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
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