Filed under: culture
I really didn’t know what to expect for Christmas. I’m not a huge fan of all the Western Christmas tradition of gift giving and Santa and stuff like that. So i was looking forward to a Christmas that didn’t involved cheesy Holiday music and endless ads for sales at local malls. On Christmas Eve the Pastor Ayub came by with a cake for everyone at the center to eat. I was given the honor of cutting the cake and i asked for plates and forks for everyone. I was kind of confused why I was the only one that got a plate and fork but the Bangladeshi way of eating cake is just to plop it in your right hand and eat it right there.
The next morning i got up early to go to the PCB land. It was a white christmas of sorts. Not snowy, but it was really cold by Bangladeshi standards. We piled into a Toyota HiAce and made the 1/2 hour trip. After waiting around for a while we had a Christmas service that was pretty much like what i would expect in America, except for the fact that i was in Bangla. I stood up and talked about what Christmas is like in America (with the aid of Pastor Ayub translating). People looked pretty confused.
A while after the service ended we had one of the best meals i’ve had in Bangladesh thus far. Amazing fish, dal, mutton, misty (sweets), curried vegetables, and of course, rice.
I’m always amazed that people can make such good food with a couple larges fires and some big aluminum pot things.
Instead of taking the HiAce back, i decided to take the bus back with the students. We had a nice walk through the rural countryside, then took a loud, two stroke baby taxi, then a super crowded bus.
I moved out of the center on Christmas and into the a hotel that i’ll be staying at with my dad, uncle, and brother. They’re arriving tonight at 9 pm. I guess for Christmas i got a hot shower and consistent fast(er) internet.
Also, the election here is heating up. I went for a walk yesterday and happened on a huge (2-3000 people) rally for the Bangladeshi National Party. I’m almost as excited for the election here as i was for the election in America. Bangladeshi has much more at stake than the US did. Everything goes down on the 29th and i’ll be explaining more about the election tomorrow.
So today is Eid ul-Adha. I woke up in anticipation, excited for the photographic opportunity. Now, i have mixed feelings about the whole things. I posted the non-gory pictures and there’s a gallery below that has really, really gory pictures. you’ve been warned!
The whole reason behind Eid ul-Adha is that it commemorates the sacrifice that Ibrahim (Abraham for Jews and Christians) made when he sacrificed his son Ishmael. Historically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam come from the same basic beginning. They all believe that Ibrahim was called by God to be the chosen race. The difference started when Isaac and Ishmael came onto the scene. Christianity and Judaism believe that Isaac was the next in line for the chosen people and Islam believes that Ishmael was the next in line for the chosen people. In the New Testament and the Torah, Abraham showed his devotion to God by getting ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. But God intervened when he saw that Abraham was going to do it. In the Quran, it’s the same exact story except that its Ishmael instead of Isaac.
A lot of people go back to spend time with their family for eid. People take buses, trains, boats, cars…Its just a mass exodus from Dhaka. Supposedly 60% of dhaka goes back to their village. Who knows if that’s true, but it is noticeably quieter. Its quite nice.
This can’t be safe. What would happen when (not if) the bus crashes?
yesterday the knife sharpeners were making a killing. There were tons of these guys walking around and preparing for the slaughter.
One difficult part of getting a cow or goat and slaughtering it is that you have to get it back to your house somehow. this guy decided to take a rickshaw because his goat was small, but if you have a cow that weighs thousands of pounds it can cause some problems. Supposedly, seeing guys in lungis chasing a cow down the street is not uncommon.
Prayer at one of the many local mosques.
This a Muslim imam (religious leader). you can either have an imam slaughter your animal for a fee of around 500 taka or just do it yourself. The more devout people have the imam do it. He has a special shaped knife for the job. Also, after watching different people doing this, the imam is much better at finishing the job quickly than an average guy.
Here’s the view from my roof. Pretty bloody
This huge cow was tied up to my building. He took like 20 minutes get down on the ground. During that 20 minutes i almost got killed as he got loose and started running around trying to run people over.
Here’s another Imam. His white clothes got pretty messy.
After the animal is killed its butchered either in the street or in the garage of your building. Then you distribute 1/3 to you family/relatives, some for the poor, and some for the mosque.
Today is like Halloween for the people that can’t afford to buy their own animal. Hundreds of lower caste people run around with bags and ask for pieces of meat. Its like trick or treating, but with raw meat.
