Rickshaw Wallah Jubilee

As my last post suggests, last week’s field trip inspired me to think about domination and power and the motivations behind them. While I know there are many historically situated hypotheses to answer this question, specific to Pakistan and former East Pakistan's histories and politics (Bangladesh), I still wondered, what it is that motivates or, at least, allows us to be complicit with domination. Why would the suppression and oppression of another be so tempting?

But, as soon as the questions came to mind, and I began to fell self-righteously critical, I remembered that I have complicity allowed my own participation in the oppression of others. Just to warn you, this post may take a "preachy" tone...

Here I am, of course, talking about the economic and environmental oppression of developing countries by the "developed world" (although I could also mention the manner in which America also has used military force/political pressure on other countries in order to obtain certain political or economic advantages). Honestly, I am a bit too tired and my brain is a bit too fried from Bangla study to eloquently express the multifarious manner in which I as a white, middle class American have contributed to global inequality but watching people scavenge for clean water and food, watching women walk home late at night from the H&M clothing factory (while I don my H&M blouse) and watching kids pick up piles of trash I can't help but think about all the food and clean water I've wasted, all of the companies with bad ethics I have supported for the fulfillment of my own consumption, all of the trash I have produced out of convenience, and all of the environmental resources my consumption has eaten up even though countries like Bangladesh (with an enormous population) use a fraction of those resources. So much of this trip has been a struggle with coming to with how much more power and privilege (both of which are totally unearned) I have in comparison to most Bangladeshis. And there are just so many ways to finagle for yourself a way out of feeling anything or doing anything; the excuses here are the same ones that we use in America to justify our lifestyles in the face of domestic poverty: the problems are too systemic and there is nothing to be done; they won't use that money for food (in this case the excuse in Bangladesh is that all beggars are a part of a ring operation, which may be true for some but not true for all; in America its that they will just use the money for booze although I know many a poverty-striken person who buys food with the money they get from begging); I'll just tithe through my church and that will equal it all out...

This week Travis and I have been reading John Howard Yoder's "The Politics of Jesus". It has been a very appropriate and challenging text to read in my time here. In one of his chapters, Yoder argues that Jesus was not simply bringing about a spiritual revolution in which he was the source of spiritual healing and forgiveness, but that he was also calling for a very political and socially founded revolution with biblical president: he was calling for jubilee. But, importantly, Yoder makes it clear that Jesus' metaphors for jubilee were not asking for a temporary leveling of society every few dozen years but, rather, were a command to his followers to live the jubilee everyday, that jubilee would be "a permanently defining trait of the new order". Relatedly, Yoder examines Jesus' command to his followers to "sell all that you have and give it as alms" as one very challenging portrait of what living jubilee might look like. He quite pointedly criticizes the contemporary trend amongst theologians and preachers to interpret this call metaphorically through the tithe. Yoder claims that the tithe is the easy way out, and one that most of us aren't even that good at following through with, at least not joyfully. This is my favorite of Yoder's quotes:

"(Jesus) did not wish to abolish tithes. He wished only to go beyond the level of easy fulfillment and easy moral self-satisfaction which could be had by giving the tithe, and to call people to reach the level of 'righteousness, goodness and good faith'...it was a jubilee ordinance which was to be put into practice here and now..."

Rather than detached and easy distribution of goods, Jesus asks us to give something much more challenging; he asks us to give, like the poor widow, out of our poverty. Yoder is challenging us to accept Jesus' command as a straightforward demand to give up our attachments to the capital that make us comfortable, and that places a comfort buffer between the haves and have nots. Obviously, its not just about capital and money, its about what they create- not just injustice and inequality, but also the mindset that allows you to easily avoid and ignore injustice and the needs of others and agitates the seeking of fulfillment in things when such fulfillment should be found in loving relationship and charity. Essentially, its about radical sharing and distribution that changes both the self and those you share with. Jesus' command for jubilee is severely needed today. My consumption has allowed me to participate in and ignore my own oppression of others; I am learning that I am asked both as a Christ follower and as a fellow human being to open my hand and re-structure my life as a participant in a community rather than as an individual seeking her own comforts,

I say all of this knowing that I am as far as anyone else from fulfilling such a command; I have found this to be particularly true in Bangladesh. Being in an uncomfortable, new environment makes the comfortable all the more enticing. Sometimes I really relish my 30 Rock DVD, my air-conditioning, and, most certainly, my internet that connects me to family and friends and, as I have said in previous posts, I am guilty of cloistering myself in my room with these things to feel "at home" and away from the reality of Dhaka that includes so much of the inequalities that I have helped reinstate. I have to work on changing many things about my everyday existence before I begin even attempting to live jubilee, but it begins with giving up attachment to these comforts and finding home in God and finding comfort and joy in the opening rather than in the closing of my hand. Easier said than done.

