Saturday night is drawing in and the back-to-work-tomorrow feeling is setting in, but for the meantime I'm going to explain what I/my parents and friends did this weekend. Thursday was Mother Language Day, which celebrates those who died trying to save the language of Bangla (a successful fight obviously), so we have had a 3 day weekend..not that it has felt like one!
On Thursday I didn't do much..went for a ludicrously expensive (in taka terms) lunch with friends at the Westin, a v posh hotel not too far from our house..and then went to a friend's house to play a horse-racing game which is slightly complicated but it was fun especially as we ordered curry and all the works during it!
My parents and I decided to go to Sonargaon on Friday, which was this country's first capital, about an hour's drive from Dhaka. Not much remains of the old city apart from a few mosques, scattered bits of buildings and the odd stupa, but we thought we'd check it out anyway, it's good to get out of Dhaka. The government seems to do nothing about preserving any old buildings in this country, so they just crumble away.
The traffic was as mad as usual, even though it was a Friday, which is the holy day, so you'd think the traffic would be better, but oh no. I had visited Sonargaon before on the 'old Dhaka' trip with Guide Tours this time last year when I was visiting Bangladesh, so it turned out I had been to all the places we subsequently went to, but again, it was worth getting out of Dhaka! The first place we went to was a folk-art museum (Sadarbari) which is not that wonderful inside but outside it's worth a look as it's, shock-horror, an old building? In Bangladesh? Quick, take a picture before it disappears! Less than a mile on past the Sadarbari is basically a long street with old buildings on each side, remnants of the old capital. If you've been to Florence, Venice, Rome, Paris, London...basically a lot of places in Europe it's not actually much to look at but you have to take it at face value really and appreciate it for what it is, considering there's basically nothing left of the old capital these days and nor is there likely to be in the future. We got
pestered by a) people coming up to us and saying 'your country?' Having this again and again gets annoying, trust me and b) rickshaw-wallahs trying to drive into us (that's how they try and get their custom) saying 'rickshaw boss?' (to my dad), 'rickshaw madam?' (to me and my mum). We actually caught a rickshaw back in the end, after bargaining first of course!
Exciting Sonargaon was a nightmare. There is one 'road' (if you could call it, more like a dirt bridge) going over a large pond. Over this 'bridge', rickshaws, massive coaches and buses, people and normal cars like ours were trying to cross. Here, even worse than in China, it seems to be a 'me-first' policy. NO-ONE gives way, indicates or waves to you to let you pass, backs up to let you go by- none of this happens which results in many clogged up areas which wouldn't be so clogged for long periods of time if everyone would act a little less selfishly! It was a bit hairy as our car was pushed to the side of this 'bridge' and I could see the steep slope down the pond below me - if one more
bus tried to push passed us I reckon we would have ended up in that pond, car and all! However after some with-it guys persuaded rickshaw-wallahs to back up the congestion ceased a little bit and we escaped. All in a day's work in Bangladesh! I will never complain about traffic again after living here!
Today we and a bunch of other people - from my mum's work and my dad's office - drove into the city and out again to board 'The Sunflower' (boat) from a different part of the river so that we could stop off and visit a rajbari (old palace) and jamdani weavers on the way and way back. Today's weather was much better than yesterday's - bright blue sky and the sun was shining brighter, though it is a sign that spring is definitely here and soon it will get unbearably hot again...
After about an hour cruising down the river and waving back at umpteen children along the shore, we dropped our (little) anchor near a rajbari (palace). This palace is now used as a college, and though originally it and the grounds would have been very impressive, there is little to
make you go 'wow' now, because as I've said before, nobody seems to care about these old buildings so they are just left standing there, uncared for and with weeds breaking down the plaster. Anyhow it was worth a look and you can just go and wander in for free - it's not open on Fridays though.
Back on the boat for another couple of hours, we arrived at a small village. We visited small huts where we saw weavers hand-weaving 'jamdani' (loom-embroidered muslin, sometimes combined with silk), which was specially woven for the imperial households centuries ago and is an art form stemming from Bangladesh, so people here are very proud of it and rightly so. So many things here are brought from or influenced by India it is good to have and celebrate something which is truly Bangladeshi. You either get people weaving it by hand, in pairs, or machines that fasten the process. Going inside a small building housing these machines is truly deafening, and people work in there for hours every day.
These workers work 12 hours a day. The working conditions inside are pretty good, but still, so much work put into them
makes you think twice about bargaining down from the e.g. 20 quid they ask you for (double that in the shops) when everything is hand-woven and sometimes gold and silver thread is woven in. It's a very stiff material which doesn't soften much with washing, but it looks good as a sari, and I bought a piece just to hang..somewhere!
As we walked along this village, you should have seen the welcome we received! In Dhaka it gets so tired getting asked, or not even asked, expected to give money just because they see you are white. Ok on one hand, yes, we have so much more than them but just because you are white you get pestered and expected to give money into hundreds of open palms. In the villages outside the city, kids and adults alike simply greet you or smile, not expecting anything except respect for where they live and it's very refreshing to experience that. We were followed by about 20 villagers, mostly children who asked to have their picture taken by our digital camera and burst into fits of giggles when they saw each other's picture. Batan, the man who commandeers our boat, visits
these villages often with other people who charter the boat, so we can print out extra copies and pass them onto him to pass onto the villagers, which is great.
So another (long) weekend is over...visiting those weavers will certainly make me think about how much I try and bargain down to when I go shopping in the market...I don't want to get ripped off but I don't want to de-value anyone's work either. I find it safer to go through fair trade shops than the market as you know where the stuff is coming from and where your money goes to...it is nice to see parts of Bangladesh you don't see every day in this little Dhaka bubble of poverty, pollution, beggars, posh hotels and never-ending traffic so I would advise any visitor to Bangladesh (I know, we don't get many) to take a trip on the river.
boy and a goat....this boy's grandmother wanted a picture of her boy and their goat! So what could we do but oblige!?
bemused baby!you can see the 'dot' on his forehead - this is protect him from the 'evil eye' - you see this on a lot of babies and toddlers here
Bangladesh's Flag
Map of Bangladesh