Beauty in the Blemish

From: Chris

(written night of 5/5, published at 6:30 P.M. 5/6)

Dear Blog-readers,

Good morning/ evening/ I don’t even know what time zone you’re in anymore. We’ve been in Dhaka for two days now, but it feels like it’s been a week. I’m typing up this post from the hotel lobby, and I can hear the sounds of traffic from outside. I can look through the window and see the crowded streets of Dhaka, the billboards written in Arabic script, and the swarm of rickshaws. It’s so surreal—this is our reality now. I’ve been charged with the task of describing our (Trey, Tommy, Banks, and I’s) initial observations about Dhaka for our second blog post. It’s quite a daunting task, because Dhaka is so unfamiliar from everything I’ve ever known. I’ll try to sum it up in a sentence, then go from there.

Dhaka is: a sweaty, chaotic, third-world metropolis, blemished by poverty and teeming with life. It’s fascinating. I love it here, but in a strange, “I can’t believe this is really happening” sort of way.

It’s interesting that Dubai was the city we visited immediately before Dhaka, because the two are polar opposites. Dubai is the ideal western city, set in an exotic environment, and infused with diversity. Dhaka is gritty, poverty-stricken, and dirty, where our group of 4 Americans sticks out like hardboiled eggs in a sea of baked beans. The first time we saw it from the window of our airplane, we were astonished. The city stretches as far as you can see (literally), fading into the pollution and dipping below the horizon. Even in the airport, we felt more foreign that we ever had in our lives. The eyes of the Bengalis (as opposed to Deshies, or Banglacans) followed us everywhere; in the airport, on the plane, through baggage claim, and as we stepped out of the airport and into hot, thick Dhaka air. We’re talking 100 degrees Fahrenheit hot, enough to fry an egg on the cemente` hot. A van from the hotel had come to pick us up, and we hopped in and began our journey through Dhaka. Dhaka traffic is just insane. The roads are more like rivers, with pedestrians, buses, cars, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, and rickshaws all flowing down the street, weaving through one another, moving in chaos but somehow making it work. We would see pedestrians casually making their way across the road, narrowly missing the vehicles before climbing over the median to the other side of the highway. It was like third world human Frogger. Several times, we thought our van was about to nail some poor Bengali hard enough to knock the shoes off ‘em. This, along with the constant fear of colliding with the cars going the opposite way on the road, made for an extremely tense first 5-10 minutes of Dhaka driving. We tried to distract ourselves by talking to our van driver, but it was an epic failure. This was the extent of our conversation:
Banks: “So how many live in Dhaka?”
Driver: “Yes.”

And that was that. We looked out the windows and took pictures, recorded video, and tried to savor our first tastes of the Dhaka landscape. It was fascinating. The Dhaka we saw from the van was rough and very dirty. The streets were insane. Rickshaws were everywhere, their canopies plastered with foil and other shiny things. They shimmered in the blistering Dhaka sun, pulling people, boxes, bundles, sewing machines, and even a dead cow. Little hovels of wooden planks and corrugated metal were clumped together in small neighborhoods off the side of the road. As we drove further away from the airport, we started seeing water everywhere. Even thought it isn’t monsoon season yet, there was still water everywhere. Small ponds and rivers peppered the landscape. Barges floated down the rivers, and in the ponds, small restaurants were suspended above the water on long wooden risers. In the distance, there were large smokestacks (kilns for brick-making) standing alone in large flattened circles of red dirt, spewing pollution into the atmosphere. Long pipes, suspended by sticks tied together in the form of an X stretched far into the fields, spewing water out of the sides, and sometimes spewing sludge. They looked like long pieces of barbed wire stretching across the ground. People washed themselves in the ponds, some carried baskets on their heads, and men were wearing skirts (called saris. Yes, we do intend to purchase some very soon.) It was a whole new world.

As we got closer to the hotel, the streets became more crowded and more buildings lined the road. The streets were packed with bazaars, cobblers, fruit markets, beggars, rickshaws, and trash. Our hotel is called the Grand Prince. It’s very basic, but nice for Dhaka standards, and it suits our needs well. The rooms are reminiscent of Vandy-Barnard doubles (some Vanderbilt dorm rooms, for the non-Vanderbilt readers). The shower is not separated from the rest of the restroom (no curtain, no nothing. We have problems keeping the toilet paper dry), so what we have is a toilet, sink, and shower head all stuffed into a little room. The ceilings were made for the Bengalis, so they’re very low, and the mirror reflects onto your upper torso. It’s basic, but it has air conditioning, which makes it a sanctuary from the oppressive heat, and that is more than enough. It has 9 floors, and on the roof is a “fitness center” with pictures of disgustingly veiny, disproportionate muscle men in speedos, for motivation. There’s a small pool on the roof, and from up there, you can see the whole city. It’s really something. There’s a lobby with Wi-Fi (from which I’m writing right now) and Air Conditioning, and restaurants on the third and seventh floors where we’ve eaten every single meal so far. It’s convenient, trustworthy, occasionally delicious, and cheap. Super cheap. 2 Dollars a meal (with a big water bottle and more than enough to eat) cheap. Everything here is cheap. There’s a ridiculous “mall” at the bottom of the hotel, where we can buy our water, groceries, bootlegged Dvd’s, and Bengali clothing. Today, I was told by 3 people that my t-shirt was “eh…maybe you wear something different” so I got something more acceptable there. The hotel is guarded, so it’s very safe, and it’s close to Grameen Bank (a 10 minute walk away). The hotel staff is very friendly, endearingly shy, and more than willing to help us out with our adjustment into this new city and new life. We hope to become friends with them over time.

