Working hard!

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After being so good about keeping up with writing update, I totally neglected it after the first few days in Faridpur! We've been working extremely hard! Oh well, no one really needed *that* much detail! (and if I repeat myself, I apologize!)

The week between my last update and when we finished working at that field site and returned to Dhaka this past Sunday (the 29th) was pretty much just filled with lots of work! My two field officers are doing an amazing job! I've randomly selected households that we will interview. But, I can offer no help in locating the person, in fact I offer no help at all. While they are in charge, I just tag along, drawing a crowd, and looking out of place. I entertain the women and children with my photos from home (by the end of the week, the group of kids who always came and followed me around could narrate my photos for me!), showing them my fruits book, and eating a lot of jackfruit. Several of the households brought me jackfruit (kathal) to eat with puffed rice (muri) that they like to put on it. I also received a lot of personal fanning! They fans they make here are from a palm frond and are amazingly effective! This week was really filled with variations on this same experience, and throughout I felt so lucky to be here experiencing it!

I'm learning words for fruit and foods very well, and have pretty much switched over to using the Bangla words (Mango is ahm, rice is baht, meat is murghi, sweets are mishti). I use tik ache ("ok") all the time, and am comforable with asking people how they are and saying thank you. There isn't a Bangla word for please, or for hello really. They either say "Kamon achen" (how are you) or the Muslim phrase for peace be with you, which of course you aren't supposed to use with the Hindus. Luckily, the hindus are easily identifiable because the (married) women have the vermillion tip (dot) and sindoor (stripe in their hair part).

There were two hindu celebrations in Faridpur while we were there, hundreds of people pulled temple floats along the road causing a traffic jam of at least a mile! My Muslim coworkers complained of the sheer number of hindu gods, meaning that celebrations like this are far two common. Despite this cultural insensitivity, there doesn't seem to be the tense relationship between muslims and hindus here that history would suggest.

I made my team go with me to the village at 5am a few times so we could pick up fruit that looked like it might have been dropped by bats to test. We even found the chewed up and spit out pulp that these bats produce, which was very promising. The villagers were very forgiving of my eccentricity and even collected fruit for me.

On two nights, I went with an interpreter (and escort) to watch for bats feeding in the trees. Jon has night vision binoculars for me to use (!!) and we watched from sunset for several hours. The first night was absolutely pouring rain, and we were invited to sit on a family's porch where we could watch a tree that had been visted in the previous nights. They brought out a matt and stools and a kerosene lamp, and a group of people sat with us. My "escort" was one of the veterinarians, he taught them about the bats while we waited. It was a really special evening, I felt, huddled on the mud porch of this basic village house, with the rain pouring down around us, eating kathal and muri (remember??) again. It certainly had a campfire feel to it, even if that's terribly spoiled westerner for me to say!

I had a rather funny accent misunderstanding. They'd been telling me all week that they grew the Meheghoni tree in the village that they sell the wood from. I didn't really think about it, just assumed I didn't know it. When they mentioned this to Jon, he said "right, Mahogany". Doh! Damn that accent on the se-COND sy-LA-ble. (Mom, you know what I'm trying to type there...)

I think I mentioned before, I did get a little tired at times of never getting peace and quiet and never ever having a moment alone! We stopped at a market to conduct my survey with fruit vendors, I stayed in the car since I cause a (person) traffic jam in the markets. So instead, I ended up with a crowd of 30 or so men staring at me in the van. It was certainly a ridiculous fishbowl or monkey at the zoo type moment. I couldn't really handle it, and decided it would be better if I was standing outside the car... Not sure if it was. Bangladeshi's certainly have a different set of manners, of course, and one thing that I can't really handle is the spitting! They take great joy in very loudly clearing their throat and spitting it out. I have to admit that it makes me cringe every time I hear it! It's such an unacceptable noise at home, but I suppose I just need to get over it.

