Travelling to the projects the charity I am interning for was the next part of the trip and involved escaping Dhaka and visiting some of rural Bangladesh. The absolute smelly, busy chaos of Dhaka is definitely not a sight I or anyone else would be too sad to leave; not having to escape lethal rickshaw drivers and the constant fear of mugging was welcomed! The four hour potential car ride to the field studies centre was deemed too easy by BRAC (the charity I am interning for) so instead we were shoved on an eight hour bus journey in a local bus to give us a more authentic experience (luckily air conditioning was an allowed luxury - how kind). Like everything in Bangladesh, even if you really try and prepare yourself mentally for something the reality is still a complete shock. The bus station (bearing in mind we are talking about a capital city) is little more than a few huts, a waiting room, and a small area for some buses to turn. The buses of course run on Bangladeshi time (whatever time they want to) so to keep you going there are plenty of people walking about selling everything from popcorn, curby grips, cake, to mango juice. Even at 7am my desire for a bargain ensured a bartering attempt from me.
Man: 10 taka for one...
Me: 10 taka for two...
Man: No
Me: Oh
Keith (to me with a wink): But that is all the money you have isn't it...
Me (confused): Em no...
Keith (to me): I am trying to help you out! Is that you bartering?!
I ended up paying 10 taka for one obviously and loosing all my street credibility (I have tons obv). Once on the bus though the real Bangladeshi experience began. Firstly, buses start driving whether everyone is on or not so you have the hilarity of watching people run on the bus (apparently local buses just never stop to let you off either). People also sit on top of buses (and trains) for a free or majorly reduced ride. A bargain option I may consider in the future ;-). The first thing the bus driver said (translated by one of the Bengali speaking interns) to the bus conductor was that he hadn't slept last night (a hilarious prospect). Luckily the roads were bad enough that there was no possible way he could have fallen asleep, people have clearly never been shown what their mirrors are for, while there are just far too many vehicles on the road (mostly scooters, rickshaws, or auto-rickshaws which can't even go above 10 mph). Therefore instead of looking in the mirrors, here an ingenious system has been set up that involves just beeping your horn constantly to get people to move our your way and bully your way through traffic. Consequently horns just beep continuously, and when you are in a fairly large bus it is a loud noise that after five minutes is more than slightly annoying.
And these are just issues that occur on a daily basis; our first emergency was a flat tyre (although making a loud noise this didn't worry the driver for another fifteen minutes or so). The solution was flagging another bus down and nicking their spare tyre, I can't imagine this working in the UK. Our second emergency was when we realised the AC had stopped working, the driver fiddled around in the back and emerged holding a very broken AC pipe. This was eight hours into our eight hour bus journey and we were not 0 minutes away so a debate was held as to whether we continue without AC (a luxury we had paid bloody extra for!) or wait for another bus to come. We continued but opened all the doors and fire exits to produce a draft, Bangla style.
Getting to the field studies centre then you can imagine was something of a huge relief. We were staying at facilities that were run by our charity so basic but safe. They are a training facility for community leaders and teachers so mainly Bangladeshis staying meaning more stares and lots of questions such as 'what's your religion', 'what do your parents do?' and 'where are you from'. Alright but you constantly feel you are trying to pass some sort of test and these questions are definitely more interregational than friendly. The experience at the field studies centre was one of those where initially it seems really nice with comfortable twin rooms that are ensuite (bucket showers of course mind ;-) ) and 3 good meals provided a day but after a day problems start to show.
FIRST ISSUE: The food - the 3 set meals a day are the same every day and I mean the same. For breakfast it is fried egg, chapatti, and potato stew. Lunch: potato and meat stew, chips, dahl, lots of rice, and cucumber. The dinner the same as lunch. So basically you are intaking pretty bland food that consists almost purely of carbs. Absolute chaos for the digestive system and incredibly boring on the palate. The amount of rice the Bangladeshis eat is absolutely insane! We constantly request pineapples and apples, consequently receiving stares as if we are fruit fiends or something.
