The Long and Winding Road(s)

Whew! It’s been a crazy, action-packed and very exciting past few days for me! I’m in Rudrapur and there’s so much to tell! If I promised last post to be a short one, I promise this one will be a long one. Or else it won’t capture everything I’ve done and seen. Or probably both.

This post is named after the Beatles song because as I was thinking up a title for it, I was sitting on a rickshaw cart, my feet swinging off the back, and had a long and winding road as my view. There have been two significant long and winding roads for me these past couple days, so I thought it kind of worked…

Have you ever passed a vehicle on the highway while it was passing another vehicle? As of Tuesday, I have. In a bus. On a highway that’s only one lane in each direction.

The bus ride from Dhaka to Dinajpur was perhaps the most terrifying 8-hour event of my life. The driver was an excellent swerver, and always seemed to want to play ‘Chicken’ with other oncoming buses and trucks. After a few hours, I thought I was getting used to it, but some close calls jolted me back to the edge of my seat.

We stopped for lunch at some designated rest-stop restaurant, where I proceeded to make a fool of myself. There was a counter with a few food items, which I thought provided pretty limited choices, but for some STUPID reason, thought was the only option. Instead of looking behind me and seeing other people ordering from menus and eating real meals (In my defense, I was unnerved by the stares when I walked in and just wanted to keep them at my back. Some days are much worse than others for letting the stares get to you.). Anyway, after ordering this hamburger-like thing, the guy who was sitting beside me on the bus, and who promised Ansel (the Dipshikha staff member who brought me to the bus station in the morning) to make sure I was ok during the trip, came up and lead me to a table. THEN, my foolishness continued as I ate the hamburger-thing while he watched me with a “what are you doing”-kind of face. Then a waiter brought him rice and curries and he said, pointing to my burger-thing, “This is snacks. You want real food?” and it finally clicked. I ordered the chicken curry.

Another interesting moment (which I found kind of unnerving) was when I paid, I pulled out my money, and handed the waiter a bill. He brought my change, blah, blah, blah. But back on the bus, my neighbour warned me NOT to take out my money like that in a restaurant. He said they are watching your money and will pick your pocket on the way out. Of course I know this about beggars and salesmen on the streets, but it had never occurred to me for inside an establishment like a restaurant. I have never even considered the possibility of a waiter trying that in Canada. Am I naïve?

The city/town (I don’t know the size) of Dinajpur was not much of a looker. It was kind of like the dingier parts of Dhaka, with, as per usual, a ton of people milling about. But I didn’t stay long. The Dipshikha area manager for Rudrapur, Sepal (Pronounced Shep-All) was there to meet me, and he called a sort of mini-truck type thing to bring me and my baggage to Rudrapur/Dipshikha (Side note: Normally, I would have just ridden with my luggage on Sepal motorcycle with him, but I guess I have too much stuff. I know I generally over-pack, but I feel as though there’s not much in my bag I could do without. Except maybe books. I have a lot of those, on Melinda’s advice. Thanks Melinda :p )

The ride from Dinajpur to Rudrapur/Dipshikha was glorious, and was the first “long and winding road” experience. The road was narrow and bumpy, with steep, sharp edges down to the fields. Since the truck was so small, and I’m big compared to most Bangladeshis, I banged my head on the hard metal ceiling on the big bumps, and once almost had my luggage slide out. But it was fantastic. I was now, simply, rural. Rice paddies and corn and jute fields stretching in every direction, as far as the eye can see. Every now and then, a cluster of trees would mark a few mud or straw huts. People working in the fields. A woman passing, pulling 4 or 5 cows with her. There was a delightful breeze as it was getting on evening, and I was just so happy to be there. The sun set as we drove and it got dark quickly, but then there were loads of fireflies. I don’t just mean like one or two you see in your backyard at home. I mean more than you could count. It was so beautiful.

You hear of people falling in love with countries like Bangladesh. I think this type of experience might be why.

