This has been a year of firsts. First teaching job, first time living in Asia, first time being away from home for 10 months, first time riding an elephant, first time surfing, first time volcano boarding, and last weekend I had my first experience on a Bangladeshi train. That was adventure and a half.
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| The crowd gathering in the train station |
All the staff at CTS wanted to get away for the weekend. So our lovely French teacher organized a trip to Srimongal, also known as the tea capital of Bangladesh. We arrived on time for the 4:15 pm departure but of course the train did not arrive until close to 5:30 pm. While waiting with our large crew of 22 people, (most of us being foreigners), we began to draw a large crowd. I've lived in Bangladesh for the past 6 months so I'm used to people staring. But I suppose I don't spend a lot of time being stationary outside with a large group of friends so I'm not used to men closing in around me on all sides and pulling out their cameras as if I'm in some kind of freak show. No smiles. Just blank stares...but not even blank, more like angry stares as if I am being condemned for something and I have no idea what. Well, a few of us got tired of being gawked at so we thought maybe two can play this game so we decided all at the same time to turn and face the people staring at us and stare right back at them. A few people laughed, most kept their steady gaze which just made me more uncomfortable because I can't stare at strangers right in the eye for long periods of time, I was brought up believing this to be incredibly rude.
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| Andrew and I trying to keep the crowd at bay |
We then decided to play a little game that went like this: Every time someone pulled out their phone to take a picture of us, we would put our phone in front of their face and take a picture of them. Again, a few laughed, but most just kept moving their phone to get a better picture of us while we were moving our phones in front of our faces to prevent them from taking a picture in the first place.
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| Death stares |
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| The picture game |
Then the train comes...and the mayhem beings. I have to run, push, and elbow to make sure that I get on the train because it only stops for 5 minutes and even though we have tickets; it's a free for all in this country. Most of us get on the train before it starts moving, a few jump on just in time and feel like rock stars. But then the battle for our seats begins. People are yelling, threats are made, the train is stopped and won't move until there are apologies (really? people have the power to do that?) and eventually we get going with most of our seats reclaimed and a few members of our group sitting/standing in the aisles.
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| The train...up top is free! |
It's like a roller coaster riding the train in Bangladesh, only with a greater chance of derailment. Taking the train feels a bit like playing Russian Roulette. It's really exciting to actually make it to your destination in one piece.
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| Riding our bikes through the rice paddies |
But the destination was so worth it. I could breathe again! Fresh air! I saw green for the first time in months! I walked through the jungle and heard monkeys calling to each other, I rode a super sketchy bicycle through rice paddies, I took a nap in a local fisherman's boat as we glided along through the wetlands, I saw for the second time since coming here, that Bangladesh is indeed a beautiful country.
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| Jungle Walk |
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| Nap time! |
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| Beautiful Landscape |
Tea plantations look like a green carpet covering tiered hills. It's beautiful to walk through. The tea is delicious to drink. But there it is again, that reminder that the world is not always what it seems, that our desire for a cheap delicious drink comes at a cost to human dignity. The workers on the tea plantations are essentially slaves making less than 50 taka a day, that's less than $1 USD a day. They are a tribe taken from Northern India way back in the day that continue to live and work in Srimongal because the plantations provide them room and board and, earning so little, where else are they going to go?
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| Tea plantations |
It's a very strange world we live in. We know certain things to be wrong and yet we go along with it anyways because we can't think creatively enough to do things any differently. We condemn slave owners of the past but say nothing about wage slave owners of the present. What's the point of teaching history if nothing ever actually changes?
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