PC Wanderlust

Swearing in ceremony on Sunday!

Sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Training is coming to an end this week though, and on Sunday we will have our swearing in ceremony in Dhaka! It will be held at the US Embassy in Dhaka, and everyone is psyched for it. Nearly all the girls in my training group are going to dress up in saris. My host mother bought me an absolutely gorgeous one to wear. Seriously it is the most beautiful thing I own in Bangladesh or the US! Technically I think it is a wedding sari, dark red with gold gilt embroidery throughout the entire thing. I will post pictures as soon as possible (aka probably a long time from now, but I’ll try!). We are all going to Dhaka on Friday and spending a few days living it up at a nice hotel that actually has air conditioning, hot water, and foam mattresses. I’m so excited! I’m also looking forward to doing a bit of souvenir and American food shopping. I do really like Bengali food, but I have to say I really miss the variety that I am used to in the States. I’m the type of person that doesn’t like to have spaghetti twice in a month; I like that much variety! The curries are all kind of tasting the same by now, and I really can’t wait to be able to cook for myself. The training staff at our hubsite cook special Americanish foods for us every once in a while, and I have been to the Pizza Hut in Dhaka a couple of times.
We are in about the 3rd week of Ramadan, which in case you don’t know is a month of fasting that Muslims observe. On the first day, you wake up at around 4am and eat your dinner. Then you do not eat, drink, or smoke anything all day. You are not even supposed to swallow your saliva, so you see quite a bit of spitting on the street. Towards about 4pm people get pretty antsy and irritable because they know the time to break the fast is nearing. At around 5:30pm (although every day it changes by a few minutes because it depends on the lunar calendar) you hear the call to prayer and are allowed to eat. This is “Iftar” time. Iftar food is so good! Usually you get orange drink, dates, puffed rice (like Rice Krispies but plain), spiced chickpeas, fried eggplant, fried potato and lentil mixture, cucumbers, grapes, jilapi (think small funnel cake soaked in syrup – it is amazing how much liquid these things can hold!), and doi (sweet yogurt). Sometimes the Bengalis will eat a normal meal of rice and curry right after eating the Iftar feast, or sometimes they will wait until 10pm or 12am to eat. Then the women get up at 3am to cook, and start the whole day over again around 4am. At 4am sometimes you hear what sounds like air raid sirens going off, or in some areas they have someone come on the loudspeakers at the mosques and say something to the effect of “wake up and eat your rice.”
No one in my family is fasting though. Among our group of trainees, there are some families that are fasting very devoutly, and some couldn’t be bothered. Even though my family isn’t fasting, we still eat the Iftar food everyday (along with normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner!) I have tried to tell my host mom that I can eat either Iftar or dinner, but not both. So, she just tries to give me both at the same time! I think it is ironic for the month where everyone is supposed to learn what it is like for poor people to not get enough food everyday, I have been gaining weight.
Speaking of gaining weight, Iftar, and Pizza Hut, would you believe that the Pizza Hut in Dhaka has an Iftar special? They don’t serve food all day, but people begin filing in around 4pm everyday to get a table. It really fills up! Around 5pm the staff starts filling people’s glasses with water or soda. You can’t drink yet though! Then around 5:10 they bring out plates of dates. Wait for it! 5:15 here comes the garlic bread. Ok, how important is it really to be culturally appropriate and not eat in front of Muslims?? 5:25 hot gooey cheesy pizza fresh out of the oven. You put that on my plate and seriously expect me to not eat it yet??? I have to admit, I almost made it. They really shouldn’t have given me the pizza though. I took a bite and about two minutes later the call to prayer sounded. So close!! The way they had it set up, the waiters just kept bringing out more and more pizza; whenever they saw your plate was empty, they gave you another slice or two. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much pizza in one sitting before. I think I had 8 slices! All this for the low buffet price of 350 Taka (about $5). Did I mention I miss cheese??
After the month of Ramadan is a holiday called Eid. This also depends on the moon, but will probably be on November 5 this year. This is when everyone can finally break the fast for good, and I hear there is tons of really tasty food. This is also the gift giving equivalent of Christmas in the States: everyone is going crazy buying presents at the moment. The most common present to give is clothing (actually I think the sari my host mom gave me is more for Eid than my swearing in ceremony.) The tailors are absolutely swamped right now. My host mom owns a tailor shop, so I have barely seen her for the past few weeks.
Right after Eid I will be moving to my new site. Last week we had our site visit. It has just a two-day visit for us to meet our host families, see the city, meet our supervisor’s and see our schools. I hardly saw anything of the city because it is rather large, but from what I saw, I love it already!! I feel like I got the best of both worlds – the amenities that come along with a big city, but also the nice small town feel in the more residential areas. It’s going to be really strange moving to a new city away from the rest of the training group. I’m glad I have a site mate, but from here on out, I’m pretty much on my own. I’ll spend about the next three months getting to know the city and all the people I will be living and working with, finding out about NGOs I can do secondary projects with, etc. I’m not quite sure when I’ll actually begin teaching at my college.
The weather is starting to change. Every once in a while we’ll have a period of a few days when it just RAINS and nothing will dry. I haven’t had much of a problem with it, but some people have had problems with their backpacks, clothes, paper, and whatever else molding. I have one leather luggage tag that got covered in fine white mold, but that’s it. Sometimes my clothes feel a little damp, but not too bad. I’ve been being extremely careful about all my electronics whenever we have a really rainy or humid day. On those days I just don’t get my laptop or electronics out. I always leave them in plastic bags with silica gel packets. I was worried that my laptop might die on me because before I came all I heard about were people’s laptops breaking. We only heard from the people who had problems, not the ones who didn’t. I think as long as I’m careful I’ll be ok. (Same goes for the whole harassment issue actually. We all got so scared before we came because we only heard the bad things without seeing it in context. It’s really not so bad.) Anyway, in general, it is getting a little cooler. There was actually one day when it was downright cold! Seriously we all had sweatshirts on and had goosebumps all day. Care to guess what the temp was? 75 degrees! I can’t believe we’ve gotten so acclimated that 75 feels cold. As far as I can tell from my little alarm clock that can tell temp indoors, it’s been between 75 and 85 since we arrived in Bangladesh.
So that’s all I have for now. I really appreciate the emails recently! I tried to answer the questions people asked in this blog.
P.S. Thanks to my mom, who has been able to post a few photos on here for me. Eventually when I get to the faster internet at the Peace Corps office in Dhaka I may be able to put a few more on!

posted by Kathryn @ 10/28/2005 12:17:00 AM