But I don't think Jesus expects this to be an easily achieved manner of living; it is a way of living because it is a process. It takes time and while it might get easier, you will fail at times; it takes faith to push you to open your hand, divine forgiveness to continue loving you when you fall, and community to reveal the divine joy that is experienced and created in sharing. I believe the Sunset Hill Community in Bloomington (shout out!) and the Vox Veniae community are graceful examples of such lived jubilee that I am privileged to have met.

One difficulty of Bangladesh is that I still can't speak the language very well. When there are kids on the street or rickshaw wallahs that don't make enough money to make up for the calories they burn in hard labor, all I know to do is "tithe". All I do is give money and walk back home to my luxurious apartment. I am still figuring out exactly what living jubilee looks like here and at home; I think I am finding that Bangladesh might be a slightly difficult place for me to "give it all", at least for now. But the blessing of this trip has been that I have seen the need for change. I have spent much of my life building walls of comfort that ultimately keep others out because its easier that way; rather than opening my home to someone who needs it, or giving out of my blessings, I have tended to hoard my blessings and hoard my comforts. There are big and little changes that I can do to better live jubilee, to live like the poor widow. I know I am sorta afraid and uncomfortable with the idea itself and what it might entail but I also know that God is present in it.

While I'm not sure if I will figure out jubilee in my short time here, I have seen God working it out for me. I have seen God moving, healing, establishing loving relationships of sharing, and resurrecting here. I will leave you with one such story:

My friend Annie and I were discussing how to give in Bangladesh. Being a bideshi and, thus, an obviously priviledged person of wealth, we are often asked for money. Sometimes we don't do what we should. I will admit that there have been times when I haven't given because I haven't felt safe to open up my wallet; I like to say that its complicated or excused by my being a woman in a foreign place, but I know I should just have some cash or food ready to hand out so I can't excuse my way out of it. But the other night Annie really did face a rather troubling dillema. She was riding a rickshaw home by herself at night (don't worry, mom, I don't do that) and a rickshaw wallah started telling his story.

I will pause for a moment to say that we all learned the other week that a study was conducted in which it was learned that if you look at the daily wages of a rickshaw puller, there is no way for him to buy enough food to make up for the calories he loses doing his job. As a result, many rickshaw pullers die at a very early age because their hearts literally "give out". Two crazy things regarding this: 1) rickshaws are the only means of transportation aside from the bus or CNG's both of which aren't the safest option for women. 2) There a bargaining culture that prevails in Dhaka. You are, according to locals, "supposed" to barter for a lower rate. My language partner gets mad at me when I give rickshaw pullers more than the "going" rate because she says I don't understand Bangladesh and that they will charge other Bangladeshis more if bideshis give them money; I don't think bideshis affect the market enough for this to be true and I have a hunch that it has more to do with class issues because Monica also told me that they are lower class and don't have a right to ask for more money. I have started sneaking money to my rickshaw pullers but its still a source of tension between Monica and me. I am pretty sure I offend her every time I do it but we don't see eye to eye on the issue after a few discussions about it.

That aside was just to illustrate the already difficult life of a rickshaw puller and the social politics regarding their social status. So on top of all of the inequality and injustice that are tied to the lives of most rickshaw wallahs, this rickshaw puller explained that he had lost his home in a flood and needed money. But then he stopped peddling on the dark street and told Annie she had to give him 20,000 taka; Annie gave him the 800 taka in her wallet when he dropped her at home and came upstairs to talk. She was confused about how to feel about what happened. On the one hand one can understand making such a demand out of need; you can't really blame him for his desperateness. 20,000 taka is doable for us (its around $300) bideshis and really would make a huge difference in his life. As persons with the ability to give, we have this strange power to choose who to give to and how much. It doesn't feel right to have this power; we certainly haven't earned it, and we certainly don't deserve access to the necessities that he lacks any more than him. So there is this basic injustice present that we wish we could change and we do have some power to change, at least in the short term, and yet, at the same time, there was a power imbalance between Annie and the driver because while he knows the city and the language Annie does not. Annie and I talked about it a long time and ultimately came to the conclusion that power imbalances just suck. I had to believe that the big systematic one that we play a role in would have some divine solution that I just couldn't see.

But then I saw that divine solution the next. Prepare yourself for a story of divine awesomeness.

