tangail/dhaka

I have so much to say I don't even know where to start. I can't do justice to everything. Must attempt to summarize. Scroll down to last post for new photos. :)

We've had a hectic week. Tuesday morning we left Dhaka on a 5 hour bus journey into Bangladesh's Tangail district, to visit some of the poor villagers and interview Grameen Bank borrowers. It was an experience and a half. The first thing we did when we got off the bus in Tangail was go to a tea stall, which is not much more than a tiny shack where they serve you a little cup of tea in a sketchy looking cup. (Though I will say that despite concerns of hygeine, the tea from the stalls is fantastic - very sweet.) But when we stopped, all of a sudden a massive crowd formed. More than 50 people just crowded around, gawking at us. Extremely weird experience for me. I am shy and do not particularly enjoy lots of people looking at me. It was very very strange and awkward. For the whole 3 days, anywhere we went, a crowd of a similar size gathered. And when we walked someplace a whole parade would follow. (I posted a tea stall crowd pic below - sooooo crazy.)

We spent 3 days staying at one of Grameen's branch offices. Among many other things I learned how to eat with my hand (that's the custom here, they don't use utensils) and use a squat toilet. Micah had even more fun with the squat toilet, because he came down with some sort of stomach bug while we were there and spent a whole night puking. I didn't envy him... the squat toilet pretty much consisted of a hole in the ground in a small concrete room full of massive hairy spiders, haha.

Visiting the villages was really interesting. The people were really curious about us, and hordes of children chased us around everywhere, but people were so nice and friendly and accommodating, and they all wanted to show us around their villages, and take us inside their houses, and speak to us. We had a translator the whole time, named Younus (who kind of looked like a Bengali Billy Crystal) and he helped us talk to the borrowers and ask questions. The whole thing was just incredible - I really didn't expect to be doing things like this! Though admittedly after 3 days I was ready to come back to Dhaka - the novelty of getting swarmed every time we went outside was wearing off. :( Seriously, I don't know how celebrities handle this kind of attention all the time - I felt sooooo self-conscious! One kid even asked for my autograph, and another guy kept taking pics of me on his camera phone!! And at one point I was in a car by myself waiting for Micah and Younus to come back and a group of people almost surrounded the car and were just leaning over staring at me in the window. At one point Micah asked an old man (via Younus) what they all found so interesting, and the man said they have never seen people like us before. So, so surreal.

Oh, one cool thing though - in one of the villages we visited a sari making factory where they actually weave the fabric. It was such an interesting process - aaaaand I bought a sari! NO idea when I'll ever wear such a thing. It's not even a super fancy one, it's pretty much a basic everyday wear type of sari, so I can't even hold out hope of being invited to a wedding. Maybe I'll make some curtains with it when I get home.

I feel like I am really glossing over the past few days in this post but so much happened that I can't do justice to it all. The pics help a bit. On the way home, we saw some crazy accidents - the Lonely Planet Bangladesh said that if you were not involved in a bus accident in Bangladesh, you would witness a bus accident or at least the aftermath - SO TRUE. We saw a demolished bus that had gone over a steep ledge into a pond. And then two trucks that had had a head on collision and one of them flipped over. And then another bus with the top smashed in, probably also from flipping. So scary. Even tonight while we were driving back to the hotel via baby-taxi, a bus rear-ended us. It's mental, I can't even articulate it.

Today was a very different day - we saw a bit of Dhaka, I got to do a little bit of shopping. We met up with my friend Zabir, and he took us to a massive shopping mall (the biggest in South Asia I think?) which was a HUGE change from the rural villages. Once you get to the wealthier parts of Bangladesh, everything is modern and almost nobody stares. It's hard to believe it's all the same country - a few hours away is like a different world.

On a different note, today I did my laundry for the first time in three weeks. That's a long time when you only have 3 outfits to interchange. I'm so gross.