Old Dhaka Visuals

Rickshaw Art

Hindu Street




The place where I got my boat on the Buriganga River:


River life in Old Dhaka

Sylhet, Bangladesh

At a dark chai stall in Srimongal. I took dozens of photos of this man to get it just right. He didn't mind at all and sat very still so I could open the shutter long enough.

At a festival for Pooja, Hindu goddess, through a dark field I came to a tent filled with people. As I walked towards this shrine, it became very surreal: the crowd parted, children crept up behind me, whispering, careful not to touch me, holding each other back. I was offered a seat at the front and a plate of cucumber, sugar candy and strips of coconut. Everyone watched me and I couldn't help but hold each child's stare and smile until they smiled back. It could have been a dream, but I've got photos to prove it to myself.

My tour guide's wife, a tea picker in the fields.

This family of betel-leaf cultivators welcomed me to their home with chai and biscuits. I chewed a bit of paan too, which is shaved betel nut inside a betel leaf. It turns your mouth bright red, and numb as well as rots your teeth if you chew often enough.

Tea bushes are grown in the shade on hills. This part of the country is incredibly picturesque.

Old Dhaka

I ventured in to Old Dhaka. The city changed drastically as we moved deeper into the chaos. I had been told by a couple people before I left the comforts of Baridhara (the swanky neighborhood I'm staying in) that muggings and bag snatchings are common. In the rickshaw I started to panic and I shoved everything into my knee socks including money, passport and memory cards. I clutched my bag tight and wondered how I would be able to take photos if it's actually as dangerous as I'm told.

By the time I got to Hindu Street in the heart of Old Dhaka I started to loosen up. People talked to me on the street and were incredibly friendly. A festival for Pooja was going on so there were floats of the diety and music. Hindu Street is a lively, pedestrian street where artisans make bracelets out of conch shells right in front of the shops. The street was narrow and the buildings on either side were 3 or 4 stories each in different stages of decay or construction, each very lived in with fabrics and colored lights hanging from the windows and balconies. The energy on the street was positive and I felt encouraged to take out my camera.

I started off toward the river Buriganga. I'll never forget this moment. The area was bustling, small and large boats of cargo and people transferring, moving like a colony of ants. I started across a foot bridge to get a better view from outside the chaos and I saw that I could get a boat nearby. I walked back the way I came and was stopped by a man in a red blazer who wanted to chat about my thoughts on Bangladesh for a minute through some simple English words. Then I said "I want to take a boat ride on a small boat," accentuated by my own sign language. He very calmly nodded. Others had gathered around trying out their 2 or 3 words of English. He put up a hand to keep them quiet and we walked. I stepped off the pavement into a massive pile of garbage. He led me down to the bank of the river where shanties of blue plastic and corregated metal had been built along the foot bridge. The ground was completely covered in garbage. A couple of people had laid out a blanket on the garbage and were sleeping. The stench was horrible, like urine and rotten food. And I had attracted a crowd. The man tried to find me a boat by shouting and gesturing to some idle boats nearby. The first two were too large and I sent them away trying to tell him I didn't want a motor, just a rower. Finally he found a proper wooden boat and negotiated a price of 150 taka (about $2) for an hour on the water. We took off.

The black wooden boat was long, pointed and tipped up at the ends, wide in the middle- a graceful design, like a paper moon. I sat on the floor on a bamboo mat. The driver used a long bamboo pole to push us along the shallow river.

I don't know what I was expecting riverine life to be like, but it was not nearly as picturesque or remotely glamorous as the guidebook, National Geographic or any other western publication made it out to be. It was nauseating. The smell of sewage was so strong I nearly gagged. The water was black like an oil slick and sometimes I saw the rainbow mirror of oil floating on top. Plastic garbage and a kind of lily pad co-mingled on the surface. On the banks people washed their bodies and brushed their teeth, scrubbed clothes and sheets. One stretch was devoted to plastic bag washing where women cleaned the bags, shook them out and found new spots to dry in the sun, along with thousands more. Plastic bags are rare in Bangladesh and there are some laws against using them. One must carry a cloth shopping bag. For small items and street food, bags are made from old newspaper, folded and stapled.

