Friday, January 9, 2009

The Walk to School

A few haphazard shots from the walk to school:

My street, not too busy in the morning!

The men that hang out in front of the mosque:

A little more traffic...

Stinky, stinky garbage

roundabout before school
chickens!

vegetables!!
greeted at school by the little puppy some of the girls rescued and take care of.
he isn't good at posing.

next door: construction? deconstruction? a little of both . . .

Monday, January 5, 2009

Only Away from Home

I like to have one "Wow, I'm definitely in a different country" moment every day.

Yesterday's moment, however, wins:

I went to the Indian Embassy to pick up my visa. Walked through 'security'. The man asked to look in my bag. He opened all the compartments, and pulled out a tampon (which, as you know, they don't have in this part of the world). He held it in my face.

"WHAT is this?? WHAT is this for??"

"Um...medical purposes??"

"WHAT?!"

"Umm..."

"You cannot take these in here. I have to keep your bag."

We argued for a little then I let him keep it.

So, he kept my bag, with the tampons, while I was in the embassy. I came back, retrieved my bag, sans one. He kept a tampon!!!!!! I hope he Googles Tampax and blushes for a week.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Election Day

Living abroad makes me realize what I take for granted at home. Free, fair and safe elections, for example. Bangladesh held its national elections on December 29th. We received an email entitled "Election Safety" that included the following: "It is always good to turn up at the poll center early morning and finish the voting procedure early and come back." This is in order to avoid the possibility of getting stuck in a riot.

Only students with a voter ID card were allowed to leave the building, and the teachers were under house-arrest for the day, as well. There were few disruptions during pre-election time. Only groups of men chanting and CNG's driving around with megaphones perched on top, blaring campaign slogans. Pre-election time is normally peaceful, I was told, but the real concern is that there will be riots and violence after a winner is announced. Hence the reason for this blog post coming a week after the event-- didn't want to worry Mom :) I crossed my fingers that everything would go smoothly, bought some extra food, and hoped the country didn't go into lockdown.

Bangladeshi politics are so corrupt that the ballot includes a tick box for each of the two candidates, and a third choice for "none of the above". According to the BBC, it doesn't really matter who wins. Both women have been in politics for so long and both were jailed last year on corruption charges. Elections were supposed to occur over a year ago, but because of rampant political corruption and frequent public disruptions, a state of emergency was declared. A caretaker government administered by the military was imposed. The state of emergency was lifted just a few weeks ago, in order to allow for the assembly of citizens at political meetings and rallies.

The elections went smoothly. No public gatherings, even in celebration, were allowed after the results came out. Heard a few groups of men chanting and parading down the street, but nothing major. Sheika Hasina of the Awami League won Prime Minister, by a wide margin. Her opponent, Khaldea Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, immediately alleged massive "poll-rigging" and voting fraud. But she has since let up and agreed to cooperate with the new government. Stay tuned for that!