Arriving at Dipshikha, it was pretty near pitch black, but Sepal, the Dipshikha caretaker (a delightful man. I forget his name, but he always says hello to me and asks if I have any problems), and the night guard (his name started with a Ch- sound, but I don’t interact with him much now) lead me to my room, in the Dipshikha guest house. It’s similar to my room in Dhaka, with similar amenities, but the bathroom’s bigger. No air conditioning though (Yes, I had air-conditioning in Dhaka. But I didn’t always get to use it because of the electricity. Sometimes even when the electricity was working, turning on the AC caused us to lose all electricity. Switching it back off made the lights come back on.).  Just a ceiling fan.

My room. Sorry for the mess. The green material hanging on my bed (on the left) is a mosquito net, just in case you're curious. I also have a little table on the left outsdie the frame. Door is behind me.

My bathroom. It has toilet paper!!!!!!

Probably one of the coolest things about the compound (from now on, this term will refer to all of the Dipshikha programs and facilities in Rudrapur including METI, DESI, and some other programs. If you’re saying “I don’t understand those acronyms”, worry not; I’ll get to that soon. The ‘compound’ is divided from the village by walls and fences, so it seems to fit) is that a lot of stuff runs on solar power! There are lights along the path from the main buildings to the guest house that run exclusively on solar, so even though the power was out when we arrived, there was no problem finding the way. My room also has a solar light in both the main room and the bathroom, and this is pretty standard for all the Dipshikha buildings. Unfortunately, the fans don’t run on solar, so it’s pretty hot when the power’s cut, but at least with light it isn’t completely debilitating like it was in Dhaka. You can still read, eat, cook, whatever, independent of the electricity.

My room is also a veritable zoo, with the main attractions being insects and the like. I think the number of species I have in my room probably surpasses the number that Aristotle catalogued in his life time. Every day I see plenty of new varieties, just steps (or even centimetres) from where I sleep! Cockroaches are the number one inhabitants, far outnumbering the ones in Dhaka. I have finally mustered the nerve to kill them, but disposal is always tricky. Luckily, I can call upon my ant friends to help out. They are EVERYWHERE, and in especially large clusters around dead insects. I have a new system where I flick dead cockroaches to the crack of my door, and just let the ants come and pull it away. It’s kind of disgusting and kind of fascinating. I have also hosted geckos, centipedes, and once a gigantic-mondo spider. Luckily (or unluckily?), at the time I was suffering from heat-related illness, and he was on the other side of the room, and there were other people over there and I hope they dealt with it (the heat illness is another story I’m probably not going to get into. It was only for a short while. Too much sun, not enough water/salts. That’s Bangladesh life, sometimes).  But, on the other hand, there’s nothing quite like the experience on falling asleep to the sight of a firefly. Anyway, I have an extra bed if any budding entomologists want to come by to kick-start his/her career!

Now, back to the chronological narrative:
The evening of my arrival, the night guard and caretaker brought me to dinner in a room with 22 young men all eating their rice and curries. These are the students of DESI – Dipshikha Electrical Skill Improvement. DESI is a two-year electrical skills training program, for 20 students who have completed grades 11 or 12, but who are not in a financial situation to attend university and/or finish grade 12, but who show intelligence and promise nonetheless (note that technically grade 10 is the last year of high school, so all of these students ‘have their high school diploma’ so to speak. Grades 11 and 12 are taken in ‘college’, and are required to subsequently attend university). The average age, is 22 years old, and there are several who, like me, are 19. Right off the bat, they and their teachers, Roman and Uttam, were very friendly, and have continued to be great company in my time off and a lot of fun to be around.

Wednesday, Sepal – who is a really nice and approachable man – started the day by giving me a tour of the compound, showing me particularly the administrative offices, the DESI building and the METI building. METI stands for Modern Education and Training Institute, and is the main Dipshikha project I’ll be working with during my time here. Basically, it’s the equivalent of a JK to grade 10 school in Ontario (so and elementary and high school in Bangladesh). METI is made up of several buildings, but the main building, which they call simply the METI building, is quite interesting. I don’t have my own pics yet, but I think googling ‘METI Dipshikha’ or something similar may yield some results. Which also reminds me: very recently, Dipshikha went online! Check out www.dipshikha.org if you’re interested.

