Regarding “Banani”, bicycle rickshaws, and “bishtea borre”

Written on 9/9/06

My last entry ended in confusion, as we were a little bit unsure of where we were or what we were doing. I went to sleep shortly after typing it, and was suddenly awakened a short while later, finding a smiling, bespectacled man standing in my bed room. He introduced himself as Mr. Rahman, the head of the internship program here at BRAC (with whom I had already had frequent correspondence). He said that he had just wanted to stop by and see how we were settling in. Truthfully, I was extremely happy to meet the first person (so far on this trip) with whom I could communicate in complete sentences! He told me that this apartment would be home to Rachel and I for the next three months, so we should get comfortable. He answered some more logistical questions, and then told me that on Monday we would be headed out to the field for a few days to become familiar with BRAC's work from the ground up. I'm really looking forward to this “field trip”.

After being awake for a few hours, I went back to bed. With the help of some drugs (thanks, mom), I slept like a baby for fourteen hours. In the morning, Rachel and I decided that it would be a good idea to poke around the neighborhood and see if we couldn't get some shopping done (I needed to buy a SIM card for my phone, as well as some other odds and ends). After walking around the block a few times and turning down the many rickshaw drivers that seemed desperate for our business, we found a small market place featuring a vendor who seemed to deal in cell phone paraphernalia. (An interesting note about Bangladeshi retail: every shop, no matter how small, seems to have about twenty people hanging out in it. I am working on learning how to figure out which of them actually works there. Although, all of them seem to be able to answer questions, so maybe I don't even need to know?). Anyway, I asked the crowd at the cell phone stand about SIM cards, and they all shook their heads and said “Banani, Banani” and pointed down the street.

We guessed (and hoped) that “Banani” was a shop or something similar. We decided to take the risk, so we hailed a bicycle rickshaw, and told the driver that we wanted to go to “Banani”. Luckily we guessed right, and Banani did end up being a market. What would the poor driver have thought if it turned out that “Banani” meant “not on Friday” or “we are all out”? A note on bicycle rickshaws: they look spacious and balanced enough to accommodate more than one person. This appearance is slightly deceptive. We decided half way through the ride that the limit was probably one and a half Americans to a rickshaw, rather than two. We were quite squished. The poor driver was probably afraid we would break the source of his livelihood. I hope I paid him enough. Upon arrival at Banani we discovered that it was difficult to find a store open on Friday (the day of religious observance in much of the Muslim world) that carried SIM cards, so we went into a cyber cafe instead.

After an hour of checking email for the staggering rate of about sixty five cents American, we left to walk home, only to discover that a monsoon rain-storm had descended on our fair city. It was almost the time that had been set by our cook for lunch (and we were hungry), so we decided to brave the torrential down pour for the four blocks it took to get home. When Shatira (our cook) opened the door for the two soaked Americans, she exclaimed “bishtea, bishtea!” and ran for towels. This provided the opportunity for her to teach us our first complete phrase in Bangla. “Akashte bishtea borre”. We think it means “the rain falls from the sky”. Now we can talk about the weather in Bangla! Only when it's raining, though...

One step at a time.