Kushtia 3

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I’m really much happier now that we have a place to work and we’re getting on with it! I’ve gotten over my grumpiness and homesickness, no longer do I even think to question things! Again, I am continuously overwhelmed by kindness and friendliness! The people here, while Jesmin and Dawlat still insist are peculiar, also seem to have a great sense of humor. There’s a lot of giggling and laughing during the surveys, which seems great to me. I chilled with some moheesh (water buffalo) today for a while. I also proved to the town that I am start raving mad, or at least so my coworkers now think, by jumping out of the van in the pouring ran to walk for half a kilometer to feed my new moheesh friends some kola (banana). Mostly I was so relieved that it was raining, finally breaking the unbearable heat and sun we’ve had all week, and I was dying to be out in it.

They also have some huge cows here (I think they are big by American standards, but then again, on second thought, perhaps they’re just a stocky jersey size…) They tell me these are a Nepali breed of cow, they have an impressive big crest on top of their heads. Again, I think my anthropologist friends things I’m a total nut for being so obsessed with the animals I meet!

I’ve been going with John to do the bat work every night for the past few as well. That means I’m working from midnight to 10 or 11 am and then again doing my work until mid-afternoon. I won’t be able to keep it up all week, but for now I might as well do as much as I can manage. The bat stuff is really great, and Jon is giving me a good chance to give it a try myself. Getting blood from these little things is certainly a challenge, but he’s a great teacher and I’m learned much more detail about venipuncture technique then I’ve ever learned before!

I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but all along people in the villages have been giving me unripe piara (guavas) to eat, they are still white and hard inside instead of pink and mushy. It also seems weird to me to be eating guavas period, I feel like elsewhere I’ve been they just make jam out of them, not eat them, but perhaps I’m totally wrong. Anyways, I got quite used to these unripe ones. Now, all of a sudden, I’m getting paka piara - ripe guavas, that are lal (red) in the center. I’m not sure if I like them now! They’re really pungently sweet.

Last night Shanez, Pitu, Gofur (I’ve settled on this spelling!), and Ali, the driver, took me to the embankment again (where I went a few nights ago with Jesmin and Dawlat). This time it was much busier, and this time people payed notice to me. Poor Shanez. He went for some nice peaceful sunset at the river time, and yet he was surrounded by men who were interested in hearing all about me. A boy who spoke pretty good English wanted to ask me a whole load of questions, of course. They ranged from “how do you like it here right now” to “what can you suggest to help Bangladesh with the problem we have with flooding” to “what kind of food do you eat” to “what do you think Bangladesh should do to become developed”. Ha! I told him I had absolutely no idea for those two ridiculous questions! I did have to get Shanez help a few times, since he was literally translating from Bangla and the questions made no sense to me (“What information can you give me about the situation here” actually meant “what do you think about this place here (i.e. the river)”). Next sat down a guy who rattled off a series of American greeting phrases, turns out he lives in NYC. He wanted to make sure his countrymen were treating me well and not being rude or bothersome to me. Well, while they certainly have no concept of personal space or boundaries here, they treat me nothing but (practically) royally!

For example, on Saturday when we were driving around looking for a good village, I asked if we could find a toilet somewhere (I’ve gotten over feeling that I just need to hold it the entire time we’re out!). Dawlat found out one of the nicest houses I’ve been in here, they even had toilet paper! (Bangladesh, like the rest of Asia, practices the water splashing technique, which I fundamentally don’t understand). After both Jesmin and I used it, we were then invited in and given snacks and fanned and everyone in the family was brought in to see us (well, me). It seemed completely outrageous that we imposed on these people completely ramdomly for their toilet and were then treated as honored guests!

Last night Jon switched bat roosts to one right in a village, we’re working out of someone’s house who we’ve temporarily displaced. We had several hours downtime, and Shanez and I both fell asleep on a platform on the porch we’re working on. It was wonderfully peaceful there, with crickets chirping, and a whole chorus of birdsong in the morning. While it is nice having my room with a/c (sometimes) and shower (ok, not really a shower), I think I would really enjoy staying in the gram (village) for some time. Again, I really like Jon’s team, practically everything I do and say Pitu and Gofur have a good laugh at. The other day at lunch we had a dish that was amra (a kind of sour fruit, supposedly called hogplum in English, but I’ve certainly never heard of that!) cooked in a coconut curry type sauce with hard boiled eggs. Only I didn’t realize they were hard boiled eggs, and I bit in one expecting poached fruit, and instead yelped out “oh! Egg!” Pitu, Gofur, and Ali all practically fell on the floor with laughter! It’s nice being with such a friendly and fun group, who, even though we can’t communicate with real words, have taken to me well, and who I certainly entertain! ☺ I had printed out pictures I took from the dinner at Pitu and Gofurs house while we were in Dhaka, I gave them to them yesterday. While they didn’t really make a fuss of excitement or happiness, since that’s; simply not done here, I do trust that they really liked them and will treasure them.

I’m off to try to sleep for a few hours now! Luckily the electricity has been more consistent the past few days, so it’s no problem to sleep now.

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