The day after the incident, Annie was walking down the street to our house (its a very safe street mom, don't worry) and she heard a rickshaw wallah offer a ride. This is a frequently occurring event as most people take rickshaws and if you are walking you are probably looking for a rickshaw. Annie didn't look up at first and just said no but when she briefly looked up she and the driver caught each other's eyes. In the whole city of millions of people, a day after a discouraging and even frightening encounter, Annie had miraculously bumped into her one rickshaw wallah friend. His name is Takof (I think that is how you would spell it). Annie was here four summers ago with the same program and had become friends with him then. She and another CLS'er had become close with him and his family. The last that Annie had heard from him, Takof was ill with TB and had to return to his village. Annie feared with this trip that she would learn of his passing but instead she found his healthy and smiling face amongst the millions of faces on the street outside her home. They joyfully reunited and simply rode around the city chatting. Annie asked if he had a cell phone number she could call him on (everyone has a cell phone here) but he explained that he had to sell it when he got sick and it was 2,000 taka for a new one. Annie said, "Well I've got that!" and gave him some money for them to stay in touch. Annie explained the event to the group later that night with overwhelming joy. What a beautiful expression of what sharing can look like at the beginning of a struggle with power. While Annie is still clearly in a position of power, she was able to help another, in a relationship of love, out of joy and in the hopes of continuing to deepen the relationship. I haven't met Takof yet but I hope to. He and Annie are going to hang out together this summer.

We can't fix the social structure over night; we can't abolish poverty over night. Even if Annie had given everything she possibly had, there would still be a nation stricken with poverty because of global economic inequalities and its possible that Takof would still face many economic problems. However, we can, as Mother Teresa reminds us, make little changes with big love.

I don't mean for this to sound pollyanna. I recognize that there are huge problems and that we can't just say that God will fix it all; even though I believe God is big enough to do that, I also believe it is up to us to bring about the social and economic justice that we have deprived so many of through our own selfish consumption. This takes political and social action on an enormous scale; work that must be done today even if it seems fruitless.

But I am also aware that I can't singlehandedly make global problems go away by giving some taka to someone who needs it. And I don't think that is what jubilee looks like either. I think jubilee is about giving and giving and giving and letting go of power that comes with capital, but I also think that it is about relationship wherein it is a reciprocal action of giving; you give but you also receive because you form a relationship and in the end it is creates a sustainable microcosm of jubilee again and again. God facilitated that with Annie and Takof and I believe will facilitate it if we are willing to give and receive love through relationship.

Ok, that's the end of my super preachy post. I hope this finds you all well. Thank you for your prayers, love and support. They are needed and appreciated everyday.

With all my love from the city of mosques,
ashlee

Destruction and Resurrection

Here's the whole crew at Nazrul's grave

A Bangladeshi flag flies symbolically out the window of Jagannath Hall where dozens of students were massacred and raped in Bangladesh's war for Independence

My dear friends Misha and Annie at the Language Martyrs Monument

sculptor and survivor Ferdousi Priyabhashini

Bangladeshi Rashta Sheelpy (street art) depicting a scene from the Ramayana

I am totally exhausted from our all-day field trip but just had to post something about it before I fell asleep. Today we visited the Liberation War Museum, the Shaheed Minar (Martyrs Monument), Dhaka University and a whole slew of monuments to the Bangladeshi liberation and language movements. It was a difficult collection of stops. The Liberation War Museum recounted Bangladesh's struggles for Independence and for its Mother Tongue from the British empire through the battle for liberation from Pakistan. I certainly have no intention of waxing poetic either about Bangladeshi nationalism, guerilla warfare, or war in general but I will say that it is miraculous that a people who had no organized army and had just barely formed an organized government, had no training, no supplies and, until the last month of a nine month battle, no real allies, managed to obtain independence from a nation with a formidable army. I suppose it is a testament to the lengths to one might fight for their own voice and control. However, the cost of liberation was inconceivably high, as it is with any war. There was so much loss; so much sacrifice; so much death and destruction both during and after the war. Aside from the thousands of Bangladeshis (and Pakistinis) who were killed in battle, the war instigated the movement of nearly 10 million Bangladeshi refugees (Bangladesh's second major experience with mass refugee evacuation, following Partition) many of whom died from cholera or starvation in refugee camps. The museum had a 3 foot by 3 foot circular piece of concrete (see below). In my naivety I thought that maybe it was art installation or a piece of a bridge destroyed by the Pakistani army. But it was actually the temporary home that millions of refugees were forced to live in while Bangladesh was in turmoil.
Refugee "homes"

The heaviest part of the day was learning about the sexual violence that took place during the liberation war. One unfortunate truth of war is that a second war always takes place in addition to the war raged in fields and on streets; war, especially ethnic and religious war, is raged on the bodies of women. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls were raped in current Bangladesh and in the Indian refugee camps. This is a particularly potent and poisonous means of attacking an enemy because, unfortunately, a woman's loss of honor often means (like Sita pictured above) her family and community will reject her. Rape in Bangladesh in the conflict of 71 pulled apart and destroyed communities, families and women's lives forever.

