This week is the week of the second Eid. It is my understanding that this Eid (Eid al-Adha), commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael. God of course provided a ram instead. You might also notice that the Islamic version involves Ishmael instead of the Jewish and Christian version which had Abraham offering Isaac.
This is the sacrifice Eid. All those who can afford to purchase an animal to sacrifice are supposed to do so and then divide the meat into 3 equal parts. One third goes to the family who bought it, one third goes to friends, neighbors, and relatives, and the final third goes to the poor and needy. In Dhaka, this means the streets flow with blood in the morning because most people who own property can afford a cow or goat here. The sacrifice is followed by lots of visiting and the consumption of more meat than one should ever consider rational. The limited experience I've had with visiting a family on Eid involved every dish (including the rice) having some form of meat in it.
Eid is also the worst time for traffic in Bangladesh. Most of those who live in Dhaka are actually from various villages all over Bangladesh. Everyone wants or is expected to go home to their village for Eid. This makes the already terribly crowded roads in Bangladesh a big logjam. Today is an exceptionally bad example of how horrible things can really get. In reaction to some political issues, the opposition party to the ruling party of government called for a transportation strike. This essentially means that no motorized vehicles besides ambulances are allowed to go anywhere from dawn to dusk. Now, add in the fact that today is right smack dab in the middle of the busiest annual transportation jam and you have yourself a real difficult situation. Tomorrow you'll have all the people who wanted to go today as well as all those who want to go tomorrow. This is the kind of thing that leads to situations like last year. Last year the timing of Eid meant that everyone wanted to leave on the same day. It took some of our staff up to 26 hours to get home by bus. Think how far you could get in the US in a 26 hour time period now imagine what it would be like if it took 26 hours for you to get to another portion of the state you live in because Bangladesh is only about the size of Illinois or Iowa.
That is why we as expats stay put wherever we are when it comes to Eid time. It may make like a bit boring but we kind of prefer boring to nightmarish.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Insights or Reminders
Ever have those days where you are reminded of how strong parts of your personality are? Today was one of those days for me. I had an all day meeting where 3 of us were working out a plan for a future project. I started off the morning tired since I didn't sleep well last night which totally killed my ability to be patient. That was reminder number 1 (I have a terrible time being patient when I'm tired). Then we started working together as a group to do our long tedious job. I personally like to work in spurts. Sometimes that means that I work with reckless abandon and other times that means I think far to thoroughly about something before I do it. Unfortunately, that isn't a working style that is conducive to good group work at all times. If I'm confident on the subject, I'll often times be really pushing the tempo but if I don't feel like I grasp the subject well, I might annoy people by asking all sorts of questions. It takes a lot of energy out of me either way. After several hours of group work I always have to have some time to myself to recoup. This is the part of my personality I might guess that most people don't really always understand. I'm an extroverted, carefree, go with the flow guy but I have to have time to sit back and process things later. When I'm processing things I often go over all the events and recognize all the dumb or awkward things I've done (yes I do indeed recognize that I've done it eventually). I also spend a lot of time pondering everyone's reactions to everything. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, I don't always turn this reflection time into wisdom later on. I suspect that I might eventually get better at this since I do seem to be trending that direction. Let's hope that holds up, I say a lot of stupid things even at 25.
On a mildly related note (since I have no clue where I was heading with that last paragraph), I did some baking the other day and that was fun! I finally managed to bake something in my pyrex dish that didn't burn. It was a chocolate chip cookie bar recipe that I got offline. It wasn't all that great but I think if I added some peanut butter to it, then it might be kind of tasty. Oh, I should probably explain that the mild relation was that I find baking to be very relaxing and therapeutic. One thing you have to watch out for in Bangladesh though is that the power goes off a lot. This can make for a lot of frustration. I avoid this as much as possible by baking late at night or early in the morning when the electricity is the most consistent, which actually explains why I'm so tired today. That reminds me, I should go home so I can go to bed.
