Dear Sinister, These were my thoughts after just over a month in Bangladesh. It started off with hree weeks of VSO induction training (I'm on their Youth for Development scheme - see the archives) and two weeks in my placement I'm pretty settled and definitely still glad to be here. So much has happened and although this letter is long I haven’t gone into even half of my experiences during October – it just gives you an idea. ATMOSPHERE After taking a few steps out of the airport, Dhaka city certainly leaves a lasting impression. If you thought London was a hustle and bustle kind of city then I can assure you Dhaka is at least ten times as busy. The combined noise of rickshaw bells, car horns (drivers here certainly aren’t afraid to use them), street vendors and call to prayer from the nearest mosque is a little bit crazy at first but it doesn’t take very long to get used to it. The first call to prayer of the day starts at 4.50 am and in Ramadan it’s about an hour earlier. Bright and early then and in the couple of abodes I have had since I got here the mosque (speakers and all) has always been very close. It used to wake me up before I was ready but I'm gradually attuning to it. I am now used to the noises of Dhaka so much so that it was very peculiar when I went away to Koitta (an hour or so outside the city) last weekend with all of its relative silence (although it was blissful) and lack of pollution. As for the heat and humidity I've been acclimatising by walking for at least an hour each day. Now that I feel okay with this I'm joining the local mixed hash club (the nearest equivalent to a hiking club in Dhaka). I'm going to start off by walking and build up on my running so I can eventually run full hashes (hopefully). RELIGION Now that we’re in the holy month of Ramadan, I've been invited to a few Ifta (breaking the fast) parties over the coming weeks by work colleagues. The singing coming from the mosque loudspeakers is extra stunning at the moment and the special decorations all around the city look marvellous. So, I am getting to participate in a fair few Muslim traditions at the moment. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t get to Old Dhaka for Durga Purja (Hindu festival) to see the statues and ceremonies. As the flight here got put back it ended up being just after I arrived when my Bangla was so poor I wouldn’t have been able to manage properly. I've even gone back to my roots and attended a presentation evening in a local Catholic school. I went along to watch the traditional dancing etc. when much to my surprise I ended up on Bangladeshi television as part of the audience. As for other religions such as Buddhism – they are not as prominent in Dhaka city but when you get out to the Chittagong Hill Tracts there’s more variation. I'm very keen to learn more about the indigenous people of Bangladesh that live in that area. Although I don’t want to get into the topic just yet (I’ll probably wait until I've been to that part of the country myself) LANGUAGE My Bangla is improving fairly quickly. Formal classes at language school were just during induction so I'm doing some self-learning at the moment with books/tapes etc. I intend to take some evening classes when I think I've exhausted the DIY effort. I've got a bit of a deal with a few members of staff at work for mutual language learning which works pretty well. If all else fails I resort to body language. This came in very handy when the cook at work and I tried to have a conversation with each other. Technical meetings at work are generally all in Bangla but I can understand about 10-30% of it and every now and again someone will get me up to speed with what is going on. It’s good practice for my listening skills – meetings here are a bit mental with people talking in raised voices over each other (very quickly). I can follow the meetings well enough to interject with my opinion/suggestions and that’s good enough for me. ABSORBING BANGLADESHI CULTURE Food and Clothing As one of my supervisors at work put it “I'm well on my way to becoming an honorary Bangladeshi”. I'm getting well practiced at eating using my right hand. Although I do still make a fair bit of a mess! I'm really enjoying the food here there are a lot of different types of fruit and veg here that you can’t get back in the UK. These along with meat (yes including pork - I've discovered where the special market for pig products is) fish, rice and dhal (contains lots of lentils and spices) is keeping me well sustained. Come to think of it my stomach now feels that something is missing if I don’t have at least one big portion of rice in a day. I'm also becoming quite partial to Sunggara, recipes vary but includes veg, nuts with lovely spices wrapped in deliciously fatty batter – I must get the recipe. However, for a girl who