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?