Garment Factory

Well, this is a blast from the Bangladeshi past, but I thought I would upload some photos about the garment factory that we were able to visit here in Chittagong a few months ago.

For most people, what comes to mind when I say "Bangladesh" is natural disasters, extreme poverty, Islam, and garment factories. I would hazard a guess that most of us in the states have something in our closets that is 'adorned' with the Made In Bangladesh tag. On one trip we were able to go to a warehouse full of boxes awaiting export- many of these said Wal-Mart or Macy's on the sides. What I also thought was interesting to see is that a single box would contain dozens or hundreds of the exact same item, going to the exact same store: Macy's- Nude Bra Medium. It really is amazing to think about how much is produced in the world, and how much is consumed, and where all of that production is happening, and where a lot of that consuming is happening. I'm not even trying to start a discussion on how in the US we may have a tendency to over-consume. I'm simply trying to say that there is a LOT of stuff in the world.

What I found really interesting, though, was going to a garment factory. We were invited to go by the owner of the factory, who is part of the same family that owns the ship-breaking yard we went to, and a tea plantation that we were invited to, (and also maybe a shrimp farm?- this family is a pretty big deal). The man who invited us in encouraged us to talk to the workers, and to take photos. He told me that the women got paid a fair salary, and that they got paid overtime if they worked for more than 8 hours or if they worked weekends.

Here's a general shot of the garment factory. You can see that the majority of the people doing the sewing are women, and that the supervisor is a man. I should note that there were a few female supervisors, but for the most part they were mostly men. When we first walked into the factory a few women stopped sewing and cutting to watch us, but were quickly and quietly told that they had to get back to work. Later it seemed like they mostly were encouraged to talk to us. You can also see in this photo that mostly there is good lighting and good ventilation in the factory- one wall was all gigantic fans going outside, and the other was all open windows.

A woman sorting through hundreds of the same plaid shirt before they get shipped off to Wal-Mart.

I don't really understand this sign. Good to see that they have smoking detectors at least, regardless of what a "hit detector" might be.

This is a photo of the room where the women can eat during their break. I have read about garment factories where these rooms are kept locked, along with the bathroom- so it was nice to see that at least while we were there the doors were all open and unlocked and everything.

The Exit is that way.

Women sitting on the tables and cutting out patterns, I think.

Buttons or grommets or something?

Some female garment factory workers smiling as we passed.

The whole factory was really interesting and moving. I've read a few articles for classes and for personal interest's sake about garment factory workers in South and South-East Asia, so it was really interesting to go see one first hand. My cynical side wonders what it's like when foreign visitors aren't there, but it did seem like the women were treated pretty fairly.

Just something to think about the next time you're shopping in the US.

Go Tigers!

Last week Dan and I got the awesome opportunity to attend an international cricket match! The teams were Bangladesh vs. Zimbabwe. I would love to be the kind of writer that could just whip out an awesome run-down on the entire match, highlighting the most riveting points and downfalls so that my readers could feel the same tension we felt in the last 10 minutes, or the elation that simply filled the stands when Bangladesh won. Sadly, I'm just not that kind of writer. Plus, while the match lasted for 9 hours and probably provided many satisfying, story-worthy moments, I only went to the last two hours or so.

I'm definitely no cricket expert. In fact, with the exception of one rainy day when I was stranded in my hotel bar in Chennai (which turned out to be awesome) and the movie Lagaan, I haven't watched much cricket. Luckily, Dan has lived in Australia, and had some time the day of to do a quick refresher course online so he caught me up to speed on all of the nitty gritty details of how to play (or watch) cricket.

On the drive out to the stadium we went through parts of Chittagong that I had never been to. One interesting stretch of road was lined with gigantic mountains of waste. But, when I looked closer I could see that it was all organized- so there was one gigantic mountain that was all old shoes, or one gigantic mountain that was all fabric scraps. I wonder what the process is that these things are going through, and where they'll eventually end up.

We had free tickets that were in the "nicer" part of the stadium. This basically meant that it was less crowded, and was covered. All of the seating was actually separated from the field by a high barbed wire fence. Something else that was a little jarring at first was that there were many many armed guards around us at all times. I remember vaguely reading a blog about Australians following their cricket team to Chittagong and watching as the "cheap seats" erupted into a small riot during the match. I'm guessing this is why the guards were there.