Like I said, it was a heavy day. But God was present in all of it. Amidst all of these stories of domination and power and the horrific results of human violence and domination, I saw resurrection. We went to the home of a highly reknowned Bangladeshi artist named Ferdousi Priyabhashini. Priyabhashini lost her family during the Liberation War and spent well over a month in a Pakistani prison; she suffered horrific emotional and sexual abuse. After the war, the family that she did have rejected her and she was "eka", alone. While I didn't fully understand her complete personal story (my Bangla was a little too weak to catch all of the nuanced), she eventually remarried and became a mother again. However, she began to work through the loss and pain of that experience using art and started a new life as a mother and artist in the aftermath of the war.

She expresses the theme of resurrection in much of her work; I see God working out resurrection in her life too. Priyabhashini takes old tree roots that wash up with the Bangladeshi monsoon season and she gently pulls life out of them, though she told us that she doesn't like to do much to the wood, just bring out the life that is already present in them. The final result is a beautiful piece of art. She has a few pieces that directly deal with her war-time experiences but many of them are simple expressions of everyday life.

A Sculpture in Priyabhashini's home

Bangladesh and the people who live here have faced, and in all honesty continue to face, incredible struggles- economic, natural, and political. And the developed nations' role in their current economic and environmental struggles must be recognized and dealt with (for example, Dhaka and it millions of residents will be under water in 30 years if global warming is not reversed-the global warming that the developed nations play a central role in furthering). However, I have seen God hard at work here. Love and resurrection are always possible, even when we humans really screw it up. There is so much love, so much possibility, so many inconceivable blessings...

This is most certainly not to say that we should sit by and let God "take care of it", but rather, that this is God's place too, these are God's people too, and I hope that I can structure the rest of my life, my own existence back home, with that in mind.

Don't Mess With Bangladesh

Three days in a row with internet!? WHAT THE WHAT?!

I should be doing my grammar homework and translating a Bangla text but instead I am taking this opportunity with internet to share a fun story that Travis said was good enough to share.

I know I said that this was a funny story, and it is funny in a totally absurd way but it also alludes to a reality that's a bit difficult to swallow: there may be a need for some education in Bangladesh about the harmful effects of littering. Here's what I mean:

So we went on a field trip last week to Sonargaon, a city just outside of Dhaka. We saw an ancient mosque, a colonial palace and visited a market where you can buy some really beautiful handmade crafts including jamdani saris, which are woven by hand, stitch by stitch (the saris in the post above are jamdani saris that were being sold during our visit). This area of Bangladesh is incredibly beautiful and so different from Dhaka city. There are acres of rice fields (paddy), dozens of little ponds (pookurs) and miles and miles of lush, green trees (gach) and flowers (phool). People live off the land here in every way, fetching water from their ponds and eating and selling the rice they grow and the fish they catch.

It was a long trip so we all ate lunch in the bus. We collected all of our trash in a paper bag and handed it to our bus driver to keep at the front of the bus until we arrived back home.

Before I proceed further it will help to mention the academic demographic of our CLS group. There are at least 4 of us studying water pollution/arsenic poisoning and two others studying water-born diseases. The rest of us are in the humanities working on social issues in Bangladesh, ranging from NGO structures and agricultural rebellions to my work on the socially subversive dimensions of Baul theory and ritual. In brief, our work stems from an awareness and concern for the social, environmental and health problems that Bangladeshis face as well as an interest in Bangladeshis solutions or forms of resistance against these problems; we are also all too well aware of the problems of pollution and tainted water...our bodies remind us of this problem all too often.

As we are pulling out of the area we had stopped to eat lunch at, our bus driver hurls the bag of trash onto the side of the road, which, in this case, was directly into someone's pond. We could see someone on the other side of the pond gathering water, perhaps to drink. Needless to say, we bideshis produced an overwhelming gasp of alarm. Tara, an environmentalist who works on arsenic poisioning screamed "OH NO, OH NO, OH NO!" and literally fell to her knees. It was like watching a car accident; our faces were pasted with looks of horrified disbelief. But our bus driver just laughed and said, "It is Bangladesh! It is good! We do this here!".