I gave the boat driver our agreed upon payment and he insisted on baksheesh. I had read in Indian novels about baksheesh- it translates as tip, but it's most commonly used as a soft term for bribe, usually to the police. I gave him an extra 20 taka and trudged through the garbage up to the street.

Parallel to the river was an import market for fruits. Boxes of apples individually wrapped in a plastic foam mesh came from China, grapes and oranges from Pakistan and Egypt. It was disappointing to see. The land here is incredibly fertile- minerals and nutrients all the way from the Himalayas continue to be deposited through sedimentation into the soil from the 230 rivers and tributaries that flow across the nation. This rich land of Bangladesh has been built up over millenia. And yet almost all of the cropland is monoculture, for rice and jute- a cash crop.

Since I was sightseeing as I explored the streets I asked some cops how to get to Sitara Mosque. About 20 people crowded around to listen in. After about 5 minutes of looking at my map, everyone giving their opinion and lots of good healthy shouting to make sure I got the pronunciation right, they got me on a bicycle rickshaw, negotiated a price of 20 taka for me and sent me away.

We rode through the streets until down one incredibly narrow road we stopped. A traffic line of bicycle rickshaws was completely stopped. I offered to walk 3 times but the driver wouldn't let me off. After 10 minutes of sitting I insisted and got off, paid him and walked to see what the hold up was. At the end of the block was an intersection so jammed with bicycles and wooden carts that I had to climb over to get to the other side. It was truly hilarious. A cop was standing up on someone's cart in the middle of the madness shouting and pointing with his bamboo lathi (night stick) trying to untangle the knot of people powered vehicles.

While asking for directions I met a man named Ali who spoke some English. We chatted and he offered to take me to his mosque nearby. The 3-domed building was covered in broken glass mosaic in white and primary colors. The walls were open on two sides. Half of the mosque was a school for children and on the other side men were praying on floor mats. Ali explained to me that women were not allowed in but after a few minutes of talking to the other men, they reluctantly let me in and unlocked a gate to the most decorated area. They were proud of their mosque and encouraged me to take photos. But when my scarf slipped off my head the men came running to tell me I must keep my head covered.

Ali and I walked to his home and asked me to come meet his family. We ducked in through a 4 foot tall metal door off the street into a narrow courtyard opening to a slightly wider space at the end. On the left was his home, one room, about 9' x 12' with a queen size bed for himself, his wife and 14 year old daughter. One wall was a mural of a Bangladeshi countryside, the others were teal green. I surveyed the room, intrigued by the few articles of possession giving clues into his life and values. There was a metal wardrobe cabinet with clothes, purses, bangles and shoes, a small green refrigerator, some tea cups, dishes and a few instruments for cooking; on the wall were many postcards, a framed photo of the Taj Mahal and two calendars from a cell phone company. He must have noticed me looking around and said a little too loudly "I'm a very poor man!" I said, "No, this is a wonderful home." and he pulled out a photo album and asked me to sit on a wooden folding chair. He had photos of every one of his daughter's 14 birthdays and of family trips to an amusement park, Chittagong, Taj Mahal and Qatar. He brought his wife and daughter in and I took a photo of them in the house.

The courtyard between several homes was shared by the extended family. Ali's mother, three sisters, their husbands and children lived in the makeshift complex. Each family had a one room home that opened to the courtyard and had no windows otherwise. Cooking and washing was performed in the courtyard and there was one toilet at the end of the narrow space for all. I took photos of the children and families and promised to mail them. They offered me rice and dal and I almost accepted, but I wanted to get home before dark.