By the time we got there the Bangladesh team was already batting, and it looked like it was going to be a close game. In the end it came down to 1 wicket left, 6 overs and about 15 runs left before Bangladesh could take the lead. Luckily they had a few great hits and got enough runs to win! Near the end though the stands were going crazy. In between each play a DJ would start blasting deafeningly loud Bangla dance music. The music would fill the stadium for 20 seconds tops and then halt as abruptly as it had started. There was one intro to a song that the crowds would go crazy for whenever it was played. I think it's the equivalent to soccer's "oleee ole ole oleeee". And at one point I noticed that I was recognizing a song, and only after a few seconds did I realize that it was the same remix of this song that was playing on repeat at a temple for durga puja.

So when the end became more close and Bangladesh started looking like it might really have a chance to pull through, the crowds were going nuts. The ice cream vendor near where we were sitting picked up his own chair and started waving it in the air above his head and screaming. This was only topped when the guards who were sitting in front of us started to do the same thing! People around us were taking off their shirts and waving them, and chants of Bangladesh! Bangladesh! Bangladesh! reached a crescendo and moved through the crowds.

After the match we all filed out into the streets. There were no CNGs in sight, so we decided to walk with the crowds until we could find one. We quickly realized that although there was no animosity towards us, many Bangladeshi cricket fans assumed that since we were clearly not Bangladeshi we must have been rooting for Zimbabwe. After we eventually found a CNG we were passed by another CNG full of Bangladeshi men yelling "LOSERS! LOSERS! LOSERS!" and pointing to us. We laughed it off, but next time I am definitely wearing green and red.

Christmas?

Me with three AUW students at Durga Puja in October

Well, I have several completely overdue posts to write. I think I'll separate them by time/theme and instead of just writing one long one, will give just a few shorter updates.

So, One thing that I never got a chance to write about is Durga Puja. For those of you who follow Dan's Travel Blog you may have already heard his perspective on the whole matter, and seen some of his fabulous photos (definitely worth checking out if you haven't already).

So the whole evening started with a trip to Tava, a nice restaurant here in Chittagong. Tava is right above an ATM, and since Dan and I were out of money at this point I ran down to the ATM before we had to pay the bill. So when Denise, Dan and I decided that we were going to try to go to Durga Puja, I decided that the best plan of action would be to take my newly acquired wad of cash and hide it in my bra. I'll leave it at that and spare you all the sweaty details, but just inform you that this was a brilliant idea on my part and saved me many moments of anxiety throughout the remainder of the evening.

Me, Dan, Eva, and Denise in a CNG on the way to Tava

Denise and Dan and I had been hearing all weekend about "durga puja" this and "durga puja" that. Now, I'm no stranger to Hindu festivals. Some of my old blog posts from when I was in India will give insight into my experiences with Hinduism and Hindu festivals. However, Durga Puja isn't celebrated in the South of India at all, so I knew nothing about it. After the fact I found that it is actually most widely (or wildly) celebrated in certain parts of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Since Bangladesh is a Muslim country, and Chittagong is a fairly Muslim city (I only have occasional encounters with Buddhists, Christians, or Hindus), Denise, Dan and I had no idea where to go to celebrate Durga Puja. On the previous night we had taken a CNG from the airport to AUW and had seen several Durga statues, but had no idea how to get to them. We tried asking the waiters at Tava, but they just told us they were Muslim, and that Durga Puja was only celebrated by Hindus (as a side note- the latter part of this statement turned out to be untrue in the end; many muslims celebrate Durga Puja). So, in a moment of desperation Denise, Dan and I went down to the road, hailed a CNG and said: Durga Puja?! This would be like going to a yellow taxi in the states on the 25th of December and saying: Christmas? Luckily for us the CNG driver simply laughed and motioned for us to get in. Even more luckily for us he actually took us to a raging hopping Durga Puja somewhere near to where we lived. AND, as our luck continued, practically the moment we clambered out of our CNG we ran into three AUW students who were eager to show us the ropes.

So while in India I had many amazing, awe-inspiring, sometimes frantic, sometimes chaotic, sometimes even scary experiences at Hindu festivals. But, nothing I experienced in India prepared me for what I was about to encounter here in Chittagong. The first major difference between what I had experienced in India and what I was soon to experience in Chittagong was that the entire temple was segregated by sex. So right off the bat Dan was separated from us. I had planned on walking him through the steps (perhaps literally) of going to a Hindu temple. Unlike most Buddhist temples I've been to, Hindu temples are far less strict about where you can go, what you can do, what you should do, how you do it, etc. Usually in Hinduism it's more about the thought than the action. However, there are still some basic rules- like no wearing shoes, no entering the sanctum sanctorum unless you're invited, etc. Plus there are some things you can do if you want to enhance your experience a little bit. As soon as I realized that Dan was going to be on his own (or rather, surrounded by throngs of eager Bengali men instead of me) I just yelled to him over the general melee at the temple steps, "Just do what everyone else does!" and we parted ways, without a way of finding each other or communicating.

