I wanted to write about all of the little nuances of Dhaka that we are becoming quite familiar with in our lives here. The first of which, being the constant honking/beeping. Now usually when you are in a city there is some honking, but it basically goes in your brain as background noise. However, in Dhaka you have to pay very good attention to these beeps and honks... especially the proximity to your body. The reason these sounds are so important, is because they are alerting you to potential death. The louder and closer the beeps are, the more imminent death is from being runover by a rickshaw, taxi, car, or bus.
The walk from our apartments to the university is a 10 minute walk through a little village behind our house. This village is slowly becoming encroached upon by the constant construction that is occuring. Dhaka is growing at an alarming rate, and because of which, there is construction everywhere to build new apartment complexes. Sadly, the small villages around the edge of Dhaka (like the one behind our house) are all being build over. While it's sad to see the homes of so many be forever taken away, it is nice to see the villagers on our walks. We can't do the walk without having been said to 'Hi' to by no less than 10 children. They are all so eager to run up to us, say Hi, ask our names or how we are, and then run away when we reply. It's so cute. It also shows that kids have no inhibition. Rarely does an adult come up to us and say hi. It happens, but not as much as it does with the kids. They are so raw and so full of life that they'll drop whatever game they are playing to come say hi to us. This energy then spreads to their parents, who then will give us a smile, say hi, or ask for a picture to be taken. My ten minute walk home from the university took me nearly half an hour the other day because a friend and I stopped for a mini photo-shoot with the children. I got some great shots, can't wait to post them.
Another daily occurence is the famous "rolling blackout." Everywhere in Dhaka has 4 hours per day without electricity, in four one-hour increments. Usually this wouldn't be a big deal for me. Lately though, the afternoon blackout has been occuring RIGHT after I finally got my webmail to load. Or, in today's case, right in the middle of this blog entry. Luckily BlogSpot has an autosave feature that saves every minute or so. The next blackout after the afternoon blackout comes right before dinner arrives. We have become very proficient in setting the table by candle light, and also learning to set it before the power goes out at 10 to 7 every night. Aside from there not being any lights or internet, there are also no fans. We live underneath fans whenever possible, and when they don't work... we get grumpy. It is so hot and humid here that even 5 minutes without some airflow is just miserable. We all cry an intense sigh of relief when the power comes back on and the fans start turning again.
Okay, that's enough of the small facts on Dhaka... let's get back to what I've been doing. Yesterday we had a very lazy day. Our morning activity had been cancelled, and all we had to do in the afternoon was go to a lecture with the IUBAT students put on by our professor. The lecture was nice and it was great to learn and collaborate with the IUBAT students... until the power went out, and the fans went dead. I was then miserable. Thankfully the generator decided to work that day at the university, and the fans shortly started spinning their way back into my heart. After the lecture I tried to do some interneting, but of course those efforts were wrecked when the power went out.
Today we drove an hour south of Dhaka to the CRB which is the Center for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed. The CRB started 30 years ago with 4 patients by an English mother of a paraplegic daughter. Now they have grown to over 100 beds and include many services like Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Vocational Training, surgery, and general rehabilitation. It was such a nice facility and it was wonderful to tour their grounds. The idea of having all of those specialties in one location and being able to serve people with such a wide array of needs was just amazing. I had an excellent time and am very impressed with their work.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to post for a while after this one. Tomorrow (Friday) we are headed to the Child and Womens Health Center in the morning and then doing som shopping in the afternoon. I don't know if I'll be back in time to use the internet. On Saturday we are traveling to a small village called Matlab where the ICDDR,B has a compound and has been doing continuous studies of the population for something like 20 years. We will be doing an overnight there so I probably won't be able to do another post until Sunday.
Hope all is well at home!
Miss and love you all!
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