We’d like to let you in on a little secret- and please,
please don’t judge us. We often use this Blog as a form of coping. Now don’t
get us wrong- we’ve told you no lies thus far, we are completely content being
here in Bangladesh. But, there are at times tricky situations in which we find
ourselves, what with being in one of the most populated and corrupt cities in
the world.
With that introduction, we will proceed into a recent tale
experienced by yours truly.
It begins on a sunny and dusty Thursday afternoon. Gathered together in front to IUBAT, we
awaited our departure. And waited. And
waited- on Shampson. Not sure how old she is. We know she has bad knees. We
barely understand a word she says. She’s on faculty with the IUBAT nursing
program… and we’re not at all sure what she does, if anything. Ricki has
actually become her personal Sherpa. She finally showed and we pilled into a
“microbus” and we began our 3 hour journey to the dock. All said and done,
Shampson is growing on us- she even referred to us several times as “my girls”
and today with Ricki got the hiccups, she patted her back- like a little baby.
Cute.
Our journey was like every traffic filled adventure we’d
been on thus far. But… to our joyous surprise our driver (at the direction of Jim)
didn’t honk his horn once, and drove nice and slow- perfect. As we sat in
gridlock in downtown Dhaka and heard the buses beside us collide (neither one
giving in) slowly and thoroughly scraping their sides, we observed the sites of
Old Dhaka and New Market- a massive sprawl of shops where you can get almost
anything you want, from bootleg textbooks to mattresses.
We arrived at the dock and were at once escorted to the
“VIP” room where we stayed only momentarily, afterwards being escorted to the
REAL “VIP” room. And here we encounter our first arch nemesis. If we were
superman, they were our kryptonite. It
all began innocently enough, pointing and whispering- shifty glances followed
by evil laughter directed towards us. Being Canadian and all, we thought they
were just being friendly. How naïve we were- our battle was just beginning.
Perhaps it would be best to give you some background
information.
We were off to attend a nursing conference focused on
cooperative dialogue between members of different nursing disciplines in order
to begin initiatives towards higher nursing education in Bangladesh. There were many areas of the profession
present- nursing directors of hospitals, those directly affiliated with the
Ministry of health, nurse educators representing most hospitals as well as
others interested in these undertakings.
The weekend was comprised of numerous small lectures, small
group brainstorming sessions, presentations and follow up as well as a time for
networking and interdisciplinary relationship building.
It was located on a boat- a 98 year old boat to be precise
which was named “ the rocket”. This
vessel travelled from Dhaka down one of the main rivers bordering the city.
Mostly it’s purpose was to ferry passengers to and from small villages all the
way down to the Sundarbans- location of the largest Mangrove forest in the
world as well as home to the ever endangered Bengal Tiger. Unlucky for us we
saw neither as we approached this portion of our journey in the middle of the
night.
With these details setting the stage, we will continue. We will phrase the remainder of the story as
follows:
Insult #1. Ricki is quietly standing by the table. Person A
on Ricki’s left leans in front of Ricki to person B on the her right . States
something loudly and angrily using Bangla with one English word midsentence.
Students. Luckily person B was our lovely Shampson who replied “ She’s not a
student”. Ricki proceeded to introduce herself as teaching faculty at IUBAT and
yes in fact, she had been invited.
Insult #2. As a generalization, conversations started by us
were almost always put out like water on fire as soon as it became clear that
didn’t have a masters. Without fail,
question one of any conversation is “Do you have a masters”? and when the
answer is “No” we proceed to jail and do not pass GO and we do not collect
200$.
Insult #3. Session one was just beginning. We had been out
on the front deck speaking with a visiting professor from Simon Fraser
University. Seeing that there were no more chairs available, Ricki went out to
get one. Upon return to the meeting room,
a small but vicious woman sprang out of no where and attempted to rip the chair out of her
hands. When Ricki held her position fast- looking confused and alarmed, the
small woman eventually gave up the fight, appearing alarmed herself that Ricki
didn’t give in, and stormed away in a huff.
This was followed by an angry and sudden appeal for us to
“SIT DOWN” which did immediately, again thoroughly confused as to what was taking
place.
Insult #4 After the session was over, we ventured back to
our room, only to find 4 large women unpacking their bags. We were surprised
and smiled saying “ this is our room”. Following this the women gathered together
creating somewhat of a wall and glared in our direction. Again we smiled saying
“ this is our room”. This time a hostile
“NO IT’S NOT” came back at us. We
decided to do what any good person would and seek clarification from the event
organizer that he had in fact assigned us Room 10. Before we even reached him we heard yelling
and shrieking from the formentioned room behind us. Turns out these women just wanted our room. Period.
Just like that. And got it they did. Apparently second class just wasn’t good
enough and we- being foreigners and students and useless in their eyes- should be
the ones sleeping in second class. We were an easy target. They knew it, and we
had to let them win. We’ve learned quickly- choose your battles.
To be continued…
Wow.
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