On a mildly related note (since I have no clue where I was heading with that last paragraph), I did some baking the other day and that was fun! I finally managed to bake something in my pyrex dish that didn't burn. It was a chocolate chip cookie bar recipe that I got offline. It wasn't all that great but I think if I added some peanut butter to it, then it might be kind of tasty. Oh, I should probably explain that the mild relation was that I find baking to be very relaxing and therapeutic. One thing you have to watch out for in Bangladesh though is that the power goes off a lot. This can make for a lot of frustration. I avoid this as much as possible by baking late at night or early in the morning when the electricity is the most consistent, which actually explains why I'm so tired today. That reminds me, I should go home so I can go to bed.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Norom (soft)
Badminton season has returned! I love this time of the year because it is finally cooling down. In the morning it gets down to a very cold temperature of 68 or so degrees. It has however reminded me of a problem I've been having the last couple of months. I'm becoming soft. I've put a little weight back on since returning from America this summer and lost a lot of the muscle I had. This is likely due to the fact that I pretty much stopped exercising and started eating a bit too much. The last couple of nights of playing has seen me bruise my heel by playing barefoot, have sore arm muscles from swinging the racket, and my hamstring tightened up from all the squatting and lunging required. This is all combined with a bit of a nice round gut to motivate me to start taking care of myself like I was last year. Maybe I should go ahead and label this what it is, a new years resolution in October. I doubt I'll actually accomplish it but for at least the next couple of weeks I'll try.
In other news, lately I've been pondering values and ideals. As we look around us, there is reality in the present. As we look forward, I'm sure all of us could come up with visions of a better tomorrow and what we could do to get there. At the same time, these ideal futures rarely come and if we are honest with ourselves, we can probably come up with a halfway decent guess about what the future possibility really is. This guess, of course, comes from reflecting on our past experiences. The real question for me though is how does one decide what their values in the present (the only point in time you have control over) are in a way that balances the ideal visions and hope for a better tomorrow with the pragmatic realization that the dream you have is just a vague hope. (By the way, that is not meant to be a depressing thing to say since that vague hope sometimes does become reality.) For example, I'm a pacifist and I readily admit that I cling strongly to an ideal, a hope for the future that I really don't believe stands a chance at arriving before Christ returns. Should that pragmatic realization change the way I perceive my pacifist values in the present time? I try not to let it but in other areas in my life, I think there might be room for such a thing.
In other news, lately I've been pondering values and ideals. As we look around us, there is reality in the present. As we look forward, I'm sure all of us could come up with visions of a better tomorrow and what we could do to get there. At the same time, these ideal futures rarely come and if we are honest with ourselves, we can probably come up with a halfway decent guess about what the future possibility really is. This guess, of course, comes from reflecting on our past experiences. The real question for me though is how does one decide what their values in the present (the only point in time you have control over) are in a way that balances the ideal visions and hope for a better tomorrow with the pragmatic realization that the dream you have is just a vague hope. (By the way, that is not meant to be a depressing thing to say since that vague hope sometimes does become reality.) For example, I'm a pacifist and I readily admit that I cling strongly to an ideal, a hope for the future that I really don't believe stands a chance at arriving before Christ returns. Should that pragmatic realization change the way I perceive my pacifist values in the present time? I try not to let it but in other areas in my life, I think there might be room for such a thing.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Physics...a tiny tidbit
I've been meaning to write this post for a long time now but I keep forgetting to do so.
It has been my observation that Bengali people thoroughly understand that objects cannot occupy the same location in time and space. The thing that they also seem to understand that the American culture doesn't put so much focus on, is that objects can occupy the same location mere seconds (or less) apart. This is particularly true of buses. They have a dance worked out and it isn't one I like them to play at high speeds. Also, being that this is Bangladesh that dance ends badly at times. I've been lucky so far.
Another observation about Americans that was pointed out to me this week is that when asked where we are from we say our State rather than saying America. This is probably both because it is a learned thing from traveling within the USA and because there really is a big difference between various regions of the US.
Hope that's enough to tide you over until I have something more interesting to say.
It has been my observation that Bengali people thoroughly understand that objects cannot occupy the same location in time and space. The thing that they also seem to understand that the American culture doesn't put so much focus on, is that objects can occupy the same location mere seconds (or less) apart. This is particularly true of buses. They have a dance worked out and it isn't one I like them to play at high speeds. Also, being that this is Bangladesh that dance ends badly at times. I've been lucky so far.
Another observation about Americans that was pointed out to me this week is that when asked where we are from we say our State rather than saying America. This is probably both because it is a learned thing from traveling within the USA and because there really is a big difference between various regions of the US.
