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Published: February 18th 2007
some of the girls at a project I visited
most of these girls weren't and aren't street kids, they were rescued before they could be. Their parents can't afford to look after them and so they stay here for the immediate future.I arrived back home in China last night, so may I first say xin nian kuai le, which is 'Happy New Year'. Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, the year of the pig!
Anyway, onto the subject of my blog....Bangladesh! 3 days before I left for China myself, back in August 2006, my parents left for Dhaka, Bangladesh, their new home for 3 years plus. I haven't had a chance to visit them and the country itself so my 5 week holiday was my chance!
To get to Dhaka it's surprisingly easy from this side of China anyway. There are daily flights from Kunming-Dhaka (2 hours) and the flight from my home in Chengdu to Kunming only takes 1 hour, and there's only a 2 hour time difference, so all in all, it's a pretty easy journey. My first reaction when I stepped off the plane was 'aaah, heat!'. Here in Chengdu it's still on the chilly side (coat weather) and having spent the previous two weeks in Tibet (into the minus-es) and Xi'an I was ready for some sunshine and some heat (25 degrees in Dhaka at the moment), and I got it!
Because my dad works for a government affiliated agency in effect (DFID, Department for International Development) my parents' family and friends and their friends etc etc can be picked up at the airport, escorted through customs double-quick and leave the airport before the other passengers. It makes one feel quite important (and maybe a little embarrassed!). So as I walked down the steps before baggage claim I was met by such a representative (whose name I can't remember, I'm terrible with names) who sped me through Immigration, asked me to wait for my suitcase while he went off and organised my visa for me, and off we went by a special side door to the waiting car, by-passing everyone else!
Driving the 15 minute journey (in a massive Land Rover thing, I think it should be called Lan Drover instead as that's how we say it!) to my parents' house I was struck by the greenery of the city, perhaps not to the residents of Dhaka, but coming from a main city in China where they have a passion for concrete it was a pleasure to see palm trees, coconut trees, big green bushes, bougainvillea and street sellers selling
lots of boats
..at the main port in Dhaka bananas, mangoes and flowers.
In the car, I also got my first glimpse at a Bangladeshi bus which my mum had warned me about! Have you ever seen that advert for a Peugeot 306 I think it was? It's set in India or similar. A guy is sitting in his plain white car, and he sees the new 306 pass by. He wants the same shape and look for his car, so he gets a hammer, bashes at all the sides and gets an elephant to sit down on the bonnet to complete the 306 shape. These buses look like that. Dents everywhere, and as though someone or some people have gone around every square inch of the bus with a sledgehammer and battered every part. They look like a tin can on wheels. And not a new tin can either. One that has been used as a football by young boys. They look like they are going to tip over if you lay just a finger on the side! The windows are held on by masking/sellotape, and there's not usually a door, so the 'conductor' who collects the fare can hang out of the door as the bus
is being driven along. Chinese buses are Rolls Royces by comparison! I didn't manage to get on a bus this time, maybe next visit...... 😉
Anyway I arrived at home (I think wherever your parents are, when you staying with them for a few days, you end up calling it home, well I do anyway!). I arrived in the afternoon so my mum was back from work (she's a teacher). The house is beautiful, 2 floors, a long marble staircase going up which makes one feel like Scarlett O'Hara, several bathrooms and my favourite part is that my parents (when they knew they would have a house to themselves without any kids!) bought a home cinema system for one of the rooms so you can go in there and watch movies and it feels just like being at the cinema! There are also 5 bathrooms which is very arbitrary, they are not like 5 spas or anything, all done in lovely 70's colours like chocolate brown, avocado green and such, but I loved having an en-suite for 10 days! Simple pleasures!
So, what did I do for 10 days? My parents were working, so I was left to
my own devices, which was fine. My mum drew me a wee map of the main area which good places to visit marked on it, so all I had to do was hop in the car (they have a driver! this sounds very extravagant but I've been in this situation before so it's hard to explain to those who haven't lived abroad and had a maid or a driver, it isn't uncommon if you're in the private sector or similar) and go. I brought a pretty much empty suitcase and it was filled by the time I left! Bangladesh has no tourist industry. Think about it, it's not like you think 'ooh, where shall I go on my next holiday...oh yes, Bangladesh sounds good!' No-one does! If they want to experience that side of Asia I guess most people head for India, Thailand or suchlike. But you are missing out. There are so many markets, stalls and shops which are goldmines for stacks of material for clothes, products made of leather and hand-stitched with beads, brass, candles, cushion covers, table runners, throws, bed covers, jewellery, any clothes items you could want, shoes, scaves, all with amazing detail, colour, and of
me in my first ever shari
it's made of silk (ooh) and surprisingly comfortable. It makes you walk taller. However there are seemingly hundreds of ways to put it on so it will take me years to master! great quality, and unbelievably cheap, most of them. I stocked up on presents for my friends/family for the rest of this year! The people who make them must spend hours eg creating a jewellery box from real, soft leather and stitching on the top of different kinds of beads and intricate patterns, and it's sold for about 1 pound equivalent. There's so much there that tourists would love, but no-one goes, so I guess big emporiums like Tesco and H&M get their stuff from there and sell it in developed countries.
On my third day in Dhaka, my mum arranged for me to go and visit a local volunteer project, who provide shelter for a number of street kids and sex workers in the city. It is only a small organisation but hopefully it will grow each year. We went into the back streets of the city, and went to a couple of houses (though you wouldn't call it a house, it was just like a shed) where 30-40 street kids go to for a few hours every morning to learn the basics of education and hopefully have some fun before they have to go out onto the streets
and earn their living, or a living for their family. These kids, well the oldest I met was around 12. They were so welcoming with bright smiles and laughter, eagerness to show us their paintings and tell us about themselves, shake our hands and pose for pictures. They love seeing the picture you have just taken on your digital camera screen, they laugh hysterically and run away to tell their family to 'come and see!' We also saw some new structures (to modern eyes one wouldn't call them houses as they are mostly made of bamboo and wood) that had been rebuilt by this project after a fire had destroyed the people's homes.
