Chittagong Trash, Bats, and a Golf Club Getaway

Today is Sunday- the beginning of the week here in Chittagong, so I think I'll write a bit about how I spent the weekend here. But before I get into the nitty gritty of my weekend getaway to a golf club outside of Chittagong, I think it's important to first illustrate to you all what kind of atmosphere there is in here in the city.

Despite the fact that I'm here in Bangladesh as a "writing specialist" there is no way that I can adequately describe to you all, in words, what the streets here are like. For those of you who have spent some time living or traveling in South or South East Asia you probably have a good idea of what it's like. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing the sheer tumult of Asian traffic, let me just tell you it is chaos. At times I'll be riding around in the back of a CNG (aka auto rickshaw, aka tuk tuk) and actually manage to forget which side of the road people here drive on because so few drivers actually adhere to this lax suggestion of order. The driving laws here are actually survival of the fittest; the larger vehicle you drive, the more likely you are to have the right of way.

Keeping all of this in mind, I will tell you A) that I walk mostly everywhere and B) in terms of pecking order and road rules, pedestrians are pretty much as low as it gets. Even if you do find a strip of road that is more or less unoccupied by a moving vehicle, it's probably occupied by something else only slightly less unpleasent. For example:



Here you can see a street that's near AUW in Chittagong. So in this you can see that this two way street is mostly filled with oncoming traffic (somehow always the case). There are CNGs, rickshaws, and a parked car. But where a pedestrian might have some room to maneuver there is a pile of trash and crows. The crows here are a form of recycling, I suppose. Everything organic here gets consumed in some way- by crows or dogs or cats, or possibly the occasional goat or cow. Definitely the most common feature of every pile of trash on every street though is 10 or so crows having their pick of the garbage.

So in an attempt to get out of Chittagong and search for an oasis of sorts, a few of us loaded into some vans and headed out to the Golf Club outside of the city. The morning was beautiful and clear but by the time we got there it was pouring. Still, we had driven all the way out there, found some green, and were dedicated to taking advantage of it! So the 10 or so of us wandered out onto the course.

Here is the whole group wandering through some trees somewhere along the golf course. The woman in red is Nussrat, my Bangla teacher who was kind enough to take us out here. As you can see, this place is immeasurably greener and calmer than the street pictured above.

This is just a shot I took of Sarah's umbrella, which she put on the ground while she attempted to roll her pants up so they wouldn't drag so badly in the rain and mud (an inevitability which I'm pretty sure she soon submitted to).
Here's a photo of myself, Eva, and Sarah (two other ESL writing specialists) after getting a little drenched in the rain on the golf course. Still, you can tell that all three of us were happy to be out in grass and fresh rain (in Chittagong rain pretty much means you're walking through wet garbage, which is somehow worse). Also, check out my sweet hot pink salwar in this picture. haha. I didn't realize when I bought it that it was just one big hot pink suit- kind of ridiculous, but when in Bangladesh...

So this is sunset from the roof of the building I'm staying in right now. Apparently last night Eva and Sarah went up to the roof and saw lots of bats, so tonight a few of us headed up there, cameras in hand, bug dope applied, and went in search for these bats. And boy did we see them! These weren't the fast flittering bats that I've seen in California before- these were huge loping slow fruit bats- bodies as large as cats, wingspans as long as maybe 3 or 4 feet sometimes. A few flew really low above us- coming out of the thick trees around the building and setting off in search of something. We actually got out there just in time to see a crow chasing a fruit bat away. For every 5 beats that the crow's wings would take, the bat would beat once. It was pretty amazing. I took this photo of the sunset with a bat in front, but it turns out it really just looks like a spec. Take my word on it though, this is a really serious fruit bat! I've got to get Dan up there when he gets here finally and get him to take some adequate photos!

Well, that's the update from here. Let me just leave you with these two hilarious photos from Chittagong:

This is a photo of Eva and Sarah posing in front of the sewage system here in Chittagong. Usually these trenches of water are mostly covered, and you're actually walking over them (hoping over the gaping holes in the cement when the need arises). I liked that you can see some sort of trash hanging up in the background like laundry. I also find Eva's and Sarah's expressions hilarious. For some reason Eva is really skeptical of the trash and water, and Sarah just seems so pleased to be standing next to this disgusting river of trash water.


So this photo is from an adventure that Eva and Sarah and I went on in search of the legendary Jack fruit. Many people here at AUW haven't experienced the joys and woes of eating a jack fruit, so Eva got the idea that we could go out, purchase one, bring it back to AUW, cut it up, and share it with whoever would like one. So yesterday afternoon the three of us set out in search of a jackfruit, armed with our knowledge that the bangla word for the fruit, when written out in English script, looks like this: kathal. We wandered near and far but there were no jackfruits to be found. We eventually started asking people- kaathal? kaadal? kathaal? kadhal? jackfruit?, gesticulating frantically (if you've never tried to mime out "jackfruit" before, it's well worth trying, FYI). Eventually we approached a man in a store filled with books. We showed him our best guess as to how to write the name of the fruit out in bangla, and when he didn't understand we pathetically asked "jackfruit?". At last! he understood! So he wrote down the Bangla name for the fruit (we were way off, by the way), and also wrote down the name of a market where we might be able to purchase a jackfruit. He also was kind enough to tell us how much a rickshaw ride to the market would cost, and how much a single fruit would cost. So the three of us loaded into two rickshaws- Sarah and I took the younger, spryer looking cyclists, and Eva flew solo with an elderly rickshaw driver. The ride there was mostly downhill and took us to an interesting part of Chittagong which was much different from the area we're staying in at AUW. The streets were narrower and filled mostly with cycle rickshaws and potholes. The buildings were really low and by the time we got where we were going almost every shop was a small fruit vendor. So Sarah and I got there first and I managed to snap this photo of Eva pulling up. I have to admit that I think this photo might have cost us about 50 taka because pulling out my camera probably wasn't the most modest thing to do. In the end we paid about 50 tk too much and ended up with more jackfruit than I would care to consume in a year (it's definitely not my favorite fruit).

Well, that's the update from here! I hope you're all doing well. I have to get up early for bangla and curriculum planning tomorrow! Give me some updates from America, etc.

with love

--- catie