Hope that's enough to tide you over until I have something more interesting to say.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Durga Puja
This past weekend was the Hindu religious holiday of Durga Puja. Puja means worship. There are many different Pujas in the Hindu religion but Durga Puja is the most popular one for Bengali people. Since Durga is one of the gods of destruction and bay of Bengal is a place frequently ravaged by destruction, I think there is a correlation. It is also a reminder for us that there are more than 15 million Hindu people in Bangladesh and that while Muslims make up a vast majority, Hindus are a significant portion of the population. One of our Hindu staff invited us to come to visit his house during Durga Puja. This was just an evening visit since he lives just on the other side of Bogra.
We headed over to his house and ended up going to the local Hindu temple first. The narrow street outside the temple was draped with Christmas lights which were flashing and the sides of the street were lined with vendors selling an array of snacks and children's toys. There was loud music playing and tons of people all about. We got into the actual temple grounds where a large group of people were looking at the idols that they make fresh every year for the puja. Durga Puja lasts 5 days and they make an entire set of the idols every year. They are made from a mixture of clay and mud which are then painted with all sorts of bright colors. At the end of the 5 days of worship, the idols are then thrown into the river in a ceremony that I didn't get a chance to go see.
After being fed until we were almost bursting, we made our leave and decided to go see what some of the other idols looked like. Several of the temples that we found were quite old buildings and their idols were typically more elaborate than the ones we saw in our co-workers part of town. After seeing roughly 5 temples we decided that we were too tired to continue on and called it a night. It was definitely an interesting adventure though.
We headed over to his house and ended up going to the local Hindu temple first. The narrow street outside the temple was draped with Christmas lights which were flashing and the sides of the street were lined with vendors selling an array of snacks and children's toys. There was loud music playing and tons of people all about. We got into the actual temple grounds where a large group of people were looking at the idols that they make fresh every year for the puja. Durga Puja lasts 5 days and they make an entire set of the idols every year. They are made from a mixture of clay and mud which are then painted with all sorts of bright colors. At the end of the 5 days of worship, the idols are then thrown into the river in a ceremony that I didn't get a chance to go see.
After being fed until we were almost bursting, we made our leave and decided to go see what some of the other idols looked like. Several of the temples that we found were quite old buildings and their idols were typically more elaborate than the ones we saw in our co-workers part of town. After seeing roughly 5 temples we decided that we were too tired to continue on and called it a night. It was definitely an interesting adventure though.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Beggars
In Bangladesh there are many beggars. Many of them are professionals and many of those are organized by and give cuts to some sort of overlord. This creates many ethical problems. You want to help people who really need it but you don't want to perpetuate a system of oppression such as that run by the overlords. I guess I should also mention the massive volume of beggars that exist. It is truly disheartening. I've been here two years now and this is an issue that never gets easier to deal with.
For the last couple of months I've tried out a new strategy that I heard about from an ex-MCC worker. I keep a wad of small (but still large compared to what beggars normally get from an individual person here) bills in my pocket. Every time I have a beggar approach me, I always give them one. This comes from my tithing money. The thing about this that has shocked me is that I haven't even once come close to going through my entire tithe in a month of doing this. It's actually quite amazing how little I go through. Of course when I give to people I try to take the time to look them in the eye or ask them a few questions about themselves which also creates a bit of connection. I may not be doing anything about the overlord thing but I do feel better that I'm at least trying something. I do still feel bad though about not doing more to help these people out.
The other interesting thought I had this morning was about what beggars are. Beggars are just people asking for something which they've done nothing to earn and receive what they are asking for as an act of compassion from the one who gives. Remind you of anything? As Christians are we not all beggars desiring God's forgiveness and grace? Strangely enough, that thought came from reading Mark 9:33-37 in Jesus tells the disciples who the greatest amongst them is. His answer was that a child was the greatest and that whoever seeks to be the greatest must first submit to being the least. Which got me thinking of who the very least in the world is and the beggars came to mind.