Durga slaying the demon

So the major difference between the festivals I've been to in South India and Durga Puja in Chittagong is that there was dancing! And actually, there was a lot of dancing! So we entered the temple and at the front they had set up a temporary altar with Durga slaying the demon on it. There were also some other statues- like Ganesh, and Saraswati- but Durga was definitely center stage. Also, the entire inside was a basic dance party. Since this whole event was so long ago, I'm still a little vague on the details. What I do remember is that we went to several temples. Some of them had drummers, some of them blared disco music, but every single one was a dance party. I could sometimes see Dan's mop of blonde hair standing tall surrounded by Bengali men behind me, but he was mostly on his own this whole time.

Three AUW students at Durga Puja

I definitely hadn't planned on dancing, and I have to admit that when I saw many women- young and old- dancing at the front in front of the alter, there was a part of me that felt like retreating. But, when I got up there a tiny little girl took my hand and wanted to dance with me. Because I can't say no to children I started dancing with her. This inevitably led to my being spotted by a teenage girl who grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the crowed of sweaty dancing women. They were all having so much fun, and laughing and spinning around. There were little girls who couldn't have been older than 5, and old women who were probably in their 80s, and they were all dancing. I remember at one point when we decided to leave to go to the next temple a young teenage girl grabbed my wrists and wouldn't let me go. She was pleading with me in Bangla and I felt really uncomfortable with her. But, luckily for me, I had three amazing AUW student body-guards who immediately stepped in and came to my defense.

Fire at the altar

Sometimes we would take a CNG from one temple to the next, but mostly we walked through streets that had been closed to traffic and were covered in twinkle lights. There were food and toy vendors all over- which just added to the beautiful chaotic rhythm that night. At a few points there were men selling bubble blowers, so the whole street would be filled with bubbles.

I got home completely exhausted and covered in sweat from so much dancing. Dan seemed to have a good time, with the exception of getting his glasses stolen. We're still working on getting them replaced. Luckily we live in Bangladesh where a trip to the eye doctor is something like 7 dollars, and a pair of glasses is something like 14 dollars.

Wow, this post didn't turn out nearly as short as I thought it would! But, I guess it was just a really memorable evening.

The Little Things

It's the little things in Bangladesh that make me love living here.

The other day Dan and Sarah and I went out for dinner to a nearby restaurant called Kashundi. Afterward, we started walking back and passed by a little shop called Mr. Moonshine's. Mr. Moonshine himself is from Tamil-Nadu and he and I speak a little Tamil whenever I go in. I'm finding it hard to really communicate with him (no surprise there after 3 years of not really speaking Tamil) but he's pretty patient with me and always seems excited when I come in. So when we went in this time I said hello and asked if they had any cinnamon powder. The plan was that we could keep some cinnamon around and sometime fry up some bananas in ghee and eat them with vanilla ice cream and cinnamon. The three other people working in the store set out to find the cinnamon. Apparently their more obscure spices weren't labeled though, so this task proved somewhat difficult. I waited for about five minutes, and in the meantime watched as the men working at Mr. Moonshine's went through all of their mysterious unlabeled or mislabeled powders and tasted each on in turn. The fact that this is the system in place at this store just made me smile. Eventually they produced a small bottle labeled BLACK PEPPER and gave it to me. I smelled it and sure enough, it was filled with cinnamon.

I've yet to make the banana dessert, but that's neither really here nor there. The point, if there is one, is that I love how human everything is here. From the way spices are bought in the stores to the way people eat or clean themselves on the streets- everything is openly human here. Perhaps someone could make the argument (and I can already hear Dan or Mitch beginning to) that our automated systems in the US are also human. Here in Bangladesh, however, everything tactile- and I mean touched by humans or an expression of the human experience- is out of doors and out in the open. There's no backroom where people wash after eating or where men in uniforms unpack boxes full of neatly labeled spices- these things are all done right in the store front where everyone can see.

There's probably a greater message that I'm getting at through retelling my observations. When I figure out how to best express it, I'll let you all know.

Monkey. Many Monkey.

