Sight-seeing at the crossroads

My plans for Monday's sight-seeing in Singapore:

• Chinese Garden
• Botanic Gardens
• Spotlight shop to buy wool and knitting needles

Where I ended up going on Monday's sight-seeing day in Singapore:

• Spotlight
• Carrefour

I should have known that Carrefour would overwhelm me.  It is a French hypermarket - like a cross between the most enormous Coles and Target you can imagine.  The one I went to in Toulouse had 50 cash registers.  I'm not exaggerating - they were numbered.  To put this into perspective, however, my host mother said she liked this particular store as it was "cozy".  Perhaps not the word I would have used to describe it.

Anyway, so I walked in thinking I would like to get some nice cheese to bring back to the 'desh.  There were two whole aisles of cheese, plus a service section where they'd cut you a piece from a huge block.  I was walking around in a state of shock, not knowing where to even start to look.  After being in Bangladesh for 5 months, it all felt so ridiculous and exorbitant.  A concerned English woman with a baby in a pram approached me.  Obviously my appearance (somewhere between looking incredibly stoned or incredibly tired) had worried her.

Her: Are you alright?

Me: Yes - it's just that I've been in Bangladesh for 5 months and all this cheese is overwhelming. I get excited when I find cheddar over there!

Her: Oh right. I suppose it is a good range. But even in Singapore it's almost impossible to find shaved ham.

Me (desperately trying to keep a straight face): Oh. Really. That's... Yes. Well. Good luck with it then.

Oh the hardship!  How does she do it?  How can anyone possibly survive in a country with no shaved ham?  I can tell you, it nearly brought tears to my eyes to think of this woman - and her poor family! - trying to make do with sliced ham.

Suffering from a severe case of sensory overload, I had to leave (after making a selection of 6 different cheeses) and go home for a little rest.

Making friendship

I just got a phone call.  At 10pm, which is really only acceptable when you're calling someone you know will be up at that time.  Call was from an unknown number.  The tricky thing with those is - I've ignored some in the past and it's ended up being someone from Australia calling, cos that shows up as a local number.  So I'm now trying to give the benefit of the doubt.  Although I should have twigged that the time difference from here to Oz made it unlikely to be anyone calling late at night from there.

Me: Hello?

Caller: Hello.  Is this Monica?

Me (nervously): Yeeeeees.

Caller: sldfkjsdfo jsofjas fkjsfos dfoidsjfl ksdjf [torrent of Bangla]

Me: Bujhi na [I don't understand].

Caller: Your friend gave me your number.

Me (pissed off): Which friend?

Caller: My name is X.

Me: No, not your name - my friend who gave you the number.

Caller (slowly, like talking to a child): My name is Xxxxxxxxxxx.

Me: What do you want?

Caller: I go to Y university in Chittagong.  I want to make friendship with you.

Me: Ummmm...

Caller: Tomorrow 5pm I meet with you.

Me: I not go Chittagong 2 weeks [this is actually true - also true is how appalling my English is these days, the only way to get across the main point is to remove any superfluous words].

Caller: Ok! Then tomorrow 5pm I meet you.

Me: No, this is not possible.

Caller: Ok, well this is my number.

Me: Ok.

Caller: So soon I will call you.  I want to make friendship with you.

Me: Well, we'll see about that.  Bye now.  [Hang up, then immediately save number in phone as "don't answer".]

This is what happens in a country with no pubs and no normal interaction between males and females.  How are you supposed to meet people?  Resort to calling random numbers in case you happen upon someone who is equally lonely and willing to "make friendship" with the loser at the other end.  And I want to know which fucker gave out my phone number - no concept of privacy here.

Add this to the calls I've been getting at 2am from another unknown number the last few days.  No wonder I'm so bloody tired and grumpy.

Bring on another weekend where my phone won't work!  I forgot to add that to the list of awesome things about Nepal - not having to worry about getting calls from random strangers and not-so-strangers who call at all hours.

