Bangladeshi Baby

Well I’m here. Bangladesh. A dizzy, sleep deprived Erica stepped off the plane at 8am Friday morning. Lucky for me, it was one of the two days Shompa has off of work in the week so she was able to meet me at the airport. Sweet Shompa paid the fee to greet me inside the airport even when I told her it was not necessary. When I saw the crazy packed out crowd gathered at the entrance to the airport gate I nearly teared up with thankfulness that my friend was a stubborn Bangladeshi and hadn’t listened to me. (This Bangladeshi girl is more than a friend she is more like a sister and I admire SO many things in her). At that point I knew it would have been impossible to find my friend while dragging my broken suitcase along behind. The wheel stopped rolling somewhere in Switzerland and then the handle broke before I caught the metro in London...so much for my black friday special luggage. The cheapest option when arriving in Dhaka is to walk as far away from the airport as possible before getting a rickshaw or CNG (small green taxi), but since neither of us could hardly carry my sad suitcase, and the crowd was denser than Disney we decided to hail a taxi on the spot. So we drive only about a 15 minute drive from the airport but into a whole new world. A world I slightly remember walking to maybe once or twice in my last stay in Bangladesh, but living in it is something unknown to this spoiled American. We drive past the big concrete roads, the nice foreigner houses that I used to live in and onto a rocky, dusty path filled with rickshaws, a few cars, and A LOT of people. My mind raced back to when my dad came to visit Bangladesh, and he described one of his outings to a rickshaw driver named Shonju’s house. He said it seemed like every corner they turned from one street onto the next was like a different level of poverty. Well Dad...we turned a lot of corners. Shompa lives behind a rickshaw resting place where they take a break from the heat of the day. We pull up to the place where finally the car can not manage to drive on and its time to get out. She owns a room and shares a stove and bathroom with 3 other families. To my pampered American eyes this place looks like the worst of any ghetto, a grimy slum. Not even the poorest people in America live in these conditions. But to my sweet Bangladeshi sister, this place is home, something she has slowly saved up to buy over time, she is proud of her room, her dishes, her pots and pans, and her bed that she fixed with nails and a borrowed hammer.   She is smiling from ear to ear as she shows me her things and where she has made space for me to put mine.  The joy that emulates from this girl brings tears to my eyes. I love Shompa dearly and I am so happy to have her as my Bangladeshi sister and now roommate, but I seriously have no idea how to live in these conditions!  No fridge, no faucet, no toilet or toilet paper, definitely no microwave, no shower, no hot water, and ofcourse no washing machine. I’m like an infant in this world I can not do anything including speak. I am the entertainment/laughing stock of her neighbors but I don’t blame them. Things that they have done their whole life and see as common sense, I have to be taught and shown by example a few times before I get the hang of it. This morning 2 people helped me to boil water for my coffee, and they laughed historically the entire time.  Soon I hear them telling the neighbors the last few Bangla words I attempted and the laughing starts again. Their laugher is catching, I can’t help but laugh too even though I know this means I’m laughing at my own stupidity. This afternoon another lady stood watching as I attempted to wash my camise (shirt), I know I look ridiculous but I seriously was doing my best! Soon there is a crowd of 5 people laughing. The first lady finally couldn’t take my clumsiness any more and took over as the crowd erupts laughing. Well, at least someone is having fun. Who knew washing clothes could provide such entertainment?! Wow, the list of things I do not know is unbelievably long.