Well, Dan and I have returned from our break for Eid in Malaysia. Just a bit of back story: I first visited Kuala Lumpur in 2007, on my way to Indonesia. Sandwiched between time in India and Indonesia, my one day in KL was a much needed break from chaos. The city is so much calmer than South Asian cities. The roads are paved, there are sidewalks, and being white isn't criteria for being interesting. However, since this week-long break was for Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, I was a little nervous that Kuala Lumpur, the capital of a Muslim country, would be a little crazy. Beyond that I was also a little nervous that getting out of KL would be somewhat impossible. We booked a hostel for one night in KL and got in pretty late. After spending what I later realized was literally 10 times the amount we should on a cab, we arrived at our clean and conveniently located hostel in Chinatown. The room was small enough so that you could almost stand in the middle and touch all four walls at once, and sleeping on the spring-loaded bed was basically like getting a night-long back massage from a car radiator, but the hostel was clean and not too expensive for Kuala Lumpur.

Dan in our tiny room in Kuala Lumpur

The next day we went first thing in the morning to the bus station and tried to get tickets to Mersing- a relatively small town on the East Coast of Malaysia where we would be able to catch a ferry to Pulau Tioman- a small island off the coast. To our dismay we were told that there were no tickets to Mersing for another few days. Eventually we were told to just buy a ticket to a larger inland city and try to catch a bus from there.

So with a plan ahead of us we set out in search of some delicious Chinese food in Chinatown. I should mention that despite the fact that both Malaysia and Bangladesh are Muslim countries, they are very different from each other. So, I was only a little surprised to find myself sitting in Chinatown in a Muslim country eating pork and noodle soup during the day during Ramadan. Malaysia is incredibly diverse, religiously and culturally. It's not uncommon to see women wearing long sleeves and a veil across their face next to women in short mini-skirts and spaghetti strap tank tops. Similarly, it's not uncommon to see a large mosque next to a Buddhist temple, next to a Hindu temple. I was also left with the impression that most people in Malaysia have a relatively negative view of Bangladesh. I was told it was conservative (when it's actually classified as a "moderate" country), there are many terrorists here, there are bombs all of the time, and that Bengali's have no respect for people who aren't Muslim.

After our soup, Denise (who we had met up with by chance at the bus station when we were all trying to get tickets), Dan and I all decided to get some moon pies. Apparently for the autumn festival in China there's a tradition of eating (and gifting) little pastries called moon pies. Since the festival was a few weeks ago they were still available in little packages in Chinatown. The cheapest I saw were about 2 ringgit (so about 60 cents) and the most expensive were about 20 ringgit (about 6 dollars). We bought some of the cheap cakes and enjoyed them on the street.

Dan and Denise with their moon cakes!

Dan's kitty shaped moon cake

Me and my moon cake in front of a moon cake advertisement

Denise and Dan with the Petronas Twin Towers in the background.

So after eating and relaxing for most of the day in Kuala Lumpur, Dan and I caught a bus to a town called Kluang. The bus ride was completely easy. We got to sit in the very front, and they played two US movies during the ride. I mostly looked out the window and came to the conclusion that Malaysia is very beautiful and very green! We got off in Kluang and had about a two hour wait for the bus to Mersing. In that time we managed to grab a bite to eat and some tea. Plus it was nice to have a little break after being on the last bus for about three and a half hours. That night was the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid, so everyone was celebrating. As we waited for the bus people around us were setting off fireworks. The ride to Mersing was pretty short- about an hour and a half- and when we arrived we were greeted by many moths, some stray cats (chasing, catching, and eating said moths) and a man with a notebook full of photos of his hostel. It was pretty late, about 11:30, and we weren't sure if we should go with this man. His price seemed reasonable, but he was being pretty pushy. An Italian woman we had chatted a little with seemed to think this man was trying to take us for a ride and overcharge us, and so she stormed off. Not really sure what to do, Dan and I followed her and quickly found ourselves walking along a deserted road hoping that a taxi would somehow chance by us. Eventually we gave up and went back to the bus station to take that man up on his offer. However, when we got back the man was gone, and we were shortly tracked down by the Italian woman who had managed to find a taxi in the meantime. The taxi driver confirmed what the man with the binder had told her- the place in Lonely Planet was closed. So he took us to the next place Lonely Planet listed and we ended up paying only 5 ringgit less than what the man with the binder had been proposing. Now, I'm not too picky about where I sleep, but on first impressions this place was pushing my limit. It was a little dingy- dirty looking sheets and walls that didn't reach the ceiling, so you could hear anything then went on in the place. There were huge dead months in a few places, and big holes in the walls. Omar, the man who ran the place (called Omar's Backpacker's Hostel) was a friendly sort of guy, and I took note that the kitchen was clean, and the bathroom didn't give me the heeby jeebies.

Our nasty bed at Omar's Backpacker's Hostel

Dan, trying to be optimistic about Omar's. Note the dead moth stuck in the chicken wire wall above Dan.
Yeah, Omar's is a pretty classy place.

