chittagong/cox's bazar

This past week we took a train down to the city of Chittagong, which is the hometown of Prof. Muhammad Yunus, to see the origins of Grameen Bank. We visited the very first village where Grameen Bank actually began in the 70s. Even more exciting, we actually went to Prof. Yunus's house and had tea with two of his brothers! We got to interview them for an hour and a half, then his youngest brother took us to their father's jewelry shop and gave us a tour, as well as showed us the building upstairs where Prof. Yunus and his family used to live when he was a kid! We have yet to meet Prof. Yunus himself (though allegedly we might, we are waiting to confirm a meeting, everyone please cross your fingers for us) but his brothers were very friendly! Side story: At the jewelry shop, Micah was being super curious and taking photos of everything, and he made Prof. Yunus's brother open up one of the big safes for us to see inside. Afterwards, Micah wanted to lock up the safe himself, so they let him do it... then they said afterwards that actually nobody outside the family has ever done that before. So Micah is the first person outside of the Yunus family to lock up their jewel safe. Random but cool.

We also visited Prof. Yunus's University and primary school. At the primary school, the kids all went nuts over us and like 40 kids jumped all over each other to be able to shake my hand. I got to feel like a celebrity again. One bad thing about the Chittagong trip: sometimes on the roads here they have a ditch in between the road and the sidewalk. I was running in the dark towards the sidewalk at one point and didn't see this ditch and I fell in it (it was about 5 inches deep) and tripped, and bruised my leg up pretty badly, and tore a bunch of skin off my hand hitting the sidewalk. Owwwww. On the plus side, most of the ditches here are disgusting and wet because men pee in them all the time, but this miraculously was a dry ditch so at least I didn't fall in pee water! (Men pee EVERYWHERE here. Outside is like one big urinal, apparently. Our baby-taxi driver last night got out during a stall in traffic and went to pee in the ditch by the sidewalk. Everyone does it here. Except if you're a girl, you're not allowed. Lame.)

After we finished up in Chittagong, we took a break and went to Cox's Bazar for a day, which is in the south of Bangladesh and is actually the longest sea beach in the world. 136km or something? Maybe more? It was like no beach experience I've ever had before. Firstly, nobody wears a bathing suit here, because I guess that would be indecent. Everyone is fully clothed. (Except Micah, who wanted to get as much sun as possible, decency be damned, haha.) Personally, I preferred to be covered up in the interest of attracting less attention, but it didn't make a difference. We stayed away from the crowds, but people found us anyway. At least 10 people wanted photos with us. Several times the crowds of people got so annoying I had to get up from where I was sitting and run 15 feet away for some space. Nobody seemed to get the idea that we wanted to relax privately. Sometimes in this country I feel like a zoo animal under constant observation. Arghhh.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the beach trip was the elephant. We were just sitting in the sand reading, when along came this elephant. This old man rode the elephant right up to us. The elephant continued to approach after I took the photo, until it was standing a foot away from me. It nearly whacked me with its trunk, at which point I got up and ran away because I had no desire to be that close to an elephant on the beach. But then the old man got irritated because he wanted us to give him money, and I had no money to give him. He wouldn't leave until I got someone to explain to him that we didn't have any money. Which was for the best, because I wouldn't want to give money to some old man for forcibly obstructing my sea view with a sad, mistreated beach elephant.

After all that excitement, we came back to Dhaka. We've spent the last few days trying to arrange a meeting with Prof. Yunus. I would really like to spend my last few days here exploring Dhaka, which we haven't had a chance to do properly because we've been so busy, but it's been difficult because we've been waiting for a response from Grameen and have been stuck hanging around the office. We will be heading out to Calcutta on Thursday or Friday, I think. INDIA!!! I am beyond excited. (Here's hoping I have internet in India... I guess some undersea cables got cut and some places there don't have it? They'll have to fix that before I get there.)

Two random stories about Bangladesh: First - in the middle of Dhaka they have this big military cantonment thingy. Which is basically a long road that passes through a military area, and is a shortcut through the middle of the city. Which is great for everyone, except foreigners are not allowed to pass through it! The reason for this is because we could possibly stumble across national secrets and pass the information on to our governments. Ummmm... right. So, many times our taxis have been turned around and forced to go the long way (adding 20-30 minutes to our trip across town, which takes a good 45-60 mins anyway with traffic) because of this silly rule. It's soooooo irritating. Fortunately, at night we can usually get through, because the hawk-eyed guards can't see so well and we can sneak by. It makes me feel like a badass.

Secondly - Lyndsay wrote a post in her Brazil blog about how everyone in Brazil asks her the same questions, and it reminded me of here... everyone we meet, everyone on the street, says EXACTLY the same things to us. It goes like this: "Hello brother/sister! How are you! What is your country!" And then after that, if we've been trapped into conversation, it proceeds with "Are you married? Do you have children? What is your education?" And anytime I pass a shop, regardless of what it is selling (be it baby clothes, bathroom tiles, dried fish, you name it) someone yells at me "Hello sister! How are you! Please come in!" What I would do with bathroom tiles or dried fish, I have no idea. Mostly I don't mind, but if I am walking down the street, all the rickshaw wallahs yell "Hello sister! Rickshaw!" and chase me down the road, which is frustrating because I just want to walk sometimes. But apparently that's crazy here, because nobody actually walks anywhere. Walking to your destinations makes you weird.

Okay, this post is massive. I am hungry and tired and should sleep. Wait, one more story. Tonight we went to A&W for a cola float (they have A&W but no McDonald's over here!) and it was so posh that there were attendants that actually opened the doors for us as we entered. They have doormen at A&W... whoaaa.

A couple other photos - sunset over the beach at Cox's Bazar, and some workers breaking bricks - they sit on these huge piles all day and just hammer bricks for hours on end. Note the child labour in action... surreal but happens everywhere here.