Although i think there are better ways to show your devotion to your religion, i do think there are some pretty cool things about this holiday. It’s a time when family comes together and enjoys eachothers company. Because i’ve been away from my family for a while, i see how important that is. Also, a big part of the holiday is giving to the poor. Being that there’s an insane amount of people in this country that don’t get enough food, i think this holiday does a good job of doing that. But on the other hand, i thinks its a waste to be killing thousands of animals unnecessarily and to a certain extent, it can kind of be a show of how much money you have. Kind of a game of which family has the bigger cow.
Filed under: culture | Tags: cows, dhaka, eid ul-adha, eid ul-fitr, goats, ramadan
There are two main holidays in Islam, Eid ul-Ftir and Eid ul-Adha. A couple of months ago Muslims celebrated eid ul-Fitr. it marked the end of ramadan and was marked by going to various family/friends houses to eat lots of food. Eid ul-Adha is on tuesday and the huge increase in the number of livestock in Dhaka is very apparent. There are thousands more goats and cows than usual
The reason for the extra livestock is because the main part of the holiday is that you sacrifice the animal. People spend thousands of taka to buy these cows and goats. Any statistic or number overheard in Bangladesh should be taken with a grain of salt, but I did hear that people can spend anywhere from 450,000 to 800,000 taka for a cow ($6,000-$11,500). In a country where a lot of people are living way below the poverty line, that’s a ton of money. Expect to see some extremely bloody picture on tuesday.
I moved back to the training center last night. I already miss the conveniences of modern life like hot water, consistently running water, fast(er) internet, and air conditioning, but there is something familiar about my room at the center that i like. As i predicted i’m getting less frustrated with the culture and i’m slowly noticing the things i like about Bangladesh again. Not much else is new besides that. I have some pictures i took on the way to the conference a few days ago. the first is a partially butchered animal (cow or goat) hanging from the cage of the cng. Not pictured is the liver and other organs. there were two doctors in the car, so we spent some time figuring out what each organ was.
And here’s a picture of a protest right outside the airport. Bangladesh has been under a caretaker government for the past few months and now they are slowling lifting the emergency bans as the Dec. 18th election approaches. Now people are allowed to assemble and do political rallies and such. A leader of a political party here returned from being in the US getting “medical treatment” and was returning to the country for the first time in a long while. So there was lots of hooplah at the airport while we drove by. The political scene should get much more active (possible much more violent) in the coming weeks as the election approaches.
for some reason i’ve been getting really, really frustrated with things in Bangladesh lately. usually it’s the traffic, honking, and other things that makes me really angry. Most Bangladeshis don’t speak english, but a lot know what how are you means. often times people will test their english skills as i walk down the street and say how are you to me. today i was in no mood for this. A guy yelled “howareyou” at the top of his lungs as i walked past him and i had a hard time not yelling at him. After spending less than an hour trying to find a tour operator for a trip to southern bangladesh, i came back to the hotel room i’m staying in for the time being and slept for about 3 hours. the only way to cure my culture shock/frustration seems to me removing myself from the culture and taking a break from interacting with people.
On another note, i got some laundry done at the hotel and they returned it in plastic wrap. the shirts were pressed, folded, and pinned to cardboard then placed in plastic packaging. even my boxers were in plastic wrapping. my supervisor and i thought this was entertaining. His undershirt and my 4 dollar shirt will never be treated so well.
I’ve been at a conference about 1.5 hours north of Dhaka for the last two days. Well, actually we are commuting to the conference everyday, which can be extremely irritating. It’s really not that far, but we are usually stuck in annoying Bangladeshi traffic the entire time. Last night we were stuck in traffic for a while because a car was trying to push a baby taxi down the road because it had broken down. Instead of doing this on the side of the road they decided to stay in the middle and block traffic for everyone. I decided to stay in dhaka today and regain my composure. I’ve been getting kind of irritated with bangladeshi culture over the last few days.
One positive thing is that i’ve noticed that i’ve really been missing traditional Bangladeshi food. Because i’ve been staying at a hotel for the last few days i’ve been eating mostly indian food and kababs. I’ve been really craving dal and rice. So, i guess after about 2 months of being here i’ve finally gotten acustomed to eating the food.
Here’s some pictures from the conference. When the speakers were talking in Bangla i’d go around and take pictures of the kids and walk around.
Filed under: culture | Tags: bible school, eye liner, rural bangladesh, rural doctor
There are like 17 people visiting the pastor i work for right now. All together we represent 7 different countries. some are doing dental work throughout the country and some are just touring different churches and bible schools. today i tagged along to visit a bible school and a rural doctor training center/medical facility. I managed to get some pictures of the locals while we were going around the town.