After we paid and started to get into bed, being sure to take out our sleep sheets and wrap them securely around us, I noticed that the sheets were covered in tiny little blood stains- an indication that there were bedbugs. I pulled my silk sleep sheet tighter around my neck hoping that the sheets were old and that any potential bug problem had since been taken care of. So at about 12:30 in the morning Dan and I shut the lights off and went to sleep. I dozed uncomfortably for about a half an hour and then woke up from being afraid of bugs. I woke Dan up (somewhat unsympathetically) and asked him to turn the light on. I then asked him to hand me my camera bag where my flashlight was. I was hoping that I could get out my flashlight, closely examine the bed, and then sleep feeling more assured that there actually weren't any bugs. BUT, as Dan dropped my bag onto the bed in front of me I saw, to my horror, a bed bug scurry quickly into the seam of the bag. No flashlight necessary! It was confirmed: we had bedbugs! So Dan and I spent the next half an hour or so removing the stuff from our room one item at a time, thoroughly checking every seam and crease and removing any bugs that we found. We put everything in the kitchen and then sat down at the kitchen table. We sat there, exhausted, until six in the morning, playing cards and playing the game: What would __________ do if he/she/they were here? After going through basically everyone we knew we decided there was no good solution. We were stuck in a small town that we didn't know our way around, in the middle of the night, with basically no other options. I spent a long time looking at a sign that said: Malaysia: Fascinating Destination. It apparently took me being awake at 5am at Omar's for me to realize what an interesting word combination that was:
Fascinating
Destination
So we sat there until six am when we went to the jetty to try and catch a boat to Tioman Island. Much to our dismay we were told that the early ferry wasn't running, and the mid-morning ferry was full. We bought two tickets for the 2pm ferry and started our mental countdown for the eight hours remaining before we could get out of Mersing. We tried to look on the bright side of things- we now had time to go to an ATM and get some breakfast before leaving (we actually had time to do these things several times over, but let's not get too specific...) We decided to search for someone who could tell us where an ATM was and the first person we ran into was the man who had been soliciting us at the bus station the night before. 'How are you?' he asked with a great smile on his face? We told him we were tired and that we had tried to find him. We explained that we had stayed somewhere with bedbugs and he immediately said: oh, Omar's? He then asked us if we had gotten tickets for the 10am bus. When we said they were all sold out he told us that he had come down to get tickets for the people that ended up staying with him and, finding that they were sold out, had dome some finagling and had managed to get seats anyway. He pointed to the three people who were staying with him. I looked over and saw three people, all seemingly well rested, laughing, and eating something. The man then chatted with us for awhile about Bangladesh and the importance for educating women. He referenced female politicians in the US and Bangladesh and Malaysia and gave us his opinion on Bangladeshi politics and religion. Eventually he pointed us in the direction of an ATM and told us where we could get a bite to eat, and we trudged off, resenting Omar's at every step.

We ended up getting a bite to eat from a food stand run by a Chinese family. We weren't sure how it worked, and were much too exhausted by this point to really try hard to get food. We probably spent 5 minutes just standing or sitting with our mouths open, watching other people come and go, buying lots of food and eating it. Eventually someone took pity on us and asked what we wanted. She gave Dan a bag and he started filling it with pastries. We paid and went into a nearby coffee shop to eat.

I honestly don't even remember eating this.

After getting some tea and eating enough to at least quell our hunger a little bit, we headed back to the jetty.

A funky boat on the jetty

Dan stayed with our bags, and took a little nap, and I sat politely in front of where the handed out boarding passes. After waiting for awhile someone took pity on me and gave me a boarding pass for the 10am ferry. We were quickly herded onto the boat and slept the entire way until the boat slowed down as it headed into the first jetty on Tioman Island!

On the ferry to Tioman Island, at last!

The boat dropped us off on ABC (Air Batang beach). I'm not exactly clear on what we did next, but I know we ended up finding a great place on the beach and I think we may have even gone swimming. We got food, and properly went to sleep after being awake for over 36 hours.

We spent the next week mostly on ABC. The decisions we had to make each day were: where do we eat? Should we swim, snorkel, sunbathe, lie in a hammock, or go for a walk? what should I eat? That was basically life on Tioman. We went snorkeling a few times. Part of the reason we decided to stay on ABC was that right off the beach there was nice snorkeling. We would just walk into the water, stick our faces in, and see pink and yellow coral, rainbow fish, jelly fish (with fish living under them), clown fish and anemones, sting rays, and many other kinds of fish! We pretty much spent every night eating at a sea-side restaurant that wasn't too expensive and watched the sunset. Most nights there was a lightning storm going on on the other side of the island and we could see glimpses of it when the lightning lit up the sky behind the high ridge of the island. Also nearly every night we were treated to an Eid fireworks display put on by the children who lived on the island.