Note to self: Ask Bangla teacher next class how to say, "Sorry, but my friendship quota is full.  Good bye and don't ever call me again."  Also ask how to say "fuck off" in Bangla for desperate occasions.

Sweet relief - good food and anonymity

I just got back from 3 days in Kathmandu.

There is so much that could be said, but on this occasion I choose to express myself through food.  Not using food as an analogy, that is (although I do love a good food analogy).  But by listing all the food I ate in Kathmandu.  It will probably not look too exciting to anyone else, but after 5 months of shobji and dal bhat it was like manna from heaven.  The trip also involved a bit of sight-seeing, but mainly as a different venue at which to eat and/or drink.

What I ate and drank:

• beer +++
• momos - vegetable, buffalo and chicken fillings
• toasted muesli
• dried coconut, sultana and cashew mix
• masala (spiced) tea +++
• buffalo spring rolls
• pizza with bacon among other delicious toppings
• fresh mint lemonade
• Mediterranean platter - with the best tzatziki I've ever eaten
• fattoush (a Middle Eastern style) salad, with pomegranate seeds
• penne with mushrooms, tomato, parsley and fresh parmesan
• fried cheese
• wine
• Newari-style food, home-cooked by Rajeshwor's (May's boyfriend) mum
• rice wine, home-made by Rajeshwor's mum
• rice beer +++, home-made by Rajeshwor's mum

I felt like a cow that's been fed too much and can't support its own body weight. Which was a welcome feeling, after dropping kilos at a slightly alarming rate since arriving. It was such a novelty having a full stomach. There were times I also wanted to undo the button on my pants to give the belly more room. It was amazing.

Also amazing:

• the weather (not humid)
• the city (full of character that Dhaka is decidedly devoid of)
• the people (not staring at you!)
• sitting somewhere for hours, looking out the window after a delicious meal and realising that all my needs & desires had been fulfilled

When can I go back???

Spotted!

Today I was waiting for my bus from Sitakunda to Dhaka. Being a more conservative rural area, there are a higher number of women sporting burqas and various amounts of head covering. I'm assuming that some of my readers might be as ignorant as I was about Islamic fashion. The burqa refers to the full-length coat that women wear on the streets. The head-scarf plus face covers etc is a hijab.

So all Muslim women are supposed to wear a burqa after marriage. Even the funkier young women at my work wear them, with only one exception. From what I can gather, the hijab is optional. I'm not sure if it depends on the woman or her husband or her upbringing or how strictly she follows the faith whether she wears it. It seems to be more older women who wear it, although I've been surprised to see well-educated young women emerge from under the black fabric as well.

Many times now I've had a burqa and hijab-clad woman come in, sit down, start telling me about her pain and expect me to know who's hiding in there. Also, it's hard enough understanding the gist of what people are saying in the first place, without the added challenge of hearing muffled words through the veil and not being able to lip-read.

So back to me, sitting in the bus station in the Shit. Amid all the black tents walking past, I notice one with a red and blue checked orna. This leads me to another digression - as I think I've previously described, the purpose of the orna is to cover the boobs and thus maintain a girl's modesty. They are generally hated among the AYAD girls, although we have compiled a list of 101 other uses we've discovered for them. When out in public, the women I work with wear the burqa and put the orna over their head. Some - but not all - of the black hijab wearers will also sling the orna over their outfit somewhere. I'm somewhat puzzled by the need for burqa plus hijab plus orna. Maybe that's the ultimate modesty? Or the orna adds a bit of colour to the otherwise all-black outfit?

But again, I'd like to bring the reader's thoughts back to me, sitting in the bus station in the Shit, having just spotted an orna I recognised on a black-clad woman.  It's Moriam, the cook!  I yell out to her, she stops and we have a little chat.

