The Great Ant Terror of June 2012

Rainy season is now well underway. It wasn’t hard to distinguish it from “the hot season”, since one day all of a sudden it just started raining – hard – and didn’t stop for the entire day. Every few days, this happens again. I love it because the temperature becomes bearable (as I write this, though, is actually an exception. I’m sweating like mad, and I’m just sitting under a fan, typing). Bearable temperatures have also meant that playing football (obviously soccer, not American) is now a possibility. The first day was definitely the most memorable. When we started, the clouds were just starting to roll in, and there was a comfortable breeze. And then the first drops fell and they almost immediately became torrential, and suddenly you’re slipping and sliding in the mud and laughing so hard that it hurts. When the game and the rain finally ended, I took to jumping and splashing in puddles like a six-year-old. It was awesome.

One of the most notable occurrences in recent days was the visit of Payal, a University of London Master’s student in Sustainable Architecture. One of the most interesting things about Payal, though, was that she’s from India; she’s only been in London a few months for study. So, she offered a really neat outlook on the experiences I’ve been having. Since she’s from India, she’s accustomed to eating with her hands, she can deal with the heat, and she’s habituated with poor infrastructure, bad government schools, and the like. But on the other hand, she’s an empowered woman – highly ambitious and in complete rejection of the implicit and explicit sexism that underlies Bangladeshi society. Also, she grew up speaking English, and so also watches English movies, reads English books, and uses other English media. So, her outlook was a bit of a mix between my Western view and the local one. This made her a really good conversation partner and I think she really helped me to begin processing a lot of what I’m experiencing. I could openly share my frustrations, observations and other thoughts with her (and, since she’s the only perfectly-fluent English speaker I’ve met in Bangladesh, I could do so with zero difficulty), and she could respond with her own commentary on what she noted and expected, what she understood and didn’t understand. It was really good, and at this point in my trip really refreshing in a lot of ways.

Candid shot of Payal with some METI students (notably Porimol on the left - the Dipshikha chef's son)

Payal also did an amazing job in pushing some boundaries (in a really healthy way) in the short 5 days she was here. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but Roman’s wife (who you may remember from the post “The Long and Winding Road”) has come to Dipshikha on a more permanent basis. She has a little room in the back corner of the Dipshikha compound, where she spends most of her time. But Payal didn’t just accept this to be the way things are. She talked for hours with my “Bhabi” (this means brother’s wife, and it’s what Roman and his wifre have asked me to refer to as), built her trust quickly, and learned that Bhabi’s quite simply bored. Her life is basically cooking and cleaning, with chunks of time between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner when she literally has nothing to do. I don’t know how much Payal’s advice will affect Bhabi long-term, but she was urging Bhabi to ask for a teaching position in the school, to offer an optional drawing class for students (Bhabi’s one hobby is art), or to at least help Kalpana with the JK class (there are 41 5-7 year olds. Help is always needed).

While Payal was here, she naturally got invited to a ton of houses, and some I was invited to tag along as well. One in particular was Ram-mamma’s. I have no idea if that’s really what his name is, or if it’s like a title, or if I’m not even hearing people correctly when they say it, but that’s what it sounds like to me. Anyway, he’s one of the Dipshikha caretakers. He invited use to his home, just steps from Dipshikha. And then he fed us an ENORMOUS amount of food, from homemade potato chips, to mangoes. And somehow Payal managed to guilt me into eating most of it all, while she just ate while Ram-mamma was looking… It was generally a pleasant visit, but when we left I was stuffed and guess what? It was now dinner time. Neither of us were hungry, so we decided to save our dinner for a couple of hours and eat with Roman and Bhabi (who generally eat much later than dinner is served for the rest of us). But, just our luck, Bhabi had prepared some special dishes just for us. So basically, I ended up eating three dinners. Three Bangladesh-sized dinners. It was ridiculous. I actually don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much, including all my Thanksgiving turkey binges. I literally couldn’t shove anything more down my throat by the time I gave up on dinner 3. Sweetie and Don enjoyed a nice meal instead (if you don’t know who I’m talking about, it’s because you haven’t been reading my blog properly. Shame on you.).

In other news, my room – and particularly my bathroom – have reached new levels of terrifying over the past few weeks. One major scare was the appearance of a giant spider, deciding to take up permanent residence in my bathroom. She was probably a good 3 or so in diameter, and visibly furry. And worst of all, her eyes. They were big and glinted in the light and I felt she was watching me. She didn’t seem to fear me at all – if I made noises or threatening gestures she would (unlike cockroaches, who are chickens) actually approach me. Maybe she knew I was bluffing. Anyway, it was bad enough when she was just lurking on the wall. But then she migrated to the toilet-paper dispenser. Every time I entered the bathroom, I would have to locate her, and keep an eye on her in case she decided to dart towards me. Then one day, I came in, and couldn’t see her anywhere. I hoped she had died, but then had a sudden thought (thankfully). I checked my bath towel. Sure enough, there she is. Ugh, I’m literally shivering just remembering it. It was terrifying. I’m not a spider-fan at the best of times. One day she disappeared for good, and again I hope that she died somewhere out of sight (I’m confident that my ant friends would deal with her body), or that she decided to leave my room (and of course I mean ALL my rooms. Not just bathroom. I’m just trying not to imagine her having migrated to the main room, where she might run across my foot or find her way into the pocket of my backpack or something…