Noodle soup- Noodles, squid, chicken, shrimp, cauliflower, corn, tomatoes, greens, chillis, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, cardamom, mystery white balls... pretty good but a little tricky to eat since there was so much that actually wasn't edible.

Watching the sunset on the beach.

Going for a short hike to the next beach over.

Watching the Sunset, again!

Lovely Tioman Sunset

Sleeping in a hammock some afternoon.

Probably verging on sunburnt

Island Monkeys! Mama and her baby.

Monkeys on the road (path) that went along our beach.

All Monkeys!

A firework being shot off!

View of Tioman from the jetty on ABC

In a hammock next to the restaurant where we most often ate.

On the beach after snorkeling

Our beach- it's lovely.

Island cats. We were always in danger of being followed by these guys. They were professional beggars. One night at dinner I was sitting too far forward in my chair and a cat jumped up behind me. I was startled, but was even more startled when two seconds later a second cat jumped up. The next night I was sure to sit all the way back in my chair, but then the cats just jumped onto my lap.

So the highlight for the entire week on the island was probably the day that Dan and I decided to go on a trek through the jungle. The island has a ridge going through the middle, so the hike was mostly uphill. We prepared with plenty of DEET lots of water, and our cameras (I regret to inform you all, however, that I shot almost exclusively in film that day, so the photos won't be available until I get myself out into Chittagong and find a place to develop film for me).

Before we could set out into the jungle we had to walk through Tikkek, the beach/city that was just south of our beach. It was basically one of the most brutal walks of my life. We had sunblock on (and with us) but it was a long walk along a wide concrete road without any shade. We definitely should have headed out earlier to avoid having to make the walk to the jungle trail head in such heat. But, I can honestly say it was worth it when we got into jungle. The path was a a narrow boulder path with some stone steps put in place during the steeper parts. It followed the power lines across the island, but the jungle around us was still really dense. There were times I couldn't see more than about 10 feet to the right or left of me. We were basically just surrounded by forty foot high ferns and huge trees, bugs, bats, birds, monkeys, and giant squirrels (which we were luckily quiet enough to see!) The entire walk was pretty tiring and I haven't been that sweaty in a long time, but it was also completely awesome. We hiked up to a waterfall and then decided we should head back because we didn't want to get caught at night in the jungle when the snakes and bugs really started coming out.

So after 5 nights on the island we headed back to Kuala Lumpur for one night (where we stayed in a really nice hotel), and then back to Chittagong.

Dan among the throngs of street vendors in Chinatown in KL

Back to Chinese noodle soup with sweet pork! Okay, not too creative of us, but delicious nonetheless.

Fresh kiwi juice! mmmmm!

Fruit vendor selling interesting fruits.

Dan in Chinatown. Not *really* smiling because it is a little overwhelming.

Dan and a statue in Chinatown. Which one's Dan? Which one's the Chinese statue? It's hard to say.

Ramadan in Chittagong

I should admit that I haven't been updating for several reasons. Primarily my life here in Chittagong has settled into a routine schedule of work and eat. Additionally, I spent about a week and a half sicker than I can remember ever being before, so my energy for even writing emails was entirely diminished. More on that later, though!

So despite finding myself back in a routine in life, things here are still staying interesting. With a bit of turbulence and some improvising the school year here at AUW has started. I probably only know about 30% of my 75 students' names so far, but am learning more every day- and like I said, I was sick for a week (that's my excuse anyway).