The last day I handed out the little toys and such I had brought for the kids, I have stretchy little snakes (they were terrified of them at first, but once someone touched one, everyone did!), bracelets for girls, some little toys that grow in water, and loads of crayons and pens. They all went quickly and of course caused quite a commotion. It's a good think I waited until the end, because wherever I went after that I was followed by requests for more snakes. Oh, I'm really going to miss those kids! There were four in particular, Beauty, Rubel, Ritu, and Lima, who I saw an awful lot of and really took to. Again, what an experience I've had.

The day after we finished the survey, I met the bat team at 6am (after collecting dropped fruit in the village and sending my team home) and they had already caught the remaining 29 bats they needed for Jon's work! We thought it would be at least another two nights! Jon taught me how to collect the sample and draw blood, I was able to practice on a few bats. It's challenging since they are so small, but in a way almost easier since they have thin and practically see-through skin!

That night we went to the village that Pitu and Gopher (the bat catchers) live in for a party. We brought Kalo Jam (literally black berry), a type of mishti (sweet) that is pretty much flower and sugar syrup. Jon's correctly described it as tasting exactly like pancakes and syrup. They really like their sweets sweet here, but sensibly so: lots of sugar works as a preservative. At the shop someone asked me if I was Pakistani, which I thought was really bizarre. But, then again, Jon (who's white and well over 6 ft) has been asked if he's Japanese....

The party in the gram (village) was truly amazing! We were all given green coconuts to drink while we waited. Then Pitu's wife, Awa, had made us an unbelievable feast of paratha (like flat naan), pita (little muffin like things made of rice), an enourmous bowl of baht (rice), shopje (curry vegetables), spinach, murghee chicken, hash (duck), and mach (fish). We were seated at a makeshift table with half of us seated on the bed with Pitu standing proudly over us ridiculously overloading our plates with food, and Gopher fanning us! We, of course, had a huge crowd watching us as well, luckily I've been in Bangladesh long enough to not be at all bothered by 30 people watching me eat! 😊 Afterwords we took loads of pictures, which I've been able to print here in Dhaka to give to Pitu and Gopher. It really was amazing, and truly special experience. And, our guts are like steal now, and despite our concerns, we survived with no complications!

On the way home, we stopped to eat near the famous (at least in Bangladesh) monument (to independence I think) outside Dhaka. This is the closest to touristy you get aside from Cox's Bazar (the longest beach in the world!) in the south east. Here they had these posters that Jon has told me about (proof below!) that say: Bangladesh, come before the tourists. Ha!

Now back in Dhaka, I see it with such a different perspective. I now compare it to the small city and countryside, not to America. I'm amazed by how much English writing there is! 99% of signs in Faridpur are in Bangla script and completely illegible to me. It's also crowded and busy and hectic and exhausting. I was totally overwhelmed by the luxury of our hotel (supposedly has a website www.hotelparadisegarden.com, but I haven't checked if it really exists), I don't think it has changed, just my perspective! At breakfast Monday, all the waitors come over to say hello and welcome back to me. They were very pleased that I'd picked up some bangla and tried to teach me more (I have already forgotten what "how did you sleep" was....) My clothes are now all clean (it was really really overdue!) I'm relaxed and recharged! It's so quiet at night here! Faridpur was non-stop rickshaw bell ringing and honking!

We've been organizing things at the cholera hospital. Yesterday, we did errands in Gulshan, the sort of international company center. This is just next to Baridhara, the embassy and fancy ex-pat residential area where our hotel is. Gulshan is where you find all the Western style stores and banks and fast food. We indulged in ice cream and stocked up on silly snack foods. We stopped in an electronics store to buy me a new memory stick (1gb for $17! sweet! unless that's what it costs now in america too...) and managed to pick up several pirated DVDs. I got 4 that each had 3 or 4 movies (yes, I know the quality will be awful!) for about $5. Including one with the brand new harry potter movie. Whee! If only I had time to watch movies! I saw two white people on the street in this area, the first white people I've seen outside of the Cholera Hospital itself.... it's the little things you notice, huh!

We then went on to the New Market area, which is near Dhaka University. It is a huge market area, we were looking specifically for books (aka Harry Potter!). We found both the real copy and also photocopied versions from India!

Unfortunately this entry was lost by travelblog, and I don't have a copy on my computer. I have no idea what else got erased!

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