More Birthdays!

Speaking of birthdays, last week was Jen's birthday (one of my roommates). While roaming the streets of Chittagong, looking for the perfect gift, we came upon this display:


Little tufts of grass, for sale! They were about 6 cents each.

So we got her a present to remind her of home. A little piece of America!

Me, at 23

At midnight on my birthday a few weeks ago, some students found me (still lesson planning downstairs) and told me, "Come quick, there's an emergency upstairs!".

There was a fire, all right. Fire in the form of birthday candles! They surprised me with a cake (which they all had to feed into my mouth. It's tradition.) and some presents. It was really sweet, especially since I had not told any of them that it was my birthday! I was really touched. It was a great day. Here's a couple pictures from the celebration:

B-Desh Fun Fact

Here at the Access Academy is, undoubtedly, the fastest internet connection in Chittagong. Yet its difficult to Skype, and it takes forever to download attachments or load videos. The internet is s-l-o-w.

When I decided to move to a developing country, I wasn't counting on having great internet access, or any internet access for that matter. But its the reason behind the slow internet...

Years ago, "they" were installing the fiber-optic cables all over Asia. These cables laid the groundwork for fast internet connections all throughout the continent.

When approached with the offer to install these cables, Bangladeshi officials apparently were horrified and rejected the offer. They thought it was a terrorist plot.

So now we have internet, but its very slow, and very very expensive. Who knows if this is true. But I don't care; its funny!

Press!

There is an article about us in the Boston Globe. Check it out!

Good to Eat

Minor clarification-- I'm not eating rats! And there aren't a million rats running around Chittagong either, thank goodness. It is a problem in the rural areas.

Another thing I am not eating: Vegetables. I do miss those.

What I am eating, though, looks like this:


Our cafeteria serves some of the above for lunch and dinner. There is always rice, roti (the pancake/bread things), and daal (a soupy yellow mixture with the occasional lentil). Sometimes there is naan, a thick fried bread-- this is delicious! Those are the staples. They typically serve a mushy, oily vegetable curry (potatos and pumpkin, sometimes carrots), too. And some sort of meat: chicken, mutton, or fish kebabs (my favorite, surprise). I'm sad pineapple season is ending; we used to get fresh slices at every meal!

I try to eat cafeteria meals at least once a day, since its free. I'd eat there every meal if my stomach could handle it. Otherwise, I'm a big fan of bread and butter. And oranges, I eat a lot of oranges!

There are two other main components of my diet:

Pepto-bismal:



and antacids. They taste just like candy!

The food here is very spicy! My personal tolerance of spice has hit a whole new level. All the spice, plus all the oil, takes a pretty big toll on my stomach. Half the time, I have no idea what sets it off when I get sick. It could be something as little as eating off a plate that was not dried completely after being washed in tap water (the water quality here is pretty poor)...and I'm in the bathroom all night. Woo!

The Bengali diet is all about just getting enough calories, it seems. A novel concept for an American, of course. Every thing here is either swimming in oil, or tastes extremely sweet. Even the bread. But everyone is so skinny!

Pro-Choice?

If there's one thing most Americans have in abundance, it's choices.

There are major Decisions, like choosing a college, buying a house, and deciding where to spend Christmas.

But there are many little choices that we tend to overlook each day. We decide what to wear, which newspapers to follow, and what to do on the weekends. "What's for dinner?" is a legitimate question, as is "Where are you going?” We decide who our friends are, and what movies we want to go see.

At a whole other level of over-looked-and-taken-for-granted, we decide who to marry, and whether we want to stay married or file for divorce. (I don't think arranged marriage is quite so simple as a lack of choice. It's also about deeply ingrained cultural concepts of love. Maybe I'll talk about that another time.)

We have so many options, we even start looking for ways to limit them. "I hope I don't get both jobs," people say, "so I don't have to decide."

I certainly took these choices for granted before I came to Bangladesh. I never realized how meaningful "choice" is! Its obvious that people here, and in many other parts of the world, just don't have the luxury of making decisions that we make every day in America.

Choice isn't necessarily always a good thing, or always a bad thing. Take food, for example. All cultures have their own "cuisines" for a reason: it’s the easiest, cheapest way to get the main nutrients everyone needs, using only local flora and fauna. So that is what everyone eats, every day. Rice and Curry, Rice with Curry, Rice on Curry. I look through the shops here, and mentally compare them to the ones at home. Even in the nicest stores, the vegetable section is more like a "corner", and put together, the shelves equal maybe one long aisle at Wegman's. But who needs 52 kinds of cereal? What rationale justifies picking the "ultra-heavy-duty" paper towels versus the "super-ultra absorbent" roll? How do we even decide?!

Some books and movies are banned (I hope to read The Satanic Verses while I'm here-- how often does one get the chance to read a banned book, in a country where it actually, currently is?), and the media is censored. I recently heard of someone buying an issue of the Economist, only to realize that certain articles about Bangladesh were torn out. Reporters Without Borders' Worldwide Press Freedom Index ranks Bangladesh at 134 out of 169 countries.

There aren't too many clothing choices here, either, if you're a woman. It’s important to wear loose, baggy clothing, and be covered. Rules out most Western fashions.

In Bangladesh, if you're a woman, your friends are your sisters and your cousins; you don't see anyone who is not family. Women don't leave the house. The main reason people leave the house is for work. A wife or daughter outside the house is an indication to the world that your family is poor and desperate, I'm told.

Short-changing of women is the common theme, eh? And I'm not even touching the dowry, or arranged marriage.

Why do we have so many choices in America? How do we explain this difference between America and the majority of the world? Americans are well-equipped with a quick response. "Freedom! Freedom of choice! It's what our country is built on!" We can't tell you why it is good or bad (or why there are certain things it doesn't apply to). But we know we have it, we fought for it, and we aren't letting go of it.

Choice, it seems, is deeply embedded in our national psyche. Or is it?

I discussed the Gender-Related Development Index today with some students. The U.S. ranks at number 12. In what direction do we want to slide?

Trying to be subtle. Welcome, Sarah Palin.

Ramadan Kareem!

The sighting of the moon marked the beginning of the month of Ramadan today.

Some of the students begin fasting tomorrow (no eating, drinking [or sex] from sunrise to sundown). Only about 60% of our students are Muslim (the rest are Hindu or Buddhist), so we aren't planning on changing the schedule.

They say they get used to fasting. And I sure hope so, because I just assigned a big project.