Day 24 - Cricket

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It’s been awhile since I’ve done much because I got pretty ill. And I thought salads were supposed to be good for you…Truth be told I do know that this is an unsanitary place and you’re not supposed to eat produce that isn’t peeled or cooked thoroughly. But I’ve had some salad and fresh veggies and fruit because really, it’s the only consistenly good food Bangladesh has to offer. Sometimes I guess you get reminded arrogance can bring you to your knees, quite literally. So after all the vomiting and fevers finally stopped, I’ve begun to recover though I still have only left the apartment to go to the grocery store down the street. Sooo now I know why people come back from South Asia so skinny. One of my roommates also came down with a bad sickness that is different from mine but pretty bad. The other roommate is on vacation in Thailand with her friend and sister. Hopefully she’s enjoying the beaches. The other sickie and I finally began feeling better enough last night to lie in the living room and begin the first season of Lost. Just using the sick time in Bangladesh to catch up with America.
I was also just glancing back over what I’ve written in this thing and it’s funny how reading something I wrote only 10 days ago sounds so naïve. So just a disclaimer not to take all of this too much to heart. I’m writing about living here as I experience it from a very limited point of view. I write about things I hear, see, do, but it’s still limited and my ideas and conceptions of life here are constantly changing. Often my perception of life here changes purely based on my mood and little things that have nothing to do with Bangladesh. And I don’t write this because I think what I have to say about Bangladesh is important that everyone should know. I write it because for myself so I can remember. I publish it online so my family and close friends can know what I am up to on the other side of the world since I can’t talk to them on the phone while I am here. I also publish it thinking that if anyone else happens to read it, maybe it’ll change some misconceptions about a country disregarded as a “basket-case” and a city that achieved second to dead bottom in The Economist’s ranking of most livable cities. So mostly it’s probably geared toward my family and please bear that in mind when you read anything I write. Please don’t think I write this and share it because I find immense joy in telling everyone about myself. I would hope I am not as self-absorbed as that and am well aware blogs can come across like that. I also just enjoy writing. I started writing this privately then put it online. It’s in a pretty raw form but it is what it is.
In more interesting news, I did do somethings before I got sick. Actually things were going pretty well overall. I did end up going to the cricket game a week ago of India versus Bangladesh. It was an extreme pain getting there. My roommate, Luke, and I took a CNG (a 3-wheeled mini-taxi) to get there but suddenly on this 4-lane road a military policeman jumped out and hailed us down. The MPs started telling us (or I should say telling the driver and Luke—if I’m with a white guy, I don’t get talked to. If I talk, they answer to the white guy. I gave up on fighting it pretty quickly.) that we had reached the Bangladesh military cantonment and we could not enter because we are foreigners. Luke haggled with the guys for awhile asking how we are used to get to the stadium then. He said find another way. The driver told Luke we needed to bribe them. But we didn’t. Instead we accepted that we got pulled off on a busy highway and demanded a bribe because we are white. It was infuriating as we took the grandest detour ever that took us an hour out of our way and cost us 3 times as much in fare. Strangely on the way back, we had the craziest CNG driver I’ve ever had. He was going up on sidewalks, cutting off buses…if you’re going to get hurt by anything in Dhaka, its traffic and bacteria and both seem largely unavoidable. We told him we couldn’t go through the cantonment (which is only about ¼ mile stretch where we were) because we are Americans but he said don’t worry, so I wrapped my blond head up in a headscarf and he blew through it and no one seemed to notice in the darkness. Then at one point when we were almost home, I looked around outside and I said to Luke, “Where are we?” And then we both see the men in white dress and hats and realized that the crazy driver took a short-cut through the major mosque in our district. What kind of driver not only takes a short cut through a major mosque, but with blue-eyed Americans in the back? To the guy’s credit, we made record time and we gave him a tip. Getting around this city continues to be an experience.
The cricket game was a lot of fun despite the weather being like the surface of the sun only with more humidity. We met up with an American on a Fulbright scholarship here (studying bus congestion) and some of his Bangladeshi friends. Luckily our seats had a large cloth covering over them. The common seating area was under the blazing sun and I don’t know how the people in those packed seats didn’t pass out.
It was my first cricket match. I wouldn’t call cricket a fast-paced sport. We stayed for a little ways into the second half and we left at 9PM when the game started at 3. And it was an expected blow-out so the game went much quicker than normal. Time was well spent though and I think I really know most of the rules of cricket now with the exception of some weird ones. I think the funniest part is that it is obvious that this game was invented to be played by English gentlemen in green yards while people walked about drinking gin and tonics and nibbling on mini-sandwiches. And here in the Indian subcontinent it has become something completely different—sweaty crowds packed the stands yelling and cheering “Bang-la-desh! Bang-la-desh!” Men walked around selling melted ice cream and beef biryani (a beef and rice mixture that is so inappropriate as stadium food). There were some women, but they were very sparse. Some policemen were about, but they mostly sat and watched the game, resting their elbows on their long semi-automatic guns resting between their knees. I’m definitely the only white woman I saw but people were so into the game no one seemed to care. The batter made a perfect hit off the speed bowl and the crowd went wild as someone manually added 4 more points to Bangladesh’s large handmade scoreboard. Unfortunately, Bangladesh went through their wickets (or outs) before their overs (like innings? I now know cricket better than baseball) were up, which I guess is a bit shaming but they held it together.
During half-time, one of the Bangladeshis we were with located a good friend who works for the cricket team. He was delighted by his new job and told us he’d move us to a better section. So off we went to the VVIP section, which is a hysterical name and so Bangladeshi. Back through security (there is heavy security though everyone seems a lot tamer than at most AYSO games I’ve been to) and to the VVIP section, which is right on the half-line and almost on the lawn so it was pretty great. The game is actually more interesting up close. We were also sitting near the Indian team’s bench, which we soon realized is the South Asian equivalent of sitting near the New England Patriot’s bench. They are huge celebrities in both India and Bangladesh. Women were taking pictures with their cell phones, kids were calling out for autographs—fame is a funny thing. I have no clue who any of those guys are. And they play cricket. But they do appear to be pretty good at it as they began to absolutely humiliate Bangladesh in the second half. I found myself yelling at the team with everyone else—sports have that effect.
I talked with some Bangladeshi guys we were with about American sports. They asked me what sports I like and I told them that I played soccer growing up. You played? They asked, surprised. I say yeah, in America, girls play sports. They’re aware of this but I seemed to be the first female life and blood they’d met that had actually kicked a ball. And you? I asked. Soccer, the one guy said back with a genuine smile. What position? he asked me. Midfield, I replied. Me too, he said, and we both smiled until our attention was grabbed by the Bangladesh team watching the ball roll past them for India’s eight-hundredth 4-point hit…

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