Ali and I walked to the main road and I bought us some sweet dumplings made of rice flour, filled with coconut, sugar and milk. He had spent over an hour with me and had brought me to several places, including an Armenian church which he had to ask around on the street to find someone with a key to let us in the gate. I thought I should offer him some baksheesh for his time, but I also knew that if he expected it, he would ask for it, as people do here and in India. He found me a rickshaw and worked on a good price for me and sent me off with just a tilt of his head and a smile. It was such a good day.

Friends...

...My journey is nearly over. I'm leaving today for Kulhna, from where I'll be traveling by boat for 5 days in the mangrove forests. Although there may be not be much human life there, I do expect to see some communities living in an extreme environment, that perilous but fertile place where land meets water that I've come to the other side of the world to witness.

I'm having trouble uploading photos here and there won't be much time to post blog entries but I promise to wrap up when I'm home next week. Thank you all for reading along with me and sending comments on the blog and email. I enjoyed sharing the experiences of this wild journey with everyone.

Out of my element

I've been asked by many people at home and here why I would want to go to Bangladesh. I insisted there was something to learn from the way people live on the land and water here and I had to experience it for myself.
Bangladesh is a small, flat country that is almost entirely a river delta with several rivers converging in the middle of the nation, in the crux of which floats Dhaka, a sprawling, polluted, dense city, the capital. Most of the land of Bangladesh is rural farming- jute and rice are the main crops. This much I knew before I came here.

Bangladesh is essentially a fuedal state. All of the land is owned by wealthy land barons, so the motivation and methods for working the land is by the demands of the baron whose concern is profit. No farmer owns his or her own land. The typical wages for a plantation laborer is 30 taka for an 8 hour day. Assuming they work an American-style week of 40 hours, their yearly salary would be 7800 taka, about $111.

I really believed I could travel across Bangladesh on my own. Everything I thought I could manage like buying my own train ticket, booking a trip and arranging my own transport to the station, I couldn't do it and asked for help from the people who took me in. Here, I am illiterate and unintelligible when I speak.

My morning journey from the tea plantation was quite the classic experience for a foreigner in Bangladesh. With my tour guide waiting on the train platform with me, we were surrounded by men and barefoot children, eyes wide, staring at me. I've grown used to being looked at as it is very common in India and not considered impolite. But here, it was intense. We had to move 3 times down the platform just to be surrounded in an ever tightening circle within seconds.

Somehow I felt like I'd seen these trains before in movies- dark hallway, sliding doors on one side into cabins with hanging bunks. When I found my own cabin, a train employee made sure the screen was closed on my window- for my protection. He half yelled, half told me if I open the window my bag or watch will get stolen. I waited til he left, closed the cabin door and opened the window so I could see out to the passing landscape. A boy came by selling water. I said no, and he closed the door. A minute later the train employee came back, threw open my door, and making sure I was watching, he grabbed the water boy by the hair, threatening to hit him, pointing at me and scolding him for opening my door. He sent the boy away and asked if I was alright. Not another minute later the man returned with two other employees, one in very official conductors uniform. He checked my ticket and all three scolded me for opening the screen. I tried to explain that I wanted it open, but finally I let them close it. They said if I need to go to the toilet, they must watch my bag. All of this conversation took place through hand gestures, some simple English words and a lot of yelling in Bangla.

The journey was 4 hours and those people left me alone after that, but another man, a very tired looking service person kept trying to bring me tea and lunch even after I showed him that I had no money left. (That's another story...) He spoke no English and I speak no Bangla, but still, he insisted I drink each of the 4 cups of tea he brought me. When I was leaving the train, he gave me a photo of himself with something written on the back in Bangla. Then he insisted for 5 minutes that he should give me 50 taka (about 75 cents). He thought that because I had no money in my wallet that I was completely broke. Meanwhile, only I know that I've got years of his salary sitting in my bank account. I refused his money so very gently and persistently, my heart breaking to see the genuine compassion in this man.