Watching the embarassed look on our driver's face in his realization that he had for some reason offended a bus full of rich white people who were now righteously yelling at him about the "right thing to do", the anthropologists and transnational femininsts on the bus were conflicted about this particular situation; do you yell at the driver with some air of moral superiority? Of course not. We had a Mohanty voice in the back of our heads telling us "You have to find a different collaborative means of discussing the problems of pollution and attempt to create new lines of communication wherein you incorporate the driver and his cultural perspective to creatively ferment new strategies of anti-pollution activism"...(yadda yadda yadd). However, our thoughts were somewhat pointless because a few other CLS'ers were already in full on offended bideshi mode, yelling at the driver not to litter. In the end the driver, a super nice dude who I know didn't mean to offend, apologized, but I'm not sure if he knew why he all of the sudden felt like he had to.

It was one of those moments of cultural contact, or perhaps collision, wherein you realize not only a socially ingrained mode of thinking that is stridently different from your own, or at least different from the one you know you should take up, but also the conflict of approaching such difference when we are, unfortunately, so disproportionately privilaged. We also hilariously encountered each others' different modes of approaching cultural difference. We faced academic clashes in how to theoretically approach the situation: some of us were frozen in feminist theoretical anguish, others of us pretty much just flipped out. Which one is better? I guess that's not really the question; the question is....why didn't someone have a camera to film this hilarious scene of cultural and academic conflict? (The more obvious and educated question is how do you reshape understandings of pollution and its interconnectedness with social and environmental health but I am still dwelling on the cluster of clashes that occurred on the bus).

So that is my slightly funny, slightly disturbing, slightly thought provoking story. I have so so so many to tell; a sheltered well-to-do white gal finds herself in many funny situations in a foreign country. I promise to tell you more, but this will have to do for tonight. Homework calls.

I love you all. Thank you for the prayers, love and support.

With all my love from the city of mosques,
ashlee

p.s. above you will find some pictures of my home, bedroom,school, and the area around my school. Enjoy!

Fear, Faith and a Promise for the Funny

Its not certain how much longer I will have internet so I thought I should just get on the ball and post this next sucker.

I have noticed that many of my thoughts on my experience here involve a mixture of three ingredients: faith, fear and…(oh, yeah, I’m totally going to do the cheesy alliteration…) funny stories. For this particular post I will present one of each.

Let’s begin with fear because, if I am being totally honest, most of my mornings begin with it. (I don’t want this blog to end up sounding like colonial narratives of India that only talk about the dirt and lack of silverware, but I do want to be honest, and if I am doing that I am admitting a few of my fears about my time here). If you know me well, you know I am a bit of a clean-freak germaphobe with a mind that worries and wanders much more than it should. For example, one time I burnt my hand fairly badly and ended up with a second-degree burn. However, I was so concerned that it would get infected, that I actually OVER cleaned the thing. Yeah, that’s right, I OVER cleaned it; I had a doctor prescribe me a cream to put on it just so I would “leave it alone”. I have learned this germaphobia/clean freakedness in part from my mom (she blames it on her mom) and in part on our super sanitized existence as Americans with too many bleach products and waaaaay too many nightly news reports about how dirty your soap pump is.

I learned a Bangla phrase today to describe my particular worrying affliction: “nodeier moethoe amar mon”…basically it means “my mind is like a river” or, rather, it wanders like a river. I have been feeling a little tired and emotionally drained lately so I stayed in today after class. Relaxing in Bangladesh mostly consists of doing everything I normally do (studying, studying, studying) but doing it without my language partner, Monica, so its not quite as exhausting since I’m not speaking Bangla . While I needed the down-time I must say that it can also be dangerous to have some quiet-time to yourself when your “mon” is “nodeier mothoe”. You can ask Travis or my mom what my biggest fear about this summer was: getting really sick. But the thing is, I am going to get sick- everyone- doctors, friends, teachers, advisors, previous travelers, all of them confirmed this reality; you get sick, you have a terrible couple of days, and then you get back on the horse, end of story…at least until the next time you accidently eat poop. But I am such a worrier and such a control freak that I can’t seem to leave it at that. So I must admit that I spent this afternoon seeking the guarded protection of hand soap and praying for health. In other words, it was one of those days that I closed myself off to Bangladesh, to really being here, which, in the end, is neither what God wants (I believe), nor does it calm any worries.

In fact, I have found that I am happiest here, feel closest to God here, when I am IN IT: hanging at people’s houses, sharing meals with Bangladeshis, walking down a busy street in the energetic evening. But I guess with multiple friends out with the *serious* poops, I can’t help sometimes but let the worry set in.