Our last stop was at a block of flats (still in the process of being built) where there was one floor used as a base for kids whose families can't afford to look after them, so they live there for the forseeable future, getting food, shelter and education. These kids range from 5-13. There are also some sex workers in another part of the building under the same project. The oldest were my age (24), the youngest just in their late teens. When they're not working
they also get taught trades for girls such as embroidery so they make cards to be sold. It's still a hard life but if they learn as many skills as they can they might have a chance to do something else later on, or at least it provides something different in their day-to-day life. The older girls (sex workers) were more shy and subdued when we came to visit, but the kids, being kids, were full of energy and handed us roses when we arrived, tried to get us to dance with them and generally just stare in amazement at the novelty of seeing white women close up! They also did some Hindi dances for us, complete with eyeliner and the bracelets/anklets with bells on, which was great and really fun to watch. It was a really good day to see more of the inside of Dhaka as it were and see that even a small number of the people who need help are getting it, and of course it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to homelessness, illness and poverty, but there are always positive things to be found in seemingly hopeless situations, well in this
case anyway. The kids seem to enjoy the few hours they get to escape from their usual lives so that's the main thing!
On another day I went with a company called Guide Tours to do a bit of sightseeing in and around the city. They provide a mini bus and I was with a Swiss couple, with an English-speaking guide, and off we went. It was kind of a whistle-stop tour as there was a lot to do and the traffic is a nightmare. We went to the Pink Palace, old Dhaka, which was the old capital, went to the main docks, went on a rickshaw and saw people making conch shell bracelets, visited a university old red brick campus, a folk museum and a village. It was a good tour and the guide was really helpful and informative, and it was good to see parts of the city I hadn't seen before.
My last full day in Dhaka was Friday. The weekends in Bangladesh are on a Friday and Saturday, as Friday is the holy day when everyone goes to the mosque(s). In the morning I went to a salon type place around the corner from
mendhi on my hand
this was done on Friday morning. Now it's even darker, yay! and I am getting funny looks by the Chinese who I doubt have seen it before ;) where my parents live, to get a facial (my first ever) and mendhi done on both my palms and wrists. Mendhi done on your palms traditionally means you are going to get married, not for me obviously, I just like it! They do it so quickly and expertly I don't think I could ever do it. I have a mendhi tube here though, so maybe I'll give it a try!? (P.S. tip for making the colour of the mendhi come out, after it has dried, squeeze lemon juice on it, dry with a hair dryer, and after a few hours or whenever you want to crumble the mendhi off, rub olive oil on your hands, keep it on for 15 minutes and wash off.)
After lunch on the Friday my parents and some of their friends/colleagues set off in 2 cars to the river to spend a few hours on the boat. My parents, with around 25 others, are shareholders in 3 boats that they take on the river, most weekends, to get out of the city and have a relaxing ride down the river(s). It's really comfortable with lots of big cushions round the side, you bring some
her pride and joy!
..covering the baby's modesty, ahem! Check out those kohl-rimmed eyes food and drink, and off you go! The river's really low at this time of year because it's not rainy season until April, but you can still 'sail' (if you can call it sailing, it's more like drifting!). There were a couple of other smaller boats on the river, and as you pass by you get kids from nearby who are walking on the 'shore' waving at you, adults carrying baskets piled high on their heads, men working in the rice fields, and the odd kingfisher perched on a piece of bamboo or wood sticking out of the water. We stopped off at a village and had a wander round. When some of the kids noticed I was taking pictures, they came running and insisting I should take a picture of them. A mother (or a grandmother?) came up and held up her baby for a picture as though he/she was a prize! It was very funny, anyway I took some pictures and my parents will take them to the kids when they next stop off at the village, which will no doubt be in a few weekends time.
So, I had a great holiday in Bangladesh, and it was nice to be generally relaxed after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing back in China visiting Lhasa and Xi'an.
Dhaka/Bangladesh for me was:
-seeing men and women walking on the street in flip flops/bare feet carrying baskets laden with various things expertly balanced on their heads
-sitting in traffic jams bumper to bumper and having kids knocking on my window for money
-women in colourful saris, particularly on the first day of spring where everyone wears yellow or orange
-crowds of people following or staring at me
-street sellers selling baskets of peeled carrots (very strange), fruit or frying local delicacies
-mazes of markets selling everything you could ever want or need
-buying my first shari (sari) and trying to learn how to put it on
-wearing shalwaar kammeezes and trying to negotiate wearing the scarf which seems to fall off at every opportunity
-being in the car surrounded by colourful rickshaws in front, behind and next to me
-sitting in a rickshaw, or more like balancing, as there's no bum room, and hanging on for dear life as we wheeled around other traffic
-the greenery of the areas outside central Dhaka, almost artifically green
-the blue sky! i wasn't expecting any after being told of the pollution
-the kohl-rimmed eyes and big smiles of the kids I met
-the traffic. Oh, the traffic. It can take you 20 mins to travel 10 metres.
-walking into a shop, seeing stacks and stacks and rows and rows of clothes, shoes and nick nacks for your home and thinking 'where do I start?!'
-switching on the TV and seeing on every channel Hindi movies, songs or dances which all seem to be about failed romances and doomed love
-the contrast of the noise and bustle of Dhaka and the stillness and calmness of being on the river only a few miles away from the city
Now I just have to plan my next visit!
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willy
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super blog Claire, keep it up !
Really enjoyed this having been in Dhaka 20 years ago...little changes really..