It's only after she walks away that I begin to feel some disbelief and amazement at the fact that I recognised someone whose body was totally covered except for the eyes - and from a distance, too! Surely that's a sign that I'm adjusting to life in an Islamic country?

Guava

I ate my first ripe guava today.

The Bangladeshis quite like to start picking their fruits early and eat them in their sour state with salt and a bit of juice from a crushed green chilli.  They then ditch the salt and chilli once they've got more mature (and, hence, sweet) fruit.  This is what happened with the mangoes, which I couldn't quite get a taste for as a savoury item.  It also felt like a criminal waste to be eating them early, instead of just being a bit more patient and letting them get nice and juicy and sweet.

Anyway, guavas are actually really nice with salt (I skip the chilli).  You can buy them from street stalls peeled, cut into a flower shape (like the old flower carrot at the Chinese restaurant), shoved on the end of a stick like a toffee apple and sprinkled with salt and chilli powder.  They have flesh that looks like a cucumber, but firmer (see example on the right in above picture).  A nice bitter taste that becomes more enjoyable with each bite.  At 5tk a pop, that's a pretty good value snack.  I've been hopping into lots of guavas, especially during quiet times at the therapy centre when the therapy assistant will climb the nearby tree barefoot to get a few guavas to munch on until the next patient comes.

Today, we got served guavas as a snack during a meeting.  I was puzzled.  Skin on.  No salt.  No chilli.  No stick.  No fancy work with a knife to make them look pretty.  I asked one of my colleagues if it was okay to eat the skin.  "Skin - many vitamins," she declared, before biting into hers.  I did the same, to find that the flesh was really soft, sweet and had taken on a pinkish tinge (see example on left, above - much lighter pink though).  Delicious!  I've always been intrigued by apple and guava juice, having never seen or eaten a fresh guava in my life.  Those early guavas had confused me somewhat cos they weren't sweet or pink like the pictures on juice cartons.  But these in-season guavas are another tick in the column of things to love about Bangladesh.  Doesn't quite balance out the psycho phone stalkers from yesterday's post though.

(I can't believe I just wrote that much about bloody guavas.  I bet whoever is reading this can't believe they just bloody read it all either.)

I wish I was making this up...

... but my imagination's not that good.

WARNING: the following post contains material that may be offensive to some readers.  I am having a bit of a rant about lovesick Bangladeshi males being unable to take a hint and f$@% off.  This includes sharing some of the ridiculous text messages I have received for comedic value.  The lowest form of comedy, really, to pick on others.  But enough is enough.  And they are quite funny.

So despite many warnings (the fire-and-brimstone talk from Baz Dog, our in-country manager, about how Bangladeshis have visions of Bollywood-style weddings raining Australian passports when they see a bideshi woman... lots of Bangla songs being about how some guy is going to kill himself because a girl doesn't know he exists... learning that "love suicides" are quite common in Bangladesh when a guy has been rejected) I should have already been alerted to the dire state of romantic relations in Bangladesh.  I hadn't really taken much of this stuff seriously, thinking that it would never happen to me.

But this was not taking into account that I am an unmarried woman living in regional Bangladesh.  The concept of a woman being financially independent and not needing to marry is totally foreign.  I have short hair, I ride a bike, I talk back to the males around me, I have a university education, I have my own money to spend how I like, I have travelled overseas...  Basically the opposite of every other woman in town.  While I wouldn't describe myself as having been whacked with the ugly stick, I'm no Angelina Jolie either.  So all of this male attention is somewhat puzzling, and definitely not something I am used to.

Missed calls and prank calls are a fact of life in Bangladesh.  People try calling random numbers hoping to "make friendship" with the person who answers.  It's the same with Facebook.  People will invite friends of friends, even if they don't know who they are.  For them, it truly is "social networking"... a way of expanding their social circle.  Now, there are 150 million people in this country.  So of course there are going to be some nut jobs.  There are far more lovely people than crazy ones.  But it seems that I have met a disproportionately high number of people from the first group (i.e. the nut jobs) who send numerous text messages with what could be considered suggestive content.  More than just "hi, how are you".

