A primer on Urban Goatherding

In the last blog entry, I forgot to mention something critical! On the flight from Dubai to Doha, we were unfortunate enough to be seated near a large group of exuberant American 30-something teachers who talked throughout the flight, so loudly that Lauren turned to me and said "I know it's what everyone says, but I never realized Americans were actually so loud!" We were rewarded for our quiet and dignified representation of our country when we got to see the same group leave the airport shuttle at a different terminal and turn up again at ours, half an hour later, much subdued. Apparently they had managed to drown out the relevant travel announcements delivered over the airport PA system and went to the wrong gate. Lauren, apparently traumatized by this experience, has been speaking in a meek mouse's whisper ever since, causing me to respond to any communication with "What? WHAT!?" by default.

It's been 3 weeks now since we've arrived in Bangladesh with all our luggage intact, even though it wasn't wrapped in cloth and bound in rope as is the norm. We've each been through several mini-cycles of travel sickness, home sickness, and a heretofore unnamed affliction that can only be called curry sickness. For the uninitiated, the latter is what you end up with when everything you eat smells of cumin and coriander and leaves a neon yellow trail. Lauren and I have approached the issue differently; I surrender to the spice, spiking my yogurt with fresh grated turmeric root and drinking strong tea cut with condensed milk at all hours. Lauren, on the other hand, has succesfully managed to erect a wall between herself and the tides of rice and dal via stale Oreos bought at the supermarket and grilled cheese sandwiches. Although I'm exaggerating on both counts (and slandering Lauren so that she'll write a sassy response), it is true that I've managed to stain my toothbrush an impressive shade.

If you were to ask me the most immediate and striking difference between Dhaka and any US city, I would have to respond (as would anyone else, probably): traffic. It really isn't appropriate that the same word should apply to both conditions, though... what we know of as "traffic" at home is really just some mild congestion, whereas here it is a sticky, snotty mess formed by the collision of millions of stubborn wills united  only by two common desires: to get somewhere fast, and to eschew all suggested rules and guidelines in doing so. Seriously, here you have bicycle rickshaws, pedestrian-pulled carts carrying tons of construction materials or baskets of produce, small asian-style trucks, regular semi-trucks, buses with people hanging onto the sides (and occasionally the roof), sedans, hummers, and CNGs (little motorized tricycle taxis) all vying for real estate. Sometimes the matter is complicated by a herd of goats trying to cross the road to get at delicious traffic-island greenery. Everything seems to accelerate at night, which means walking about turns into something of an extreme sport. By the way, the bike-powered barred transports behind the CNG in the photo are school buses.

The abundance of what we might normally consider 'farm animals' has also been a bit of a shock. Cows and sheep are raised along riverbanks throughout the city, and 5pm seems to be the accepted standard time to walk your goat in the park. Chickens and roosters, lean and scrappy, flit around between market stalls. I have a hard time imagining how owners can keep track of their animals amidst all the chaos--this is definitely a matter for further investigation. Vegetarians can eat very well in Dhaka, but will have to face some fairly harsh smells and sights, including varied meats hanging up all over the marketplace and cows tied up outside butcher shops awaiting their turn. Interestingly, apart from the few American-style fried chicken joints throughout the city, most places serve free-range chicken, which has much less meat than the average American fowl but no fat and immensely more flavor. 

Lauren at Gulshan Lake

A rare traffic-free moment at a downtown roundabout in a ritzy area

We've settled in comfortably to our apartment, which would be a veritable palace compared to dorm-style housing if it weren't for semi-regular power outages and, occasionally, shortages of water. Still, we live in probably the fanciest neighborhood in the city, Baridhara, also known as the "diplomatic enclave", and certainly can't complain about our place. The neighborhood itself is lush with tropical greenery, which is a welcome respite from the concrete and asphalt that dominates in other neighborhoods. Plants that we use in the US as office plants that normally look dinky and plasticky (ie pothos) grow wild here as 15-foot gargantuans, and banana shrubs and papaya trees are commonplace, as are all sorts of orchids. We will have to take some better photos of our surroundings soon, but for now we just wanted to get the word out that we're alive and well.