The rest of the day, Sepal told me to just observe the programs and activities, and since the METI coordinator was out of town Wednesday and Thursday, that’s how I spent Thursday as well. It was a little exasperating that I still haven’t gotten into the meat of my work, even though we’re how far in? but on the other hand the observation was a nice orientation. I spent some of my time in DESI, observing both the practical and technical lessons, and some of my time poking my head into classrooms to introduce myself to some students and teachers, and to look at the facilities in more detail. I didn’t have the nerve to interrupt all the classes, though, and some of classes were in phys ed or doing other out-of-classroom activities, so I certainly haven’t met everyone. Particularly, though, I met with the Grade 6 class, whose teacher is the main English teacher at METI (and therefore rotates often between classes), and the Grade 7 class, where when I first arrived they were on break, and the teacher wasn’t there. It was actually a lot of fun because there were only a handful of them, and we tried asking each other questions in the other’s language, to moderate success. They’re just at that age where they giggle behind their hands at my accent, and elect an unofficial representative to do most of the talking. I also spent some time with either Roman or Uttam when they weren’t teaching (they switch off, usually, except for some practical classes), so they could show me more or teach me about how some things work, or in one case solder an electric fan to the solar outlet connection, so that now I have a little fan that will work even without electricity (this was the moment I suddenly realized all of the wonderful things that could come from living next door to an electrical skills training facility)!!!

Both Wednesday and Thursday after school hours, I joined the DESI guys at their ‘hostel’. The students are from many different regions of Bangladesh, so they live at the ‘hostel’ which is maybe a 7 minute walk from the compound. Some can manage to go home on weekends, while others must spend their entire time at the ‘hostel’. It’s a fairly basic facility, with just bedrooms, bathrooms and a sort of rec room, where we played a bit of ping pong (I lost every time). They played Bangladeshi and Hindi music for me, and showed me some of their talents (one is an awesome artist; another does this weird thing with his hand). Mostly, though, we asked questions about each other and our respective countries. A few of them are particularly welcoming, and make good hosts. Some others, unfortunately, while being very nice, don’t approach and talk to me much on their own. Apparently this is because their English is weak, and they don’t feel they can communicate. This makes me a little ashamed of my Bangla but also all the more determined to improve it.

Wednesday afternoon, a few of the guys brought me on a walk from Rudrapur to another neighbouring village just a few minutes away, where there is a little market. One of the boys, Bokul, grew up in this village and so he knew everyone (and thus introduced me to most of them) and could identify all the buildings. We bought some bananas and ate them outside Bokul’s old high school, about which he didn’t have very many good things to say. METI, he said, has much better teachers.

The field where we ate the bananas. This cow was enjoying eating up our peels. The cricket boys, who are to be found in any open field, are just out of sight on the right.

On the walk back (after the mandatory tea break), we were hailed by this wizened old man with a crazy white beard, a gnarled walking stick, and teeth in only one half of his mouth. But his smile was huge, and he was very agile and energetic. He waved about and grinned and spoke Bangla too quickly for me to follow, but my friends translated that he was inviting me into his nearby home. His home had a sort of straw fence around it, and inside were a few buildings. And it became immediately clear to me why he had invited me. Proudly, he stood before his little Hindu temple and invited me to take photos of it. It was small but truly beautiful, with bright colours and vivid images. I thanked him for showing me, and asked him his name. To the best of my ability, I think it was “Ponindro Nat Goshane”. I wrote it down right away, because I don’t ever want to forget it. Because I know I won’t forget that man. Apparently, thanks to his temple and his age, Ponindro Nat Goshane is the local go-to guy on all things Hinduism. In fact, Rudrapur and surroundings have a Hindu majority, very unlike the rest of the country (Muslim majority, by far). I find this very interesting and exciting, since I know so little about the Hindu faith.


