You know you're in Dhaka when...

You know you're in Dhaka when:

1. A random number repeatedly calls and asks to "Make friendship" to which your only logically response can be "Friendship lagbe nah" which means literally "Friendship no need."

2. A random number repeatedly calls and when you pick up you just hear Bangla music...

3. You constantly find yourself asking the question, "Why is this wet?"

4. Your hall mate cries when eating plain white rice because it's too spicy.

5. The teachers are planning a fushka eating contest as a fundraiser for student council.

6. You have to stop cars with your hands to cross the street.

7. Your rickshaw plays bumper cars with the rickshaw in front and behind almost knocking you off into the street.

8. You've stopped asking "What is that smell?" because you either already know or don't want to.

9. You have whitener painted on your arms when participating in a local fashion show as a volunteer model.

10. You find yourself being a volunteer model in a fashion show for a local charity for acid burn victims.

11. You live off of carrot cake at the ARA (American Club), and naan bread from a restaurant around the corner from your apartment.

12. The first room mate bonding experience consisted of killing a cockroach together.

13. A gecko falls from the ceiling onto the floor beside you in the shower.

14. Winter season=Mosquito season

15. The guy selling bananas only knows how to sing one note.

16. When en route to a formal event, you hop on a rickshaw in a cocktail dress and immediately regret your decision as the rickshaw driver shouts at all his friends as he passes, making you think that he's parading around the indecent foreigners he's transporting.

17. You miss snow, and even cold, because snow and cold means home, and home means all the people you left behind who love you and some days you just need them, and only them, but you know they are waiting for you upon your return. 

A bit of a rant...and some Bollywood

A street in Singapore compared to a street in Dhaka; one is meticulously clean with paved lines where traffic stops at stop lights and uses turn signals and flows at a decent pace. It's quiet and people press the button to use the crosswalk which has a card reader for seniors who can use their special card to receive extra time to cross. The other street contains rotting piles of trash and puddles of rain or sewage, one can never be sure, cars, rickshaws, buses, and pedestrians moving in every single direction, disregarding traffic lights and making up their own rules of the road, honking non-stop and not caring who is in their way.

Sentosa-close to the beach in Singapore, see how clean it is?

Eating some waffles on a street in Singapore...that one piece of litter would be a fine for whoever dropped it.

Back in Dhaka, sharing the sidewalk with goats.

Sigh, well, it was a nice break. That's for sure. I definitely appreciate those little things more now, things like crosswalks, clean streets, general regard for traffic safety, and the overall feeling that people are not jumping at the chance to rip you off at every corner. It was a nice change.

But back to reality, here I am at work, trying to get things ready for report cards that are to go home next week and we still don't have a template...there are things I miss about teaching in Canada. Things like staplers, construction paper, stickers, unlimited access to paper, substitute teachers to call in when I'm sick, more than 20 minutes for lunch, markers, internet that doesn't stop and say "buffering" every 20 seconds, power that stays on all day, instruments in a music room, books in a library, you know, to name a few.

One last complaint, I swear. These hartals, they don't make any sense. From what I understand, there are elections in January and the current opposition party has declared hartals every week from now until elections, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Hartals are basically a strike where a group of people walk around destroying property and targeting homes and businesses of politically involved people of the party in power. So it's not safe to be around the area where this is happening and as a result, businesses close, schools close (except for international schools), and people just stay home. So nothing gets done. Three days a week. For several months. And because some students live far away from the school, they don't come during hartals because it's not safe for them to get here. I tried asking why but I have learned that there is rarely an answer here. We just shake our heads and try to keep going about our daily business. Even my students are immune to the chaos, they tell me there is nothing to worry about, we are living in the diplomatic zone, we're fine, this happens every year, no big deal, they don't understand what it accomplishes either but it's a part of living in Dhaka.

But here is some good news, my students are so awesome. I didn't think that teaching Grade 7 could be this fun but I had a debate in English class about violent video games the other day and my students were so into it and had great arguments on both sides and it lasted the whole period! (We touched on other subjects of our novel study too). And I'm teaching them about persuasive writing and they were so excited to start research on their topics that they worked absolutely silently for 20 minutes...what?! Students can work independently and productively for that long? Who knew?

In other news I went to a Bollywood fundraiser and my friend had some fun with my makeup and lent me one of her saris. It was really fun, and watching the dancers made me want to learn Bollywood even more! My room mate has a Bollywood movie marathon lined up for me, so I shall be fully educated on the subject.