The hotel staff, along with all the other Bengalis we’ve met here, treat us like such a novelty. We’ve never felt so foreign before. The language barrier is one thing, which has certainly been an obstacle in our interaction with the people here. There’s a lot of gesturing on our part (mainly my part, and the others have already given me grief about it), a lot of mumbling and awkward pauses on theirs, but it’s been a fun process. The illiteracy rate in Bangladesh is high, so on the plane, I was asked by 3 other passengers if I could fill out their customs forms. It was a struggle, and it involved my taking out a spiral and a pen and making the motion for “draw.” It wasn’t very helpful, in trying to describe his luggage, one of the poor men just drew a square and then looked at me, but little by little you figure it out. And whenever you finally understand each other, it’s such a triumph. Body language is big here, and it’s been fun to see how something small, like a thumbs-up or a wave, can communicate so much to these Bengali on-lookers; how it can elicit such a beautiful response of laugher and excitement. From time to time, you’ll catch a death stare or two, but the smiles and visible excitement of the people far outweigh the suspiciousness of the older Bengalis. Especially with the students and the children, we’ll be walking down the street and feel like rockstars. Today, Banks took out his camera right outside of the hotel and started taking pictures of people, and he just got swarmed by all these Bengalis (mainly kids) who wanted their picture taken. It was a special moment. “No matter where you go” he said, “people love to have their picture taken” (yes Banks, I did just quote you.) It was so good to see how he was able to communicate love to these people by the simple act of taking their picture. Banks and I went out again, into the street, and started making friends with the kids and taking pictures of them too, teaching them how to pound-explode, applauding their English, and eventually we had a little train of kids following us as we ran our errands, saying “hello, how are ju, hello, how are ju, hello…” and laughing. It’s such a joy to see how even though there are so many obstacles keeping us from connecting with these Bengalis, it’s still so easy to show love. That’s why we’re here.
The Bank is down the street from the hotel. Banks, Trey, and I checked in yesterday and met out internship coordinators. We got a brief history of the bank, watched some intro videos, explored the bank, and got to talk to our coordinator for a while. After the bank orientation, we ran some errands around the hotel (getting water, buying cheap phones), explored the hotel, took some pictures of Dhaka, and got situated in our rooms. We were super jet-lagged, so we accidentally fell asleep for 5 hours and woke up right before we were supposed to pick up Tommy (that was all Banks right there). We speed-walked (?) outside the terminal to keep the ‘skeeters off while we waited for Tommy at the airport. The Obenwave was easily recognizable from the distance, and that night, our group grew to 4 with the addition of Tommy. We were all exhausted, so we went to bed shortly after that, and woke up this morning to go back to the bank.
Today, our time at the bank was much more substantial, and while some of us felt nervous yesterday about how legitimate our internship really was (or if we would just be “hanging out” around the bank for 4 weeks), today we really understood why we had come all the way to Dhaka to learn from this Grameen Bank. We took the role of students and listened to our coordinator and one of the office managers tell us about the inner-workings of Grameen Bank. While it was hard to understand them at times (especially for Trey), it was so interesting. It really got us excited for these next four weeks. We learned so much in one day. The philosophy that Grameen operates on is so simple when you break it down, but it’s been so effective. I’m excited to keep learning about it, especially about plausibility of following in Grameen model in other cultures.

After Bankrolling for a couple of hours, it was dinner and then some hotel lobby-time (emails, journaling). After dinner the other guys were pretty sleepy, so they’ve been asleep for about an hour now, but I’m still chugging along on this blog. I’ve described a lot to you, but for a nice re-cap, here are my favorite things about today, and my feelings about This grand Southeast Asian Adventures so far:

Favorite things about today:
-Breakfast at the hotel. It was delicious and free.
-The fact that our shower has a power sprayer (that can also be used as a baby-roach destroyer and a Laundromat.)
-Talking to our coordinators at the Bank. So far, we’ve spent the most time with a man named Babor. He is hard to understand, but very amiable.
-Babor’s quotes for today: “Cookies, no problem.” And “Take this sheet.”
-Leaning about the Grameen system, being genuinely interested in it.
-Getting to hang out with the kids.
-Finding a secret passageway on the roof of the hotel.

And, my number one favorite thing about today has been the establishment of our new game. You see, the 10 minute walk to the Bank can get annoying, so we’ve taken to riding rickshaws to and from the bank. It makes the trip a lot shorter, easier, it costs about 15 cents, and it’s extremely fun. To spice things up a bit, we decided to make each rickshaw ride a race. You earn points according to what place you get (1st-5 pts, 2nd-3 pts, 3rd-2 pts, 4th-1 pt.), and we’ll keep track of each person’s standings. We’ve decided to name this new phenomenon (drum roll please…)

BANGLAKART

These are the kinds of things that make this adventure so wonderful. We’ll use the blog to keep you posted on each member’s stats. After two races, the current stats are.

Current Stats:
1st place—Banks Benitez, (7 pts.)
tie
2nd place—Trey Brown (6 pts.)
2nd place—Tommy Obenchain (6 pts.)
3rd place—Chris Cole (3 pts.)

This adventure has gotten off to a great start. For those of you at home, keep praying for us, specifically for safety, group unity, the ability to appreciate Dhaka, opportunities for ministry and service to continue opening up, and that this trip would change our hearts and make us fall more deeply in love with Christ. Although the impression of Dhaka was a little jarring for some of us, the more time we spend here, the more we’re able to find the beauty in the blemish. Friends and family, we appreciate you. Thanks for reading, we’ll keep you posted on what happens next.

Keeping it fresh in the dirty Desh,
Chris

(p.s. It's currently 5/6, and after taking a dose of Benadryl, Trey has completely passed out on the couch in the hotel lobby. He's been twitching in his sleep for the last five minutes, and the hotel staff are highly amused, as am I. This is absolutely hilarious, I felt compelled to share. Be well, dear readers.)