Unfortunately, I've developed a case of conjunctivitis (pink eye). It will get better so it's not that bad; it's just unpleasant.  It occasioned my visiting a pharmacy.

Virtually every box on those shelves is a prescription medication in the States.  Here it's not.  Anything back there can be had without a prescription - hopefully you know how to use it properly. This does not create an issue with medications of abuse (i.e. narcotics) - none are available.

Daily Life #1

Our cook top

Some initial impressions of daily life here:

This is an aluminum pot that I believe is called a 'Calabash' - and it does look like a Calabash Gourd. We use it solely for boiling water - tap water in Dhaka must be boiled first, then cooled in the pot next to it and then passed through a high-quality filter system.  We boil a full pot each evening and let it cool overnight to keep the filter reservoir full.

Very light traffic

There is construction everywhere in our neighborhood (Banani).  Each of the high-rise tenement buildings you see in this photo are actively under construction.  Lower floors may be inhabited even as the upper floors are being built.  It seems every other block has one or two new buildings with piles of rebar and gravel outside.  The children's school lost its only access to a small sports field to a new building.  And the only direction is up.

This is Unimart.  Basically like Walmart.  Yep.  Even in Bangladesh.  It's fairly new.  It is convenient because everything is in one place, and there are certainly things you can purchase that are hard to find elsewhere (Quaker Oats Corn Meal, for example!).  But it is much cheaper, after haggling, in the old market (much more about that later).

   Traffic: when riding in a car, this is a common view, aside from the double decker bus.  For anyone who notices that this was taken from the left front seat, the driver sits on the right in Bangladesh, as in the U.K. - I wasn't driving.
   Traffic is ... there are hardly words.  Take 53 bicycles and rickshaws, 17 motorbikes, 5 big buses, 20 cars and a bunch of CNGs (the little green three-wheelers above) and put them on about 100 yards of road.  Have some parked, some making U-turns, all of them constantly weaving and jockeying for position, a few rickshaws going the wrong way, pedestrians crossing mid-traffic and add some intersections without traffic lights.  Horns & bicycle bells are in constant use, but not as expressions of displeasure; they are used to announce your presence to vehicles in front of you to help everybody adjust to your arrival.
   What is amazing is that it is not *quite* chaos.  Your progress forward may be in fits and starts, and the standard distance between the rickshaw you are in and a car is measured in inches, but it flows (more or less) in a constantly adjusting, risk-balancing, organic motion and din.

Apartment

We are settling into our apartment in Dhaka.  Well, unpacking anyway.

We have a water view!  Granted, the shores of Lake Banani are, perhaps, less-than-pristine, but it affords a cool breeze through our windows.  That's the other side of the lake, by the way.  It's not very wide.

Apartments in Dhaka are generally supplied bare.  There are no ceiling fans, no built-in AC units, no washing machine, no fridge etc.  We were able to purchase the fans and AC units from the previous owners, along with some furniture and a good water filter (very important).  This very nice couple also left a few basic dishes, a drying rack, and generally a few essentials to make our life easier in the first few days (i.e. TP).

We are still quite jet-lagged: we were coherent enough to run errands this morning (with help), but not this evening.  Clear progress!

Dhaka

We're in Dhaka! and more than a bit jet-lagged.  I find it hard to think straight, can't do simple math and have no appetite, but I'm happy to be here, finally.  It will improve.  We'll have some photos in future posts when we're a little more put-together.

Tonight is our second night in the guest house.  Tomorrow we will move into our apartment and try to get local cell phones, shop for food and other necessities, etc.  Our country director and teammates have been wonderful, helping us plan and think through everything, and accompanying us when shopping.

I feel like a two-year old.  I don't know how anything works, don't know what most of the sounds I hear are, and don't understand most of what people say.  This is exactly what I was told to expect during training, but it's wild to experience it.

Good night!