Life in Chittagong has changed dramatically for me in the last few weeks in two ways. Firstly, Dan has arrived! I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this entry. He will probably be better than I am at posting interesting photos. He arrived right when I was starting to actually recover from the flu (perhaps of the swiney variety?!), so it was nice to have someone feeding me right when my appetite came back. I think Dan was a little shocked when the nurse came in to check on me and said that I was looking more lively than I had in a week. I think Dan had thought I was looking horrible- little did he know how horrible I had been! Basically I was stuck in bed with fevers that spiked and dropped as if someone were tuning through my internal radio stations looking for a good song- 99.8 100.3 101.5 102.4 103.6 102.3 100.0 101.3 99.6 100.5... up and down up and down. I developed a rash basically all over my body. I basically couldn't open my eyes without feeling pain behind them. After a few retrospectively hysterical bouts of delirium (during which time I found myself clutching desperately at a thread that I found in my bed and weeping that the thread was my closest friend...) the nurses and doctors at AUW decided that they should take some blood to make sure I didn't have typhoid or malaria. A man came in from the lab that AUW uses and I was called forward to sit at the table in the Health and Wellness Center and have my blood taken. However, this man and I were not on the same page. As soon as I started sitting at that table I started feeling light headed. I lost my vision and started losing my hearing- I was definitely about to black out. However, there was a part of my consciousness that was aware of the fact that this man had to take my blood so that eventually someone could give me something to make me feel better. So I resolved to stay sitting at that table until he took as much of my blood as he needed! But as I was sitting there my arm would start to droop sadly and the man would say: HOLD STILL! And I would mumble an apology and try to hold still- which is harder than it sounds when you think the room around you is moving. As soon as I felt him finish up taking my blood I decided I needed to lye down. "I think I need to lye down" I said, and I started to crawl onto the floor right there under the table. The man, panicking and perhaps a little nervous that someone might come in and think he had put me in this floored state, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. He called for a nurse who rushed in and found me, once again, trying to lye down on the floor. The nurse pulled me up and started herding me towards the "chill out room" where I had made myself a nest on one of the spare beds. Luckily I was lucid enough to alert her of the fact that I was about to throw up, and she managed to get me into the bathroom in time. After throwing up and then sleeping for the rest of the day I started feeling better. Eventually they got my test results back and I came up negative for both typhoid and malaria, and have actually been feeling great the last few days!

So I have physically recovered, and Dan is here to entertain me, so thing have been going great in that respect!

The other huge change that's happened in Chittagong in the last few weeks is that Ramadan has started. For those of you who aren't familiar with the ins-and-outs of Ramadan, I'll just give you a short run down. Basically Ramadan is the month of fasting in Islam. What this means is that Muslims who are observing Ramadan do not drink any water and do not eat any food from sunrise to sundown every day for the month. This has become a part of my life for several reasons despite the fact that I'm not fasting. Firstly, every morning at about 5:20 a siren alerts all people in Chittagong that it is now officially time to stop eating. The siren then sounds again at about 7:30 in the evening to alert everyone that it is now okay to eat again. The first time I heard this siren I thought it was a tsunami warning and I found myself wondering if living on the 6th floor of my building would be protection enough against a tsunami. However, I soon realized what the siren was actually for and now I anticipate its sound in the morning while I'm half-awake after my neighbors inadvertently wake me up when they get up to make an early meal for themselves, and again in the evening after work.

Because there is no eating during the day during Ramadan, every restaurant is closed all day. This basically means that Dan and I are making all of our own meals. It's still possible to go out during the day and buy uncooked food- vegetables and fruits, grains and lentils, etc. because people really do feast during Ramadan after sunset. Also on the streets you can buy what's called iftar (iftar is actually the meal that happens at the end of the day after sunset- but people also refer to the food by this name). So every restaurant that is closed during the day opens up street stalls at night and sells all sorts of iftar- samosas, chick peas, fried chilis (a lot of deep fried food actually), and desserts (also deep fried). I've found it's difficult now to buy naan or parota or roti on the streets, whereas before it was incredibly easy, but now it's easy to go out and buy samosas, so it's a compromise.

Something that I find interesting here is that by the end of the day people are far less productive. Dan and I went to Central Plaza to buy fabric and even though iftar time was still not for another half an hour, we were told to come back another time. People just get so hungry that things literally shut down. Also right after iftar time it's possible to go out onto the street and just walk down the middle of it. Traffic has stopped, and shops are quiet. Even beggars won't follow you around during this time because everyone is busy eating for the first time in 14 hours. When I was working in NYC I had a job taking 15 boys to Central Park to go ice skating. Needless to say that experience was loud and chaotic. When the boys were back on the bus, however, we would give each of them two chocolate chip cookies. The moments that followed us handing out the cookies were the only quiet moments in the entire afternoon, and this is much what Bangladesh is like at iftar time. The streets calm down, the beggars don't follow you down the street, and people don't yell at you from their shops. Everyone is busy eating.

Well, I should actually get going to go buy some samosas and some bananas before things start closing at iftar. I'll try to give some general updates soon- maybe with photos! There's a vegetable market near my house that Dan and I went to the other day, and I really want to return to with a camera. You basically get to it by walking through a little alley where men sell fruit and dried fish. In the market you can buy all sorts of vegetables or you can buy fish or shrimp, mutton (which hangs, whole, from the rafters) or chickens (which you pick out, live, and they kill and feather for you). So hopefully I can get up the courage to take some photos there, because it's a pretty awesome spot.