Georgia to Dhaka via the UAE & Qatar

Good news! you can get Viagra in Dubai!

We left Georgia in a cyclone of rushed preparation, cyber-shopping, grant applications, inverted sleep schedules, beer brewing, allergies, family time, and playing with dogs. Hopefully, someone will take on the task of training Zico, Mary Smith's border collie, to 'speak' when asked (more of a howl growl hoot combination, really). Alternating between working on Lauren's Rhodes Scholarship application and amassing a full Walmart pharmacy department within our luggage, we managed to push a batch of beer almost through primary fermentation and bottle conditioning in an unheard-of two weeks. It helped that I agitated the bottles on a daily basis during bottling to help the yeast out a bit, oxidizing the beer and reducing its shelf life in the process. Unfortunately, amidst the chaos there was barely time to drink any of it, which means that there's a 24-pack of fresh beer that won't last long sitting in Lauren's house in Augusta, GA. Imbibe! Probably the best summary of our hurried departure came in the last-minute injection of Japanese encephalitis vaccines we received, huddled between two cars in a church parking lot on the way to the airport. It looked like a whole-family drug deal, no doubt.

My first impressions of Dubai enforced my conception of the city as a confused, cultural mishmash revelling in arbitrary displays of wealth; the décor of the airport was flush with 20-foot fake palm trees, walls in the harem style, identical video advertisements every 5-10 feet or so. Thompson and Thomson (of Tintin) would be at home here in their stereotypical middle-eastern garb as airport staff wore traditional arabic/bedouin style of white thobe (ankle-long robe), kufiya (scarf for the head) held in place by an igal (headband), and a modern twist: crisp black dress shoes. Customs were a breeze, as was finding a taxi to take us to our hotel and checking in. The hotel gave a first taste of some of the standard toilet amenities in this part of the world: a switch to activate the water heater for hot water, and a showerhead near the toilet for paper-free, left-handed operation. Restaurants were all closed when we went out for dinner, so we decided to try the UAE's take on Chinese food, and ended up with a pretty interesting broccoli almond soup. Unfortunately, we weren't in Dubai long enough to experience much beyond our neighborhood and a quick trip to an old wooden tourist trap bazaar.

Some highlights of our outing include: sleek, clean subways air-conditioned to freezing and individually themed (see hanging jellyfish lights), baskets of colorful and diverse spices, oddly standard from stall to stall in the herbs market, and the abundance of gorgeous street cats. A little museum devoted to the modernization of Dubai showed pictures of the city (if it could be called that) in the late 50s, along with a film on its development. A collection of one to two-storied wooden and stucco structures to a metropolis home to some of the largest and tallest buildings in the world in less than 50 years... amazing. Please take a moment to consider that all the streets and cars were switched from left-side-of-the-road to right in the 60s.

After a snack on cheap, delicious, Pakistani food, we rushed to the airport. The stopover in Doha, only a few hours long, gave us opportunity to stock up on duty-free alcohol and chocolate, as well as counterfeit US dollar bills. The airport coffee chain used these to make change, and when we asked for a different 5-dollar bill they ended up just giving us a better fake. There were also a number of fraudulent wireless networks, all with claims to be “oficial”, that tried some port exploits if you connected to them. Doha to Dhaka was a different sort of flight. Managed by Qatar airlines, it had all the finest amenities for Economy class, including free booze. However, most of the Bangladeshi men spent much of the time standing in or around the aisles, ignoring requests from the flight attendants. The bathrooms were littered with toilet paper all over, with the only possible explanation being that no one was aware the toilet was flushable, with all written language on-flight being English or Arabic. Looking out the window over Dhaka, we noticed thousands of lights flickering throughout the city, almost like Christmas decorations: rolling power blackouts, a preview of things to come!

Pre-condimented individually wrapped hotdogs for your snacking convenience!