The other funny factoid, though, aside from my own conscious realization that cloistering myself is completely antithetical to my purpose in being here, is the truth that there just isn’t anything I can control here and it doesn’t matter how hard I try to control my environment, I am not the one at the steering wheel. While this is true at all times and in all places, I am particularly reminded of my smallness and of God’s overhwhelmingly loving control when I am in a place where sudden rainfall means you are walking through 3 feet of water. God has been trying to remind me of this lack of control and reminded me in a really funny way my first week here. Since I am well now and have told my mom officially (I wouldn’t have told this story unless there was nothing for her to worry about) I can tell it:

In all of my anal-retentive, control-freak attempts to keep myself healthy with hand sanitizer, soap, vitamins, pro-biotics, nasal rinses and Emergen-C, I failed to consider the unwise nature of shaving my underarms with a razor that was sitting in the old, dirty water on the side of my bathtub. A week or so ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and my pit lymph nodes were so swollen and sore that I couldn’t move my arms. I was of course REALLY freaked out (you can ask Travis) but once I learned that it was just a bacterial infection that was treatable with antibiotics, I realized two things: 1) I am inconceivably blessed to have access to medicine that heals me when so many of the people I see everyday cannot afford the 500 taka for a visit and meds ( a fellow CLS’er explained from her experience last year with an ill rickshawalla that many slum doctors will turn away ill patients because “they are poor and there is nothing that can be done”). And 2) I should stop trying to worry and control not only because God is continually caring for me but also because I don’t even worry about the right things! (Pretty sweet joke, God!) . This lesson has also brought me closer to my fellow CLS’ers. I have decided not to shave the rest of the summer to avoid a repeast situation and I have now be dubbed the hairy one: pits, legs and all.

On a highly related note: to faith. Of course all of my senseless worries and attempts to control my health have reminded me to have faith in God’s protecting and loving hand, but these few short weeks have also revealed God’s face to me in so so so many different ways and through so many different faces. First, I have seen God so clearly in the faces of the crew I am living with. When someone gets sick, or needs a Tasty Saline (oral rehydration pack), or needs to bum the internet from someone’s computer, has had a rough day, needs dinner taken to them, needs help explaining something to the cooks…or whatever other daily necessities one needs help with, everyone just hovers around and sets to work taking care of each other. Its really beautiful how close and familial we have become; I do feel like I have known them for ages, and have found such wonderful friends in them.

I have also seen God’s face in the people from Bangladesh, and God’s face here has been the most important, enlivening, and courage-inducing appearance of God I have seen yet. Monica, my language partner is just one example. Monica is 24 years old and a student from the Independent University, Bangladesh. She is full of energy and is definitely the spunkiest of all the language partners. She says exactly what is on her mind and is not afraid to tell you what to do; but she is so patient with me and so loving and curious about me and my life. We have had such a great time in our few meetings laughing and talking about men, food, religion, school, slang and social expectations in our different worlds. Last Friday she invited me, Annie and Farida over to her home. She had cooked us a traditional Bangladeshi rice pudding that literally takes like 12 hours and 11 different steps to make. Her home, like Dali’s, was very modest, tucked away in a muddy alleyway, with sun stained clay walls, a rather rugged and worn assortment of furniture, and three rooms for the 6 of them (and the two mice I noticed skamppering along during our visit) But she served us this incredible dish and was just so generous and happy to have us sit in her room and eat. We thanked her but in true Monica style she said “Ug, enough with your thank yous. I don’t have a bag big enough to carry them around with me and they are already breaking my shoulder!”. Then, she offered us pan, a traditional after meal, uh, well, digestive. I almost peed my pants watching Annie chew on the green leaf as it oozed out the sides of her mouth. We all almost peed our pants and I felt totally and completely at home for a brief moment.

In those moments, when I feel that I am really here, really knowing people and living in their space with them, not separated from them as the sanitized, pampered American that I am, I feel God pushing me to move past my fears, to move out of my Bangla-speaking shell and to just BE with the people I meet. That evening I was reminded that every place is divine because God is in every person; here I get to interact with a new, unique image God with every broken and grammatically incorrect Bangla phrase I utter.

I know I promised a funny story, but I am feeling waaaaay too tired to finish it so I will leave it for next time. I promised Travis I would tell my bus driver story, so stay tuned for the next entry on…cultural clashes on trash receptacles!

Thank you, as always, for your prayers, love and support. You help carry me through every difficult and beautiful moment.

With all my love from the city of mosques,

ashlee

Struggles (and delights) at the end of a Comfort Zone

Its been two weeks since my arrival in Dhaka (sorry it has taken so long to post-the internet is hard to come by) and I will admit that it certainly feels more like four weeks, not necessarily because of homesickness or even jetlag (although there has also been nights with a good amount of that) but because there is so much to take in every second of each day that each day seems to be filled with multiple days, sometimes seemingly occurring in different locations.