For the last couple of months I've tried out a new strategy that I heard about from an ex-MCC worker. I keep a wad of small (but still large compared to what beggars normally get from an individual person here) bills in my pocket. Every time I have a beggar approach me, I always give them one. This comes from my tithing money. The thing about this that has shocked me is that I haven't even once come close to going through my entire tithe in a month of doing this. It's actually quite amazing how little I go through. Of course when I give to people I try to take the time to look them in the eye or ask them a few questions about themselves which also creates a bit of connection. I may not be doing anything about the overlord thing but I do feel better that I'm at least trying something. I do still feel bad though about not doing more to help these people out.
The other interesting thought I had this morning was about what beggars are. Beggars are just people asking for something which they've done nothing to earn and receive what they are asking for as an act of compassion from the one who gives. Remind you of anything? As Christians are we not all beggars desiring God's forgiveness and grace? Strangely enough, that thought came from reading Mark 9:33-37 in Jesus tells the disciples who the greatest amongst them is. His answer was that a child was the greatest and that whoever seeks to be the greatest must first submit to being the least. Which got me thinking of who the very least in the world is and the beggars came to mind.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Dancing for Joy
Have you ever experienced the true joy of finishing a project that was complicated and taking up tons of your time? That is what I felt this past Wednesday evening at around 7pm as I finished up some paperwork and sent it as an attachment to an email. I didn't actually dance though, that part of the title is much more symbolic of the feeling in my heart at the time than the actions I took. I might have done a fist pump though (which, now that I think about it, is a habit I picked up from my father who does that when the Colts do something good like score a touchdown or get an interception...I imagine anything more overtly celebratory would draw our Mennoniteness into question).
Moving on though, I got to spend some good time with a co-worker Austin before he leaves permanently. After he is gone Nate and I will be the ones here the longest. That is just weird but I guess it has been 2 years as of the end of this month. That ends up meaning that I only have 1 year left but I'm trying not to think about that. I've got enough stuff on my plate for the next couple of months to keep me occupied. There is my milk cow study that I'm going to try to finish before the end of this month so I can give the report. Beyond that, my boss wants me to do a review of the way we measure the income of our farmers and try to come up with a better way. Since we are also starting a trial agriculture education program in a couple of schools next year, he also wants me to come up with a way to compare that to our normal activities. Those both need to be done by January which sounds like a long way away until you think about the fact that I'm going to be working on the milk cow survey for the next couple of weeks, then there are several major holidays in Bangladesh next month, and then I'll be vacationing in India in December.
The MCC Nepal/India/Afghanistan expats invited the MCC Bangladesh expats to join them for a retreat in India. It looks like we'll be somewhere in Goa, India in the middle of December and then it also sounds like I'll be getting together with some friends to head up to the Delhi area after that. I know a couple of the Nepal people and even went to college with one of the SALT workers, so it will be good to see familiar faces again. It is my plan to spend Christmas in India this year. Living in Bangladesh is tough sometimes (for instance I got sick again this week) but some parts of my job really should make everyone else jealous. I think a trip to India qualifies.
Moving on though, I got to spend some good time with a co-worker Austin before he leaves permanently. After he is gone Nate and I will be the ones here the longest. That is just weird but I guess it has been 2 years as of the end of this month. That ends up meaning that I only have 1 year left but I'm trying not to think about that. I've got enough stuff on my plate for the next couple of months to keep me occupied. There is my milk cow study that I'm going to try to finish before the end of this month so I can give the report. Beyond that, my boss wants me to do a review of the way we measure the income of our farmers and try to come up with a better way. Since we are also starting a trial agriculture education program in a couple of schools next year, he also wants me to come up with a way to compare that to our normal activities. Those both need to be done by January which sounds like a long way away until you think about the fact that I'm going to be working on the milk cow survey for the next couple of weeks, then there are several major holidays in Bangladesh next month, and then I'll be vacationing in India in December.
The MCC Nepal/India/Afghanistan expats invited the MCC Bangladesh expats to join them for a retreat in India. It looks like we'll be somewhere in Goa, India in the middle of December and then it also sounds like I'll be getting together with some friends to head up to the Delhi area after that. I know a couple of the Nepal people and even went to college with one of the SALT workers, so it will be good to see familiar faces again. It is my plan to spend Christmas in India this year. Living in Bangladesh is tough sometimes (for instance I got sick again this week) but some parts of my job really should make everyone else jealous. I think a trip to India qualifies.
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