The other major insect-in-the-bathroom scare came from the otherwise generally benign ants. Yes, I’ve known there was a colony living in the door frame of the bathroom since I arrived. Sometimes they crawl up me while I’m brushing my teeth, but they were generally harmless and we coexisted peacefully. Then came The Great Ant Terror of June 2012. It started one ordinary morning when I went to take a shower. While I routinely emptied my bladder (beautiful imagery, I know), I noticed the ants to be a little feisty that day. They were crawling up my leg pretty quickly, in pretty large numbers. But this had happened before. No big deal.  I swept them off, stopped on a few around my feet (I like to think that the subsequent ant behaviour was a concerted reaction to this mini-massacre) and turned to brush my teeth.
But now there were more on my legs. Too many to brush off. It was like a horror film. I started killing them indiscriminately, stopping and swatting. But the more I killed, the more seemed to be crawling on me. And then in horror I look towards the crevice where they live and see a literal black wave swarming towards me (think orc legions in Lord of the Rings). I just had enough time to jump over the horde back into the main bedroom before the entire bathroom floor was covered in ants. Then the walls too. I swear, everything was covered. It was so terrifying. Above all else, I hoped they wouldn’t migrate into my bedroom. I tried to remain calm going to breakfast, but I let Ram-mamma know right away. He didn’t seem all too concerned and it wasn’t until several hours later (all the while, I’m imagining them all over my room. Though I did cautiously check in and they were still only infesting the bathroom) that he finally asked for my key to let him check it out. Of course, the bathroom was now barren. I tried to explain that it was really bad. But he just offered to clean the room. It was like a dream, but I saw it. I know I did. I’m never going to be so trusting of ants every again. In fact, I just may have developed a new fear…

You're so cool!

There’s an interesting animal I’ve seen around Diphshikha pretty regularly lately (see above). It’s some kind of lizard, though the exact type, I don’t know. I challenge you to find out and comment (yes, Mom and Julien, you can use Google). I think it’s pretty cool. But apparently its saliva is poisonous and it’ll spit it at you if you get too close (I haven’t seen this happen, even when the dogs chase it and get pretty darn close…). It also makes this growling sound when it’s angry and puffs its chest. Kinda neat.

Jackfruit! Remember that fruit that none of you could identify way-back-when? I’ve tasted it. Actually, quite a few times! And I really like it! As I mentioned before, I had heard that foreigners don’t tend to like it, and Melinda J. in particular had me worried that I would hate it. Instead, I think it’s quite good! Filling, but with a taste a bit like bananas. And a juicy, squishy, sticky texture.

Which reminds me. Because the jackfruits are in season now, sometimes when they reach the correct ripeness, they fall naturally from the tree. By coincidence, this happened on my roof a few days ago. Those things are huge now, so it made a terrifying 'boom' (especially on the metal roof) that scared me into questioning the structural integrity of my building. Luckily, when I rushed outside, the culprit lay smashed just outside the gate.

The other time falling fruit provides interest is when it's a mango. Particularly in the 'back corner' of Dipshikha where Bhabi lives. There are a few other rooms where Fahim's (grade 4 student - mentioned him before), two METI teachers' and another Dipshikha staff member's families live. When a mango drops from a tree and hits the metal roof, there's a mad dash out of every door. Every family seems to have a representative ready to dash outside. It's hilarious to watch, especially at night when everyone's stumbling around with a flashlight trying to find the mango!

Happy Canada Day! Of course, that was a few days back, but some of you might be wondering how I celebrated. Obviously, Canada Day isn’t widely observed here, so most of my celebrations were very personal. I made a playlist on my iPod of all the Canadian artists I have, and especially listened to Gordon Lightfoot a lot. I ate the 2 Swedish Berries I had been saving since the plane ride just for this occasion as a reminder of home. And I dreamed of Canada and family and friends!
I didn’t exactly tell everyone about Canada Day, but some reason I just felt excited about it in the morning and couldn’t help telling some people, like Rashid, since he’s experienced it in Canada before. He went on to tell a lot of the METI students, so that partway through the day, everyone was wishing me a Happy Canada Day. My grade 7 class even picked red flowers for me, which I stuck in my hat. It was a quiet day, yes, but a nice one.

That afternoon, I was also invited to visit the home of one of these grade 7 students, by the name of Jibon. We went by bike (me perched on the back of his, that is) and it was about 4 or 5 kilometres away. As I’ve learned already, a visit to one’s person house is very rarely only that. Normally, you also visit the homes of brothers, sisters, uncles or cousins as well, and this time was no exception. We stopped in at Jibon’s sister’s place, and then his uncle’s. At both places, we ate. Or, I ate to be precise. A lot. Mangoes mostly, but also eggs and bananas. Then we finally got to Jibon’s where I ate again, and was drilled with the usual questions from the family about my country and family, etc. It was generally a really good visit. Jibon’s a good kid, at me accepting his invitation seemed to make him very, very happy, so that’s good. I guess now’s as good a time as any to just talk about my students. Classes 9, 7 and 5 in particular are classes that I visit very regularly. The kids are all awesome and I know I’m really going to miss them! Then there are students from all the other classes, from the adorable JK kids to the giggly grade 4 class to the polite and mature grade 10 class. I’ll miss them all!



My ridiculous Canada Day hat (compliments of the grade 7 class), with Fahim (left) and Matthew

Jibon (far left) with his family.

I have less than 2 weeks left here in Rudrapur (and I’m at Day 65 out of 100)! On the 17^th I head back to Dhaka for final report submissions and tying all the loose ends with Dipshikha off before heading out. How is that even possible?! I don’t know, but it’s true. I don’t want to be counting down days, but I sorta can’t help it. Not in a “I can’t wait to get out of here” way, but in the “how can I possibly say goodbye after such a short time” kind of way.

Oh well, I’m going to squeeze the most out of it as I can!

-C


Just tryin' to steal some goat babies!