And this baby needs some explaining. It’s thought that if you put coal dust in a baby’s eyes then it will have good vision its entire life. that makes absolutely no sense. But, it makes it so many of the babies here look like they have eye liner on.
Filed under: culture, shopping | Tags: bargaining, betel nut, paan, sandals, tongi
Some students were going to the tongi bazaar to get some shoes today after lunch. I haven’t gotten many oppurtunities to go out to markets with students so i decided to tag along. They thought i’d need to take the pedestrian bridge across the freeway, but i showed the (by leading) that i’ve learned how to effectively cross a busy freeway in bangladesh without getting hit.
When we got to the market, it was a good chance for me to ask questions about all the stuff that i’ve been seeing. One interesting thing that they sell in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is this stuff called Paan. It’s preparation of various things that can be eaten/chewed as an after dinner breath freshener, but mostly its something that people get addicted to and continue to chew, even after their teeth fall out. I unknowingly tried this after dinner one night and was disgusted. It was super bitter. I just swallowed the whole thing because i had no idea what else to do with it. The idea is that you get a betel leaf and fill it with some shredded areca nut and some caustic lime powder. Sometimes people put a little bit of tobacco also. It’s pretty gross and you see people spitting the red juice all over the place. Tonight, there are some guests from Australia and they were offered paan as an after dinner breath freshener at the indian restaurant we were at. I kept telling them they should try and it and after about 5 chews the all spit it out in disgust. Here’s a picture of a guy that sells it at the tongi market.
When we finally found a place that sandals i asked the students what the bangla word for shoe was. They hesitated for a while and said “sandal.” Then Khokon found the shoes he wanted. the guy wanted 590 taka. That seemed fair to me. they looked like nice black faux leather sandals. but it was too much for him. As i’ve said earlier, Bangladeshis can be really touchy within their own gender. To convince khokon to get the sandals the guy was grabbing his arm, massaging his shoulder, and just overall sweet talking him into not leaving and buying them from the next guy. It was interesting to watch. they never treat me this way. I would have said 400 taka and gotten them for 450. But finally the guy agreed to 150 taka. yes, from 590 all the way to 150. Khokon left a happy man.
Filed under: culture | Tags: haircut, halloween, international night, international trivia, shawl, snoop doog, vegemite
halloween isn’t really celebrated in Bangladesh, so this post has very little to do with Halloween.
It was international night at church. Because the church is made up of people from 6 of the 7 continents, every year there is a competition with which country or region can display the most talent. Africa won. American did square dancing. I hadn’t dosidoed (sp?) since middle school. And i got kind of sick from all the spinning around. It reminded of how my brother called me “the dancer” for about a year after my parents saw me doing a ballroom dancing unit in middleschool and told the whole family about my amazing dacing skills. I am not a good dancer, so i have no idea where they got that from.
Anyways, there was also a geography/international trivia contest. My partner and i got 4th place and won a shawl. Here’s me wearing it.
Here’s Australia doing a song about Vegemite. It was really odd.
I also got a haircut today. Getting a haircut or shave in Bangladesh so far has been nothing but frustrating. The first time i got ripped off, the second time my hair got ripped out during the post shave head massage, and this time i sat in a chair for an hour while a guy cut my hair from slightly long to a buzz with scissors. It took forever and i couldn’t get him to use the electric clippers that were right next to me. Oh well, it was only 80 taka. also, Fridays are kind of like Saturdays here, so lots of people had the day off and i had to wait 45 minutes. But i did get to watch the India-Australia cricket test match and some MTV India. They had a music video called “singh is king kinng” that has Snoop Dogg dressed up as a bollywood guy.
Lately i’ve been feeling tongue tied while trying to write, so i’ll keep the writing to a minimum and just give you a bunch of picture.
My lens on my digital camera became non-operational in the beginning of October. I’ve been awaiting a new one that i ordered online, then had my parents send to me. The package arrived a couple of days ago, and i’ve been going to markets to get back into taking lots of pictures. The first market i went to I call the bamboo market. its on the side of the road and is made up of bamboo poles and tarps.
On the way there a guy selling jems was trying to get my attention. He really wanted me to take his picture.
Then today i went to a market that is about a 15 minute walk north of me. It’s right on the Tongi river. this market felt much older and much more interesting. It just had a different vibe from the bamboo market. you walked down some steps off the main road and down into the market and it winds its way through along the banks of the Tongi.
this guy was selling jewelry on the bridge over the Tongi. I really like his expression. His loud speaker was playing a tape player. The only thing I could understand from the recording was “city gold! city gold! city gold! city gold!” then it would name a bunch of cities in Bangladesh.