has a sweet tooth I've discovered something that is just too sweet for me. Misti is pretty much just pure sugar and I can’t say that I'm too fond of it. As I expected, I'm really getting into wearing Shalwar Kameez here. It consists of along tunic over baggy trousers with orna (scarf) to cover the chest. Having said that there are a few occasions when a desire for western clothes sets in. Exhibitions During the last couple of weeks I've started my quest to go to museums and art galleries for exhibitions to learn more about my new found home. The Liberation War Museum really brings home the tragedies that came about in the formation of the new independent republic of Bangladesh. It’s such a new country in the governance respect (30 years) that I have a lot of belief that major changes will happen to reduce the amount of corruption here. How long it will take to educate enough people to make it so is anyone’s guess. On a completely different note I attended a superb textile traditions of Bangladesh exhibition. It had everything from antique (several hundred year old) Samdani (rated as the most desirable material over the years) saris through to contemporary designs using various traditional methods along with mixtures of jute, cotton and silk. There are a lot of other things going on that I hope to get to. TOURISTY STUFF I'm not planning on taking much holiday for the next couple of months until I feel like I've really got to grips with my placement work. An opportunity too good to miss comes around next month – I'm going with work to Chittagong city so I plan to take a break afterwards to explore the hill tracts, Bandarban etc.! My Bangladesh tourist hit list includes many other places but particularly Sundarban (beautiful mangrove area in the south-west with rare monkeys and plants) Cox’s Bazaar region (south-east) and Sylhet area (north-west). I plan to go to India a few times as well. As for other parts of South Asia – it depends on money and time – I’ll see what I can manage. EVERYTHING IN THE GARDEN ISN’T ALWAYS ROSY – BUT BAD SPELLS DON’T LAST LONG Things that I hope I don’t get used to during the year include (as I feel I would lose some of my engineering/personal integrity if I did) are the problems with human rights here, pollution, along with the lack of health and safety practice. My mind has been fairly calm with regards to staring. As it’s not considered rude in Bangladeshi culture then you just have to tolerate it, after all it’s not threatening but just pure curiosity. As you would expect over the month there have been a few minor ‘mishaps’ learning things the hard way. Hey, no-one said living in a developing world city was always going to be easy and I'm still in one piece! A few accommodation issues are now being sorted. I wasn’t v. happy in the guesthouse that my boss put me in after induction finished – access to kitchen and in/out building proved extremely problematic. I'm now going back to the joys of a shared flat in the not too distant future – hurrah! Where it will be yet again easy to welcome visitors…. The negative things all float into the background compared to all the positive things that have already happened and what I think is just round the corner. Expect another missive in a few weeks. In the meantime please let me know what you’re up to. As for WORK I'm enjoying it so far. I’ll let you know more about it next time! CONTACT DETAILS As an alternative to my email address(es) should you desire to send post then please use the following postal box address: - Amy Skelton c/o VSO Bangladesh GPO Box 406 Dhaka 1000 BANGLADESH Note that letters usually take about a week to get here and they generally get through okay. Parcels are subject to customs checking and hence in this country things can go into a (not so) mysterious void. However, the best way to get round this seems to be to get the post office to not only staple the package but to WAX SEAL it so that any tampering would be very obvious. Things are a lot less likely (if at all) to go missing with wax seals. Parcels can take anything from (the norm of) a week to a few months (unusual) to get through. Don’t be put off by this too much though as the majority of things do get through. I'm just telling you how it is – make your own mind up. As for a telephone I'm considering getting a new mobile here with the help of a Bangladeshi friend to make things easier/safer for me with the time difference etc. plus convenient for keeping in touch with my newly found friends in Bangladesh! PHOTOS The first of these will be online soon – I will let you know as soon as I get round to doing this! Take care, Amy _________________________________________________________________ Send a funky Messenger Christmas card http://www.msn.co.uk/christmascard +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+