Fishing Village

I just returned from our 'Survival Bangla' trip to a fishing village outside of Chittagong (I would offer which direction from Chittagong, but the ideas of East, West, North, & South seem to be esoteric here). So every morning the faculty and TLC staff (I'm part of TLC- the 'Teaching and Learning Centre') meet to learn a little Bangla. Today the whole gang piled into a 14 passenger van and drove out to practice what we had learned and to gain a little experience and knowledge about this place we're living!

On the drive out there I kept expecting the traffic to break up, the roads to narrow, and the buildings to diminish in size or frequency. However, this never happened. I guess in a country so densely populated even the rural areas seem urban in some ways. However, as we turned off of one of the main roads and drove into this village area there was a drastic difference in the types of buildings and shops that we saw. Suddenly billboards were replaced with baskets full of eggs, hanging from open front shops. The streets really did narrow, and when our van pulled to a stop and we stepped out, we were stepping onto mud roads. Somewhat predictably we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of interested Bengalis. We were led into a complex of houses- down narrow little footpaths between two houses, or between a house and a wall.

This is Sarah and a little bit of Sangita working their way between a house and a wall in the fishing village.

We were led into a little court yard with maybe four or five homes surrounding it.

Katrina, Sangita, Sarah, Matt, and others standing in the small courtyard between the homes.

The young women and little girls came out of their houses and asked us, in English, what our names were, and how we were doing. A few gestured to Carol and me to join them in their home, so we went in.

Young women standing in the doorway to their house.

The house was probably three small rooms- one entrance, a step up into a living room area that was probably about the size of a queen sized bed, and one bedroom with an elevated cot in it. In the living room area there was an image of a Hindu goddess and two swamis. The woman then told me they were Hindu and that was their god, but they didn't tell me her name.

Next we walked for about 5 or 10 minutes out to the beach. On the way out there I attempted to chat with about four girls who were about 10 years old or so. They taught me how to say goat, wind, flower, dog, and rice patty (just a hint at what we were experiencing on the walk out there).

Fool in Bangla (Flower). The girls I was speaking with kept picking these and giving them to me.

One girl told me that her mom works in the rice field (at least, that's what I think she was telling me). When we got out to the beach we saw huge ships in the distance and small fishing boats near the shore. Instead of sand on the beach there were huge square man-made stones that had been placed where the water meets the land. No one spoke to this, so I'm not exactly sure if this was an erosion or flooding solution or what.

Ships, Fishing Boats, and huge cement (?) stones on the shore

So we spent some time walking along the beach and just madly attempting to speak with the people that had gathered around us out there.

A group of boys that had gathered and were excited about having their photos taken.

A group of girls and their fool which I'm pretty sure was eventually given to me.

Okay, I don't really want to spend a lot of time bragging or anything, but this cow photo is probably the greatest photo of all time. This was taken right on the beach.

Some young boys were playing in the waves crashing against the square stones.

Just a quick glimpse at the crowd that had gathered around us. The two white folk are Meg and Matt.

A very colorful Polly surrounded by some very happy young girls.

Me and a young girl I bonded with on the beach.