I am still coming up short on the words to fully describe my experience or what I have seen thus far, but I think the most accurate description of the past week has been "dual". Dhaka is a place of many dualities (all my post-modern theorists out there are cringing but please read on). Last friday was a perfect example of this. Friday is a holy day in Dhaka so we don't have class. A good friend and fellow CLS'er, Andrew, who came last year and speaks beautiful Bangla and can hail a rickshaw and talk up a cha stand like nobody's business, knew of a church in Gulshan Dui (a nearby neighborhood) where an English-speaking service was being held. So I went with Andrew and two other wonderful friends in my program, Tara and Maggie (we call her Margot here because Maggie in Bangla is a less than flattering slang for a "certain" type of woman), who are astoundingly beautiful people that I hope to share more about in the future. On the way there we got caught in a Dhaka rainstorm and found cover in the first tiny shop stall in the bazar outside of our neighborhood, which, to Tara's patient disgust (she’s a long-time vegetarian) was a chicken butcher. She got stuck next to the pan of uncooked chicken livers, which made her laugh hysterically (Tara is a wonderful source of positive enthusiasm; just today she came back from the Dhaka post office with stamps in hand and was literally more excited about the stamps than most people are after a child is born). After trekking through the bazar, a place sometimes beautiful and sometimes, well, difficult to navigate as an uninformed bideshi (foreigner) we met up with Andrew’s Bangladeshi friend named Dali; she is an incredible woman about whom I know I will have many more stories to tell. We all hailed rickshaws and headed up to church. But this was no local Bangladeshi church and it wasn’t to be held in a local facility.

This church was held at the Westin Hotel in downtown Dhaka. The Westin is literally the nicest hotel in the entire country, and it is a country all to its own. I have heard tale that an occupant (the rooms run around $300 a night which is well over most Bangladeshi’s salary/pay for a few months) may procure anything he or she delights within the confines of the hotel. It is essentially designed for business travelers to do their business meetings without ever needing to step outside and really be in Dhaka at all. Needless to say it is like stepping into another world; as I walked through the Westin doors, I felt like I had been transported to America, but not in a good way- in a “shit this is opulent and totally disconnected from the world outside” kind of way.

Yet, despite the location’s disconnectedness from the real Dhaka, the service was really beautiful. It was filled with foreigners, many of them missionaries, who seemed to care deeply about Bangladesh and the social and political problems it faces. There were many prayers prayed for Bangladesh and its people, not for their “salvation”, but for their survival: bellies to be filled, jobs to be well-paid and water to be clean. Last Friday we celebrated Pentecost and, for me, it was a very necessary and beautiful day to remember that God sends God’s spirit down to give us courage, to protect us and to show us the path for “Kingdom come”.

I needed to remember that this spirit is available because, I will be honest, I have rough days in Bangladesh and its hard to be courageous, to get out there and really experience this place and really open yourself up to the people you frantically encounter on the busy street or in the shop or in the elevator at school, or as you walk from the local grocery store. It feels safer to stay inside, eat canned soup, watch some YouTube and do your Bangla homework without stepping foot outside after class. And, trust me, some days the culture shock has made me do just that. My very good friend (and Friend-mate, as Claire might say), Annie, has more aptly noted that culture shock in Bangladesh is more like “poverty shock”-seeing the kind of poverty that wouldn’t exist if the “First World” (a world I benefit from and take part in every day) did not inequitably control so much of the world’s financial and environmental resources. It is the shock of realizing how global inequalities for which I am in responsible effect that majority of the world. It’s a documentary film on poverty that you can’t turn off…but that’s what everyone should see.

This kind of culture shock is especially available just outside of the Westin. Gulshan Dui is a busy place- imagine a much smaller version of Times Square, but with all the energy, stores, diversity of people, traffic, smells and sounds. And it’s a place quite iconic of Dhaka in general because you can have extreme wealth that is surrounded by extreme poverty. Because it is a locale for shopping and eating, it is also a very good place to ask for money to eat. So, Gulshan is often filled with moms with hungry kids on their hip, children and many others begging for money to eat. I don’t want to paint an ugly picture of Bangladesh, or insinuate that there isn’t similar poverty in America, but I will say that seeing extreme poverty is a reality of everyday here and there is a danger in ignoring and in normalizing it; its certainly what feels most comfortable, at least in comparison to recognizing its prevalence, my own privileges, and the manner in which my American lifestyle has contributed to such poverty. It can be a hard pill to swallow to consider all of the glasses of clean water I have thrown out in America because they sat out over night in my bedroom when clean drinking water is such a precious commodity here-the same for food. I still have days when I shut myself off- to everything, not just poverty. But, I am finding, with the Holy Sprit’s help, some teeny tiny ways of opening myself to really interacting with Bangladeshis and their world…there’s more to come on this note…my language partner, Monica, a very sassy Bangla gal will be the topic of my next post so stayed tuned (she’s amazing).

