Hello again readers!

I hope you’ve all read my first post, because we discussed how things would work here. Today I am bringing you up to speed on my 5 weeks thus far. I’ll give you some time to digest these two posts, then we’ll keep moving from there. So even though my last post was only 10 minutes ago, it was actually mostly written 2 weeks into my trip. And the experiences described in this post were written about 4.5 weeks in. I am now 5.5 weeks in. So here is my update after 4.5 weeks:

Greetings from Manikganj!

Tepra Bazaar (juicing sugarcane in the foreground)

Or actually Tepra Bazaar to be exact. You are receiving this message because Grameen Phone makes USB key internet connections which work through their phone network. I think that’s pretty cool! Now let me tell you a little bit about this place. Tepra Bazaar is located right on the main highway, 82 km west of Dhaka, which is a two lane paved road in good condition and is quite busy actually. Tepra Bazaar is about 12 km past Manikganj, a town of about 20,000, and our field sites are about halfway between here and Manikganj. About 10 km past Tepra is the Jamuna River (Brahmaputra), which I hope to see sometime soon! I’ve had two offers of tour guides so I should take them up on their offers soon.

Here's a shop on stilts

So back to Tepra Bazaar. The main shops front onto the highway from both sides, and on one side, the highway shoulder is essentially the top of a river bank. So all of the shops on that side of the road are on bamboo stilts, perhaps 15 or 20 feet high! There are actually a number of buildings and homes on stilts here, out of necessity because of the population density and high water table I think. In Tepra Bazaar they have one restaurant, which is where we eat all of our meals. Breakfast is ruti and dahl, and an egg. Lunch is usually rice and chicken or rice and fish, and dinner is usually rice and chicken, or rice and fish.  Whichever lunch wasn’t. But it’s always quite tasty. Sometimes we’re lucky and there are smashed potatoes too. I’m told I must try smashed eggplant. And they have the best tea ever across the street! Lots of sugar and a spice that I am unfamiliar with – the bark of a certain tree – but it makes my week every day.

Tepra Bazaar, like our field sites, is a village with packed mud roads (or paths really) that connect to the main paved road. These are sometimes used by trucks, but mostly pedestrians, motorcyclists, and rickshaws.We ride in the back of a pickup truck along the main highway to the village road, and then walk to our sites usually. Homes are mostly tin. Many people work in agricultural and fisheries, though some people also own shops or work in factories in Manikganj. I’ve seen a number of brick kilns around too, so I presume they must be important sources of income.

The ingenious engineering of local fishermen

The fishing on the river is quite cool! The fishermen set up a bamboo pole system in which their nets are attached to a triangle of bamboo poles. This system then pivots on a couple of supports. And it is engineered such that when the nets that are in the water need to be raised, the weight of one man on the corner of the bamboo frame will drop that end down and lift the nets out of the water!

While I am in Tepra Bazaar, I am staying at a power development board rest house. Ironically, the power still goes out quite often here. The accommodations are quite reasonable, though old, and the grounds are beautiful. Yesterday we even saw some people playing badminton outdoors! They had grass on the court, and had all of the lines made just by digging in the dirt. It seemed perfect dimensions too. I learned that my research assistant from the university here used to be a badminton player too! Perhaps I’ll have to try my luck on the grass courts – I hope it doesn’t speed up the shuttle too much. If it’s anything like my tennis game here, I should just watch instead.

As for my project, it is going well enough. There have been numerous hurdles over the last few weeks, and I am slightly behind where I’d hoped to be, but all things considered I am pleased. The people I work with are wonderful, and I am quite enjoying being out of the hustle and bustle of Dhaka and a little bit more immersed in village life here. Everyone is quite willing to let us test their water, and many people watch and offer us food and more tea.

Because I am behind schedule, however, I have had to dedicate more time to logistics which I think has taken away from opportunities to do cultural things. Once things start to get ironed out I hope to have more time on the weekends to explore. Eid is a week-long Muslim holiday coming up, for which everyone goes to their home village. If all is going well, I hope to go to the village of a friend for a few days at least!

My Bengali hasn’t improved a whole lot since my last e-mail. A week ago I went to a restaurant to have lunch on my own – I thought I was doing great, as I had ordered mutton and naan (though I could just point to the menu, and that was in English on one side, so it really wasn’t difficult) and my food showed up and looked delicious. In fact, the sauce on the mutton looked so good, I wished I’d ordered the rice like the guy who decided to share my table for 2 with me, just to sop up the sauce. I tried my best charades to try to order a side dish of rice like he had (along with his main dish), but alas, acting is not my forte. As it ended up, I had naan and a main of rice, and they took away the rice from the guy across from me and gave him naan. An epic language failure, but it sure was
delicious! Speaking of Bengali (in English of course), today I learned that ‘Cana’ in Bengali means ‘blind’, and da means ‘the’, so Canada
literally means ‘the blind’. Hmmm. Personally, I was hoping for something else.

Well, I have many other things to tell you, but I must sign off and I’m sure you’re ready for a stretch or some tea after reading this
novel. All is well on this front, and I am still learning lots and seeing many new things. I hope all is well on your end too!

I hope you’ve all got your Halloween costumes ready to go, and remember, don’t give big kids candy unless they do a trick first, or
have an awesome costume.

Ryan

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