I should have kept a track on these, cos they are quite hilarious.  But in my exasperation, I wasn't thinking of that.  I just wanted to purge my phone of these intrusions on my privacy.  So this isn't the most "suggestive" example, but it is a classic.  Last week I received the following text message:

Hi,MONOGA.How are you?Tnk u r fine.I am [name removed - see, I'm not TOTALLY mean] from ctg.BNG.Monoga u dont know me but i know u.monoga i like u very much at da first sightof.if u free then call

(followed a few seconds later by part 2)

Me.Plz.I m waiting for ur calling.

Weird - but slightly amusing.  A declaration of love at first sight!

Then, after getting numerous calls that I didn't answer from a relative of one of my patients, a guy who would be in his early 20s, I got the following text:

How r u SHOSHI? If i may to meet u after the noon? If u r free & in Shitakund. ok! Ops! Ofcours thinking what SHOSHI means. Will tell u later. Bye!

Now - I didn't know what shoshi meant.  Shosha means cucumber, but I suspect that's not really a term of endearment here.  So after a quick text to Carly, to ask her colleague what "shoshi" means, I sent the following reply:

I am sorry if I have not been clear. I wish to maintain strictly professional relationships with all clients and their families. This means no phone calls or meetings that are not related to my work as a therapist. This may sound rude but it is for the benefit of everyone.

Direct, but not mean.  I thought.  But of course I was forgetting that nobody understands the concept of "professional relationship" here.  In Australia, people understood when you refused to give out any information about yourself.  But here... it opened the floodgates of emotion, and I received the following texts:

I like this kind mentality.But u misunderstood.I really admire u.U seem to be angele to me, who is doing a great for our disabled children.Dont make it official [HUH?!?]

Those whome i like much i give them a name. I told u Shoshi. It means moon. Ok! I'll never call u again. Forgive me.

Then this morning:

It's really rude&hurt me hard.I couldnt set my mind in study couldnt sleep. It's really harmful for my exam. Pls let me know that u forgiven me.

Im sorry. But i sent u text. Dint call u. Pls don send a sms again saying "sorry if i am not clear NO TEXT" At least allow me send u text pls

God!  I think getting He's Just Not That Into You translated into Bangla is an urgent priority for this country.  Screw sex education... they need basic education on how to recognise when someone is politely rejecting their advances.  I don't want to be rude.  I want to be culturally sensitive, create a good image of foreigners etc etc... but it seems that subtlety doesn't work.

Or should I stop whingeing?  I used to complain that nobody was interested in me!  Should I be flattered by all this attention?

Forget squat toilets, eating with my right hand, wearing the salwar kameez, learning Bangla, the confronting sight of poverty everywhere you look, the seeming hopelessness of the entire system in Bangladesh without knowing where to start to tackle the problems... the most difficult thing I'm facing here is all the bloody unwanted attention from the crazy men!

And the winner is... umbrella!

Now I know the suspense has been killing all (four) of my readers...

But first, some background info.  Due to a high rate of illiteracy in Bangladesh, some bright spark came up with the very ingenious system of attaching a symbol to each electoral candidate.  So when illiterate Mohammad Average goes to vote, even if he can't read the candidates' names he knows who to vote for by looking for their symbol.  This was crucial information I was missing when I wrote the previous entry (below) about the elephant parade up the main street.

So who won the mayoral election for the Sitakunda municipality?  Shafiul Alam, alias Nayek Shafi, a.k.a. the umbrella.

I sent a quick message to Harriet in Sylhet (where they were also holding elections) to enquire about the victor in her city corporation, as we'd had a close encounter with the bird candidate and her hordes of supporters the week before and I was interested to see if she'd got up.  But no... Sylhet's winner was Badaruddin Kamran, a.k.a. the pineapple!