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Published: March 27th 2008
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hello there friends. its official--i have spent nearly 24 hours in our new country! for my spring holidays i decided to sneak a peek into the crystal ball and figure out why everyone is raving about dhaka. no...wait...i guess by everyone i mean me. and "raving" may not be the best choice of words. anyway, without getting into a semantic migrane, lets move on. i wanted to see what life was holding for jen and i next year. i wanted to visit the school. i wanted to visit my good friends justin and kelly. as a seasoned traveller i know that pinning all hope on first impressions is a terrible thing to do. however, i must say that this place, even though i could be on the surface of mars, really has a quirky laidback charm to it.
after landing at 2am last nite and being dragged through a large crowd of locals at the airport we were on our way. there i was sitting passenger to the one person in this world i cant seem to shake. my good friend justin. we met in high school, and have been crossing paths, purposely and accidentally, ever since. we attended college
traffic
one hand gripping the dash, the other snapping away together, and while i spread my wings and flapped to belgium justin took some time in new york city. when i made my way to hong kong, justin was too curious to stay put, and he came to cut his international teeth when i was living there. we parted ways for dubai and brussels, and now once again are finding our radar blips singing the same cadence. this is his first year teaching in dhaka with his girlfriend, kelly. in february, as you know, jen and i attended a job fair in london, and after a weekend of raw interviewing power, presto change-o we landed jobs in the same city as those two. before we start humming the its a small world tune, i believe that somewhere between divine providence and fate, we are two flat rocks skipping across this big old pond. i cant wait till we chase each other out of this city and accidentally end up taking up contracts in 2025 at santa's internatonal school of the north pole.
to tell the truth, my expectations of dhaka were not all that high, based solely on the spotty literature i have gathered and the you tube clips
american club
these flowers smelled better than my tennis game i trade back and forth with jen. i was told if the poverty or the smog didnt get to me, then a huge hurricane would land on my head. coming off the plane i didnt know what to expect. what i have seen so far is a hopeful and resilient people, marked by a dark past, living in poor conditions, surviving on little more than their hospitable smiles, and an impressive worldview. i made my first bangladeshi friend on the flight over, a young man about my age who has opened a little bangali food joint in brussels on his way home to visit family in dhaka. in london, over a beer of course, we discussed everything from politics to how to prepare a delicious dal and rice. i told him i would have to drop by his little place back in brussels, and in return he gave me his home address, mobile telephone number, and contact of his brother in dhaka.
today i spent most of the morning lounging in the confines of justin's mansion of an apartment. nearly 2000 square feet this place is bigger than many homes i have grown up in. i was treated to
cee-ment pond
having a beck's by the pool a lovely breakfast prepared by justin's house helper of homemade yoghurt and fresh fruits. at lunch justin and i weaved our way through traffic towards the american club for lunch. traffic, as i have come to realize consists of trucks, cars, rickshaws, and pedestrians walking, driving and cycling any which way but straight. i think i have seen a total of one traffic light, which was mainly ignored by most motorists. using the beep of a horn means saving a few lives as we made our way through this tangled mess. stopping for any reason, mainly jam ups, drew mothers and children into the streets to your car window for food, water, money, anything. no more than five years old and barefoot a little guy was hopping through cars trying to procure anything he could get his hands on. sadly, as justin pointed out, many of these families and children are somehow connected--usually by some system of force--to local gangs.
at the american club, life was a little different. after a few beers and a chicken sandwich by the swimming pool, justin and i treated ourselves to playing a game of tennis. well, he played, and i just hacked
pedaling
coming from all directions at the ball with that racket-thingy. even more hilarious than my game, were the ball boys chasing down strays. just like on tv, back the balls would come. no matter how far my slips went (and they went far...some out of the court and near the pool--yeah it was that bad) the boy would always retrieve, and allow, another ball to go flying. our fee for using the court for one hour, plus a tip for the ball boy, was two american dollars.
only at the beginning of this interesting journey, i am looking forward to more experiences that will help me decipher these people and their city of dhaka. i suppose i have a few years to crack the code on this one, but for now i am chalking it up to an inherent sense of goodness. more on that one later.
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