Top Five Favorite Things About Dhaka

1. The Call to Prayer

Every time I hear the call to prayer--ALAAAAAAH AKBAAAAAR--I think of BBC Middle Eastern correspondents. Each wind blown, slightly mousy Brit stands on the roof of a hotel, a masque's bulbous minaret just behind his right shoulder, and he starts his story: "As the call to prayer rings out over the city..." "As the people of Pashawar are called to morning prayer..." It seems a mandatory part of any news segment about a Muslim country. Since that is the case, I thought I might report on a typical morning in my life.

"The call to prayer rings out over Dhaka as the sun peaks over unfinished apartment buildings and lakes turned sewage repositories. Hans Verkerke, tall, starkly white, hair now as long as a sporty elderly woman's curls into a fetal position and curses the masochism (i.e. spiritual fortitude) it must take to awake at 5:30 in the morning to pray. The howling persists and he fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand before stumbling to the shower. The water is superbly hot and he takes his time to lather, rinse, and repeat. Upon the second repeat, however the shower cuts off unexpectedly and he is left naked, his hair and armpits richly lathered with newly applied shampoo. Fifteen minutes later, Hans is fully awake, having employed the services of a small bucket to splash ice cold tap water over his head and extremities. The sensation is neither refreshing nor invigorating; he whimpers and reaches for the towel, still moist from Bangladesh's never ceasing humidity.

2. Public Animal Slaughter

Though animal rights activists will decry the cruelty of this practice, I can't help but enjoy the complete openness with which butchers slaughter livestock. There is a market on my way to work where a line of goats is always tied along a cast iron rail. The number of goats depends upon the time at which I pass. At 8:30 there are 5 goats. At 9:00 there are 3. I have this impulse to yell to the goats, say something encouraging. It is admittedly an odd impulse, but I feel pity for the animals, blithely unaware of their imminent deaths. The butcher unties the next in line, leading him to the center of the square. He slits the animals throat in plain sight of horrified western onlookers, unfazed Bengali shoppers, and the line of goat brethren, who bleat and stamp in either solidarity or approval. I saw a woman wearing a vibrant red sari approach the butcher, gesture toward the flank of a fat white goat, and look on as the man carved out a long strip of bloody meat. She held out a plastic bag to collect her prize and as she turned to go, she stuffed the meat into a fake Gucci purse.

3. Public Urination

In the US, public urination is just one step above public defecation. A person might discretely spit into a tissue, but that is the limit to which Americans display their bodily functions. In Bangladesh, squatting to pee on the main street or in the market is like excusing oneself to blow one's nose in the US. Lines of men hunker along the open sewers that line most streets, their streams adding to the constant flow of human waste rushing through the city into large green lakes. My Bengali friend says that my automatic disgust at public displays of urination and the hawking of giant sputum filled luggies is just a product of what he calls "American Shame Culture." I suppose that is to say that we tend toward the use of pre-packaged towelettes and scented toilet paper. We apply fragrant sprays to cover our tracks in the bathroom and display crocheted signs that read "be a sweetie and wipe the seatie." I suppose I'm willing to strike a balance. I'll accept the occasional use of a tree as a urinal, but it's a slippery slope. The other day I was running on the brick path, which follows the gentle curve of a lake behind my apartment building, when I saw a pile of human feces. It was laying malignantly in the middle of the path. I removed a moist toilette from my fanny pack and held it over my nose as I gingerly sidestepped a little reminder of why I'm proud to be an American.

4. Honking

In Charlottesville, cars are almost painfully polite. I could stroll across the 250 bypass at rush hour and the mini vans would stop to wave me across. Honking is reserved for those with out of state license plates and that moment before a car crash when all you can do is scream and press the horn. Occasionally a person having a bad day will lay on the horn to encourage a slow driver to stop going 20 below the speed limit, but otherwise we are a community of silent drivers. Step onto the streets of Dhaka and the first thing you will notice is the honking. It has become, I believe, more of a way to announce one's presence than anything else. While most people are content to allow their existence in the form of solid matter to do that job, Bengali drivers go one step further, buying novelty air horns and (it seems) amplification systems to broadcast the message: I honk, therefore I am (about to run you over). I have made direct eye contact with an oncoming driver, stepped to the side, waved him through, and still he felt it necessary to give me noise-induced hearing loss. Another week on these streets and I swear I would be coming home with PTSD.

5. Mosquitoes

If I were God (just a hypothetical), telling Noah to gather two of every creature and hastily construct a rowboat, big enough to accommodate them, I would have added that he could forget about the mosquito. The mosquito is the asshole of the insect world. Not only does he leave an obnoxious itchy lump, he also deposits horrible tropical diseases into your bloodstream. Luckily there are toxic chemicals that will take care of mosquitoes in the US. Used in moderation, DEET can do wonders. But in Dhaka the little bastards seem immune to every spray that is not also neurotoxic to humans. So I can either have tumors or mosquitoes. They're so bad here that sometimes I feel like choosing the tumors.

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