I hope you all are well

--- Catie


Dan's Blog:

http://blog.danbretl.com/travel/

Solar Eclipse

Some of you may have read that there was going to be a solar eclipse in this part of the world. Most articles highlighted the fact that it would be visible through India, China, and then the Pacific Ocean, with no mention given to us here in Bangladesh. But we all knew what to look for. So early on Wednesday morning we all met downstairs at the van and drove out to the future AUW site. AUW is currently located in a series of not-quite-finished-yet buildings here in Chittagong, but someday it will be housed on 100 acres of hilly land just outside of the city. The drive out there was pleasant- shopkeepers were just setting up shop, and we drove through what appeared to be a rickshaw colony just before we got to the gate to future AUW. Apparently whoever has the keys to the gate was still asleep, or possibly eating breakfast by this point, so we all got out of the van and walked a few hundred meters through the future AUW site.

At this point the site is nearly completely wild. There's a main dirt road that runs into the land a ways, and a few families living here and there along the road. Michelle pointed out to us where the property ended on the other side of a ravine. Apparently the AUW side of the ravine is completely picked dry because villagers come out and take whatever they can use- sticks and branches, plants, etc. So as we walked along we could see these little huts with wood fires in front, families making breakfast and dogs stretching to wake up.

Apparently like most of Bangladesh, the AUW site was nearly entirely clay- gray clay and red clay. Sometimes something that looked like a piece of schist would be in our path, but really it was just dried up clay that broke as soon as you put any pressure on it. What a job it will be for these engineers to come in here and figure out how to build a campus on this flood prone clay ridden area.

Zelda, Michelle's intrepid daughter, down in a ravine at the AUW campus.

So we got as far as the picture above and started to look for the sun. We then realized that we had walked ourselves into a kind of bowl where the hills around us were blocking out the sun. So we walked back on the dirt road a ways and stopped to wait for the clouds to clear and the eclipse to reveal itself. Unfortunately it's the monsoon in Bangladesh right now, so things are pretty cloudy. We had prepared a pin hole (actually, pen hole) camera, but couldn't get enough direct sunlight to actually cast a shadow.

Jalene, Zelda, and Denise working on our pin hole camera.

So despite many warnings to not look directly at the sun, we all wanted to know if we would be able to see it. The sky was completely filled with clouds, but they were moving quickly, and were layered, so we were hoping they would clear enough so that we could get a glimpse.

Sarah, Eva, Polly, Faheem, Meg, and Calvin, all theoretically avoiding looking directly at where we were hoping the sun would show itself.

In the end we did get a few glimpses of the eclipse. The clouds would break apart long enough for us all to say: "OOH LOOK! oh NO! Don't Look directly at it!" and then the clouds would pass in front of the sun again and we would be back to waiting. I did manage to get a few shots, mostly of clouds, but here's the best of them:

I know this looks like the moon, but it's actually the sun during the eclipse. I swear.

Even if we couldn't exactly see the eclipse, we could tell that it was getting darker instead of lighter out. Frogs and crickets came out in full force for a few minutes, and I felt satisfied.

Other than that things here have been pretty work centered for me. I've been recovering nicely from a little bit of a stomach thing I had going last week, and have been enjoying Bangladesh a lot. Two nights ago at 11pm a parade went down my street. I couldn't see it, but I could hear a whole loud brass section, drums, and people marching along and cheering. Then last night at about 11pm a concert started from somewhere in my neighborhood. South Asia seems to have a way of using speakers that is unknown in America. Basically I've found that the sound quality has no value compared to the sound quantity; the louder, the better. So last night the sounds of this concert filled my room- over the sound of the fan on high, over the sound of the dogs barking on the street and the cars honking from below. This lasted until I fell asleep at 1am, and continued for what I think was several hours after- I kept waking up and realizing that the music was still going, and then would fall back asleep, assured that Bangladesh water was just as I had left it when I fell asleep at 1am.

So I've been having some thoughts about life in Chittagong. At home in Anchorage the city butts against the hills and flows down to the inlet. There, 250,000 people do their best to keep nature at bay. Still, a spider creeps in to your house and dogs wake you up at night, barking at wandering bears. A car hits a moose and your friends all hear about it.

Here in Chittagong, again between hills and water, it's nature that's doing its best to keep the 3 and a half million people at bay in the jungle. We creep into ant hills, curl up and take a nap, and call it our bed. We put concrete where moss once grew, and act surprised to see it returning on our white washed walls and floors. Instead of a moose wandering into a city and trying to live skirting around traffic jams and construction sites, Chittagong is a city wandering into a jungle, unsuccessfully trying to force the wild life to submit to man-made boundaries and barriers.