Pardon that longwinded side-note/tangent. We were at the Westin. Let’s return.

So from the Westin, Tara, Margot and I headed out with Dali. I had mentioned that I needed a Shalowar Kameez (the traditional dress for women in Bangladesh) because I was scrounging together appropriate clothing. Dali said she knew a good place and she took us there. Then, she began to exemplify two incredible attributes that I have found many Bangladeshis to be rich in: boundless hospitality, and incomparable bargaining skills. Dali went to six stores bargaining for me. I had just met her, but she insisted that she help. In the end she helped me get my first shalowar kameez (a green and orange one). We went to get groceries next and she, of course, insisted on carrying my heavy bag. Hospitality and bending over backwards to help another appears to be the norm here…well…unless you are selling something, but, hey, the dokans have to eat and this privileged American is not hurting for taka so I don’t blame them.

Then we all piled into rickshaws and headed to Dali’s house. She showed us more hospitality, offering us food the instant we walked inside. We also got to meet her sister and niece. Her husband was also kind enough to stay in the sitting room and chat, even though he was only in his underwear. He kindly covered himself with his newspaper so as not to leave the guests unattended but also to spare them the sight of his less than formal appearance. Dali was so gracious and generous, but its not too surprising. She actually runs a non-profit out of her home called the Rosie Foundation. She employs, and for about 5 women also houses, a handful of women. They make and sell handicrafts together so they can feed their families, but Dali also provides them with a small education. She showed us the very meager, but beautiful facilities and I was just filled to the brim with love (a definite Pentecost moment). I am hoping to return to the foundation when the women are there and try talking to them (although right now my vocab is limited to food, family, and work…but that covers a lot I suppose). Dali’s home offered us a picture of what most middle class/lower middle class households look like and I will just say that the middle class American home looks like an ostentatious monument to the materialism compared to her place and the areas that her workers lived. I don’t mean to overstate the difference between the common Bangladeshi lifestyle and American affluence- there are plenty of affluent Bangladeshis and PLENTY of Americans in need of clean water and a place to sleep. I guess I am just pointing to a more common experience I have found in Bangladesh in which I am reminded that I simply have too much and for people who have so comparatively little, they give with a beautiful lack of restraint. Dali’s house was like walking into a world in a completely different universe of experience than what was found at the Westin hotel.

But we had one more dimension to pass through. We all decided we should actually get some school work done so we met up with a few other friends from the program and walked to a coffeeshop we had heard about that apparently roasted their own coffee. We were mostly just going for the internet, but I had one of the greatest cups of coffee I have ever had. That’s not really why I mention this place, but Sean would appreciate the coffee I drank so I just had to mention that part. Now I will, with obvious irony, mention my shock and discomfort with how nice the place was. It was, like the Westin, like leaving Bangladesh and entering a bideshi’s anti-Bangladesh escape, so much so that the owner had installed fogged windows and decorated with many of the same IKEA furniture pieces I have in my home. You could sit in this place and literally not know you were in Dhaka. Accordingly, pretty much everyone in the place was a bideshi.- lots of European folks. I began to get this overwhelming feeling (again) of the inner struggle within myself- the feeling of desiring comfort and seeking its completion in the escape from dirt, grim and reality AND desiring a knowledge of a place as it was. I am still battling, but I certainly never imagined such starkly different landscapes, each of which appealed to the opposing desire, to be found in one city all in one day.

Thus, as I explained at the beginning of the post, Dhaka appears in many ways, and in my own struggles and experiences, to be one of (gasp!) dualities, but, of course, in such an incredibly diverse and shifting location, you’ll find lots of in between. I suppose I myself am toolin’ around in that in-between and trying to figure out just how to live in this new place in such a way that I see God in Dhaka and really experience and embrace God here, which can only really be done when you talk to Bangladeshis and attempt to form relationships. But I am getting a little bit,better each day at picking up this skill and at having the courage and faith to step into a new, admittedly uncomfortable and sometimes scary world, in order to see God moving in it and through the people I meet within.

The internet has been spotty (not complaining, just a fact) so I haven’t been posting as often as I would like. I do have some good stories saved up to share and plan to post next time about my daily life here so as to paint a better picture of the city and my life here. So keep tuned. Thank you all for your prayers, well-wishes and thoughts. I feel them moving in me and holding me together everyday. I will keep you all posted….

With all my love from the city of mosques,

ashlee