Complaining over, rural Bangladesh is amazing! Visiting their projects means going to the village communities in the area. So we have visited a very poor (or ultra-poor as BRAC calls them) village, whereby BRAC gives them all some animals then a weekly allowance for food so they can start a small farm and eat better diets. Then also microfinance programmes where villagers can borrow loans and then use them to either improve their homes or start small enterprises such as shops. Most of the villages we have been to have never seen white people before so we are something of a novelty and everyone comes out to look at the foreigners. They like us to introduce ourselves (my Bangla accent is particularly amusing for them) so I say Amar nam Olivia then ami Scotland. Blank looks always respond to Scotland as clearly it is not a country then know, even Britain gets blank looks whereby London receives a combined 'ooooh'. I am not impressed by their travel aspirations.
This is when everything starts to turn a little gap yar, it is hard not too make it so, as we refrain from using such phrases as 'culturally aware'. As I take photos of the village children, Russell Kane's comedy sketches of gap year students saying 'oh look a brown person, take a photo' do spring to mind! At times political correctness can be taken too seriously and just goes out the window here. I held a baby who instantly starting crying, apparently he prefers brown people they matter of factly stated! We also commentated ( in english) on a very white baby, our guide/translator instantly asked why to our horror, apparently she has a very white husband. Luckily children here do seem to genuinely love having their photo taken and then seeing the results but more amusing is that people like to take photos of us, you stand on the street and Bengalis are all getting their camera phones out and snapping us. One man even approached me and asked if he could take a photo of me with his daughter! The babies are particularly cute with their little pudgy arms. I did accidentally make fun of a toddler with rickets though (I thought he was just trying to walk like a sumo wrestler)! On the whole I have managed not to insult the Bangladeshi population too much mind.
Getting to the villages is one problem though as the auto-rickshaws (scooters with a seating cabin out the back) drive manically, we have already been in one crash, as they just literally drive out side roads without even considering looking. To solve the terrible transportation problems we decided to hire a car that would of course be much safer than an auto-rickshaw. Entering the luxury of an air conditioned car (after our air conditioned rooms!) plunged us straight back into a wonderful sense of security. Two minutes out the gates of our centre and wham we crashed into a bus, you see our driver (in typically Bangladeshi style) just swung out without even glancing into a very full bus that didn't even have mirrors. The damage was minor but the fear was there. This was unfortunately not a one off and our driver turned out to be an absolute maniac, as we drove down the country roads that are full of vehicles but less disciplined than the city streets, his driving was honestly like something out of Grand Theft Auto or some other video game where you move fast dodging in and out of obstacles. He just kept moving at a ridiculous fast pace beeping his horn while weaving around cars, rickshaws, bicycles, and people. Needless to say there was lots of screaming, so to calm us down we decided to sing. BAD IDEA - the guy just went faster in an effort to drop us off faster and escape our singing.
For our last night here some local entertainment was organised at one of the villages, BRAC helps run theatre performances which are fun to watch but also educational to the local community. So we went to watch a performance that taught the villagers about their legal rights and domestic abuse through the medium of live theatre. Sitting with the local children on mats at the front was pretty special as they were so happy to see us there and it was a treat for them getting to see some dancing and singing. We brought biscuits which of course went down a treat but did mean we were mobbed by huge swarms of children who seemed to come from nowhere. In typically Bangladeshi style just as the performance started the heavens literally opened spitting out heavy but hot rain, the type that really soaks you. Just like a Bollywood movie though it was great fun for a while as everyone danced in the rain and the children loved jumping around with us - it was very memorable! Leaving in our warm cars was quite sad but since the theatre was cut short we decided to maybe have a different dinner and sample a Chinese restaurant in town. One of the interns is Chinese and was so excited about having some Chinese food here as apparently British and American chinese restaurants are rubbish and greasy! Turns out rural Bangladesh is not the place to go to sample culinary excellence as we got the greasiest, gloopiest meal you could imagine. Shutong deemed it 'fake Chinese' noting that there weren't even any Chinese people in the restaurant!
So our first week in the North-West (check out a map!) corner of Bangladesh has certainly been interesting, entertaining, and memorable, but also terrifying, and very bizarre!
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