For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

>> 19 Apr 2009

This is the second part of the catching up blog postings.

After getting back from our holiday on an overnight bus on Easter Sunday (12th April)and arriving back in Dhaka on Monday morning we then took a trip to Old Dhaka with Lucy (a must see for anyone visiting Bangladesh!).

Given that the streets were fairly crowded and the sun was pretty toasty we decided to take our tour by rickshaw, rather than on foot. After travelling through some of the narrow little streets and admiring the old derelect buildings we arrived by the water's edge at a small port, which I think is better described as a landing station. It was good to see all the hussle and bustle around the landing station as people were transporting vegetables on large baskets on and off small boats, other boats were waiting to take passengers across to the other side of the river, people were working by the side of the river and people just crowded in to see these strange Bideshi (foreigner) faces.

After an exciting trip round Old Dhaka we went to Computer City (a large shopping complex full of computer related stores).

In the afternoon we relaxed, unpacked and then Lucy got ready for her early morning departure. We then all stumbled out of bed at 3.00am and took a taxi to the airport. After a sad goodbye to Lucy Andy and I sleepily got back into bed for a further few hours kip.

On Tuesday it was New Year's Day here. So, that meant a national holiday and the streets were full of people celebrating. The traditional colours to wear on New Year's Day is red and white, so there were lots of ladies looking beautiful in their red and white Sari's or Salwa Kamiz's and the ben were wearing red and white punjabi suits.

On that day our work colleague was getting married, so we set off to a village in Gazipur, which is about 1 hour outside the city.

The wedding was due to start at 11.30, or so we understood. So 5 of us from the office dutifully arrived at the starting time and as expected we were the first to arrive. Even the groom hadn't arrived by then and was still sat in the barber's.

We made our way down the narrow, dusty road to a small village where the bride's family were from and where the wedding was due to take place. The houses in the village were all made of tin and were closely packed together. The houses were kind of arranged in clusters of 5 - 6, with each cluster sharing a toilet and well. At the entrance to the village was a large sort of entrance made out of brightly coloured cloth, which is always put up when there's a wedding.

In the middle of this village was a larger tin building, which normally served as a school but on this day it was to be the church hall.

After some time looking round the village and meeting the residents we were escorted into the church hall where we were given some very welcomme drinks and snacks.

After that there was a bit more standing around and talking, by which time we were absolutely cooking! There were 2 small fans in the church building but not that helpful in 40C heat when you're in a tin shack. I think it's fair to say that neither of us have ever sweated as much as we did that day (sorry...maybe too much information for a blog?!). However, I'm told that the sauna-like conditions are very good for our skin, so that's a bonus!

Anyway, after that we managed to watch one of the pre-marriage rituals, which was a ceremonial washing. The bride and groom were both dressed in yellow and then the bride's family gave the couple a "turmeric shower", where they tipped turmeric and water all over the bride and groom. From an outsider's perspective it looked like the bride's family were enjoying it a lot more than the "Happy couple".

After this ritual the couple then had to get cleaned up and but their glad rags on for the ceremony. Whilst we were waiting to appear we were given seats under the shade of one of the houses and after a few minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of around 50 kids staring at us. To try and remove some of the awkwardness our boss and Andy started doing some "magic tricks" to entertain the masses whilst we waited.

At about 1.30 the ceremony started. The bride looked beautiful in her red sari overlayed with lots of gold. She also fulfilled her role very well of looking completely miserable for the entire ceremony and even shed a few tears. It's the bride's job to look sad at a wedding because she is leaving her family home.

After the ceremony we stayed for the meal provided by the bride's family. They were very kind to us and gave us proper chips and battered chicken - just like a homemade KFC; it was yum!

At about 3.45 we then travelled back to Dhaka, by now completely covered in sweat but nonetheless very happy that we were able to share in such an exciting Bangaldeshi experience.

As we travelled back home the streets were lined with people celebrating the new year and enjoying the fact that for the vast majority of people they were with their family and didn't have to go to work.

The rest of the week was spent at work. Andy has been really busy with some key design challenges, so has had a few meetings to thrash it out.

It's getting pretty hot now as well and the humidity has been turned up a few notches. This means that there are more and more power cuts and we seem to spend our days looking out for the "AC moments" or the nearest cold shower (although in this heat the shower isn't even that cold). Whilst it may sound a little unbearable, we're actually coping fine - God has really blessed us with the ability to adapt to the heat and we have plenty of "cool moments" to fill our day.

If we catch ourselves moaning about the heat we have a very immediate reminder of how blessed we are when we think of our house helper sheltering under nothing more than a plastic sheet on the wreck of her former house, or the street children on the roads outside having to beg in the sweltering heat day after day. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the great many blessings we have and we thank God for those gentle reminders in our life.

Until next time...

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