Ponindro Nat Goshane and his little temple.

Friday – the weekend, as a reminder – I was invited to visit the Kantanagar Temple. Roman’s family – wife, daughter, and parents – was (is still, at the time of writing) visiting, and so they also wanted to see it. The six of us plus Uttam, then, made the journey from Rudrapur. Uttam, Roman’s parents, the baby and I rode on the back of a rickshaw cart (yes, a single man pulled us on a bike for an hour and a half. And then all the way back. I don’t envy him), while Roman and his wife took his motorcycle and did the trip in probably less than half the time. Anyway, the rickshaw ride was great because I was able to really enjoy my surroundings. The day wasn’t too hot, with a nice breeze, and so was very comfortable. Again we passed fields and patties, little huts and farmers working. It just has the rural feeling: goats running freely (a note on the goats: whatever subspecies the local goats are is very cute. They are quite small, growing no bigger than the average dog, and so their babies – of which there are many – are tiny, adorable little things. They’re pretty much everywhere. And they bleat with their cute little mouths and it almost sounds like children. My friend’s father once said something to effect of, “If there is a God, his greatest creation was the goat. He put all the best qualities in them.” Previously, I had had little experience with goats, but now I see exactly where he was coming from. I really, really like them.), cow patties used to seal the holes in mud huts, and toddlers playing naked in the dirt. We passed a man on a bike, transporting three live goats. He had them swaddled like babies and they just hung there, heads sticking out. There are cows, which are tied to a stake, which is then pounded into the ground. They spend the day grazing, but don’t need to be overly supervised. In the evening, the owner comes back to get them and brings them home. Also, Roman’s baby daughter is adorable, and made the ride lots of fun too.


Straw hut by the side of the road.

Kantanagar Temple took my breath away when I first saw it. It’s a unique orangey colour, with what appears to be every square inch of the outside covered in tiny little carvings. And it seems as though each carving is subtly unique. It’s a three-storey Hindu temple, built in 1752 by Pran Nath. You aren’t able to go inside, but the outside was so gorgeous that I didn’t feel I needed to. There were some floral motifs, but the most impressive and interesting was the figures. They depicted everything from wars to elephant rides, to marriage ceremonies, to mythical Hindu stories. I just found it fascinated, and wished I could climb up to examine every square inch (does it need to be said that I wasn’t allowed?).
We also met a DESI student whose home isn’t far from the Temple. I forget his name right at the moment (memorizing 20 names, none of which I’ve heard before, is a little difficult), but he seemed very excited to show off his local treasure. Here are some of the various pictures of those of us who were there (and note that Bangladeshis just don’t smile when their photo is taken. I don’t know why, but they don’t. This can also be seen with Ponindro Nat Goshane, above, whose smile I wish I had captured):

Kantanagar Temple. Roman and Uttam at bottom left.

From left to right: Roman's father, Roman's mother, Roman's wife, Roman's baby, Roman, me.

The intricate carvings (maybe a little blurry- sorry!)

The DESI student and I in front of the Temple. Yes, he's wearing my hat.

The ride back (after tea, again) was much like the ride there – relaxing and beautiful. The one difference was that about halfway back to Rudrapur, the sun set and we rode through the dark. And the perfect moment occurred as we came around a corner and on one side of the road was a small stream. And along both banks of the stream was the largest collection of fireflies I had ever seen. I thought on that first night I was seeing a lot. But this was just breathtaking. Just twinkling, hundreds or thousands, in the warm night air. I might even go so far as to call it magical. It’s too bad a camera can’t even begin to capture magic.

I’ve decided to end this post here. There’s plenty more to tell, because I’m so far behind, but if I catch up now, this will never get posted. And, this will allow me to devote my next post to me seriously starting work, which has now (finally!) properly begun. So enjoy these pictures, and look forward to some more work-related info in the next little while!

-C