At the station stops along the way I covered my head and face with my scarf- a strange feeling to hide your own face from others. It's the only way to not attract a crowd though. At my window a child moaned on the ground; others scaled the train and I listened to them running back and forth on the roof of the train. On the platform there are so many children, dirty and barefoot, tiny bodies, knotty hair, smudged faces. It's hard to turn away from the children and their eyes- pleading, hoping, desperate and hungry. So many of them. They walk on the tracks, they climb under the trains, on top of the trains, babies holding babies on their hips, begging. It's so shocking that one doesn't know what one should do- at that moment or in life.

This is what I'm dealing with here. I am way out of my element, my comfort zone, my simple daily thoughts. There's so much more to contend with here.

A Village in Bangladesh

Bangladesh certainly has a different flavor from India and the landscape is wet and flat, a contrast from the dry rocky dessert of Rajasthan. Today I went to a village to help build a Habitat for Humanity house. In light rain, we dug a hole in the earth, creating a rainwater reservoir and moved the mud to fill the foundation of a floor. I explored the village and peeked in on some homes and outdoor kitchens. The crops here are rice and jute. To grow vegetables, the land needs to be drier, so terraces are built up for tomato plants and cauliflower. Eggplants, squash and pumpkins are grown upward, their vines entwined in a horizontal bamboo rack about 4 feet above the ground; the vegetables hang down below for easy harvest. The roads are high and narrow while the paddy fields are very low, at different terrace heights so the crops are at varying stages creating a patchwork of silver and green. Some are bright yellow-green fields, some have rice plants sticking up out of the water like needles in perfect rows, some are almost all water, muddy but reflecting the sky and trees in the mirror of the still water.

An outdoor kitchen in a village just outside Dhaka. Mud is molded up to create a space for a pot to sit over a fire.

Navdanya: part 2

From a tiny seed grew Navdanya. They should be an inspiration to us all. They have fought biopiracy cases against giant corporations and have won, revoking patents on living things such as the Neem tree and basmati rice. They have trained 300,000 small farmers to farm organically with biodiversity after tens of thousands of farmers were committing suicide throughout India when their seeds and land was grabbed or destroyed by corporations and a corrupt government. They have set up 42 seed banks throughout 18 states of India to preserve heirloom seeds cultivated for generations by small farmers and to reject genetically modified seeds and pesticides forced upon them by Monsanto. They fight for water sovereignty, seed sovereignty and earth democracy. Their 40 acre farm and seed university has 1200 varieties of plants, is a living laboratory for nutrition, organic farming, composting, cooking, water conservation, rainwater catchment, solar technologies, medicinal plants, biogas, and is a market for farmers to trade seeds. They hold courses that teach practical knowledge and provide an intellectual forum and a peaceful, holistic setting for discourse on world issues.

I attended a two day conference held by Navdanya in Delhi on Gandhi, Globalisation and Climate Change. Although much was focused on what is wrong with our world, Navdanya provided a brilliant, shining demonstration of a sustainable world in itself. The small group who work for Navdanya are dynamic people, sensitive to the world and all living things. I'm priviledged to say I connected with many of these people in the short time I was among them and I'm inspired by their unflappable determination and clear vision.

www.navdanya.org

Navdanya- Bija Vidyapeeth Organic Farm

From the Himalayan hills of India, tribal women farmers came to the farm at Dehra Dun to learn about organic farming, biodiversity, medicinal plants, and to exchange stories. I feel humbled by their amazing lives which I can't begin to describe. Each day we sat in the grass or worked in the fields and connected through hand gestures and pointing to learn each other's languages. When the sun went down we built fires, danced and sang Beatles songs and ballads from the hills. After 4 days of bonding with women from a world completely alien to me, all of us had tears in our eyes, and exchanged addresses, promising to meet again in the hills one day.

I've seen a side of India that is filled with so much beauty and love for the earth and all living things: plants, humans, animals, soil.

Experimenting with Composts

Bio-gas Station

Dehra Dun Market