Kushtia 1

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Wednesday we drove from Dhaka to Kushtia. Although Kushtia is due west of Dhaka, the road took us pretty far north; in a country with so much water are only limited bridges and ferries you usually don’t have much choice. It’s a much smaller town than Faridpur, where we were last week. The whole trip, including lunch, took about 6 hours. The area was passed through was very much affected by the flooding. Of course I floods every year after the monsoon, but this year was particularly bad. Many villages were mostly underwater, and the sugar cane and jute fields were inundated. Shanez explained that it has to do with Indian control of the Ganges upstream, so basically India dumps its excess water on Bangladesh. I think America does a similar, though opposite, thing with the Rio Grande, right? We take out almost all of the water before it reaches Mexico….

We saw loads of water buffalo on the drive here! I’ve never seen one before, and after a month of seeing only the diminutive Bangladeshi cattle, I was completely overwhelmed by their size. Dad, I was almost as excited to see them as I was to see English sheep in the old days! They usually came in pairs, with their owner riding one of them. They are really quite terrifying looking, honestly, I’m not so sure I’m ready to try sitting on one myself! The landscape out here, is really beautiful. Of course, it’s almost identical to Faridpur, very very flat and filled with jute and rice fields. We went over Bangladesh’s largest bridge, the Bangabhandu bridge, which crosses the Jamuna river. We are actually very close to where one of my professors grew up, I think that’s really cool, though I’m not so sure if he will be quite as impressed, especially considering it is possible that he hasn’t lived here since the days of East Pakistan!

We are staying at a government rest house at the irrigation board (don’t know the Bangla word). We first went to the water board (the pani board), but it turns out they are different things. Though nothing is ever a simple answer, it took us half an hour to realize that the we were at the wrong place. When we arrived at the correct place, we discovered that the “principal” who was in charge and who took out reservation, isn’t based at the rest house and he never bothered to call and tell them. Oh well, the need to be hospitable took over, and Jon and I were forced into the VIP apartment. I’m a little embarrassed by this attitude that we need and deserve better because we are foreigners, but of course the only thing to do is not complain and understand putting up a fuss and insisting on being treated the same will only make everyone else uncomfortable. So, we have a pretty fancy place with a big sitting room, a television that doesn’t reach a power outlet, and air conditioning, though Jon’s emitted such an awful smell that he won’t use his. I’m back to a squat toilet and a shower with no pressure whatsoever, but there’s a nice clean little bucket with a handle thingy so that works just fine. We also seem to lose power a lot, it was out for 3 hours last night, and it cut out tonight about an hour ago. No problem (“no problem” is, by the way, and ubiquitous English phrase spoken by all people Bangladeshi), except that it’s a bit hot under a mosquito net without a fan….

It’s a really nice coumpound that this rest house is in. There are two ponds, and several enormous mango (though unfortunately not in season now) and other fruit trees. And a little group of chickens of course. Walking to dinner tonight (the power was out, no street lights) I saw that the stars are stunning here, very bright and clear. The smog most not make it this far out of Dhaka! There are also many security guards and a big wall all around, so I guess we’re perfectly safe here!

We spent the day Thursday scoping out a suitable bat roost. I was incredibly tired that day, largely because the night before the night before I spent most of my sleeping time emailing! I kept falling asleep in the car and being totally useless. After we came back for lunch, at 5pm, I was told to stay home, and didn’t argue. I also stayed home today and finished my data entry. One roost we visited that day was a few kilometers down a road that was impassable for the vehicle; we rented a couple “vans”: three wheeled bicycles likes a rickshaw, but with a flat platform instead of a seat. It was a really great vantage point from which to see Bangladesh! So close to the fields and rushing right past people. On the way back, Jon asked to try riding one. He couldn’t really manage to drive it in a straight line; in his defense he was far too large for it, and I was one of the passengers in the back, therefore completely throwing off the weight balance! He certainly entertained the locals however! I was walking behind at one busy intersection and was stopped by a group of men who all wanted to take my picture with their cell phone cameras. Again, they all think my skin is so “bright” and nice, I think here I just look red and ridiculous and sweaty, whereas the locals look more fitting for the heat!

My team arrived this afternoon. We went out into Kushtia town to buy me some more bottled water, and Dawlat (one of my field officers), who has spent lots of time here before in outbreak investigations, suggested we go to the river for sunset. Being the weekend (weekend is Fri/Sat here) it was completely packed. We were entering through an old abandoned mill that is now some sort of government house (the explanation I got was much more thorough, but I didn’t understand at all!), and behind it is a big park on the river. There were hundreds and hundreds of people walking there and back, all seemed to be dressed very smartly, and many were young couples together. Scooters and bikes wove around us. Surprisingly, I attracted very little attention! Certainly some stares, but no one was interested in asking me “What is you country”! Kind of a relief, how unusual to (almost) one of the masses. It was really beautiful, I took a few pictures, will post when I’m back in Dhaka again!

Jesmin (my other field officer) is really so sweet. She keeps giving me her mobile to talk to her father, brother, friends…. All are very very excited when I say “Kamon achen” or “apnar namki”. Her father has invited me to their house in Dhaka for dinner, I have said I will certainly come when we are back in Dhaka. So now she is telling me how happy her father is that I will come, how her mother is wondering what to make for us, and very relieved to know we will eat Bangla food.

Speaking of food, I’m not sure bow much I’m talked about it. It is very good, it is mostly what you’d expect, lots and lots of rice, breads (like tortillas) are only eaten at breakfast, then curried vegetables, a curried meat, and dahl (yellow lentils). The curry is not like the curry we get in Indian restaurants at home, it isn’t creamy or red at all. It’s more dry but very flavourful and very very spicy. Really more spicy than I can handle, but I think I’m getting tougher. They also, of course, consider more animal parts to be food than we do at home. I’m being tough about meat and chicken, but I definitely can’t handle fish heads. There’s one dish we’ve had a few times that is whole tiny fish with vegetables, you’re just supposed to eat the fish with head and bones and all. I tried, but I really can’t handle that one. We also get in trouble with Pitu for wasting the chicken bones, which he eats along with everything else! I’m also getting better at eating with my hand! I learned the technique, and now I can (almost) keep up. The only problem is that the heat (it’s very hot again this week!) ruins my appetite; Pitu and Gopher who probably weight 40 pounds less than me each, both eat 3 times as much, and try very hard to feed me more. Today I made up a sententence: “Pat boro na” (literally “belly big no”, I’ve no idea what the correct English spelling of these words is, but when I say it they laugh and smile, which is of course the desired effect).

I was going to watch my pirated Harry Potter movie (whichever one just came out in theatres!) But I’ve realized I left it in Dhaka so I would have to lug it around! That was a bit stupid…. Alas, I should sleep anyways! The real work begins tomorrow!

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