school website, including calendar: http://www.ais-dhaka.net/
For today, I really just want to share a little bit of background:
Bangladesh, in recent history -
this land was part of India for centuries, until 1947 when India gained independence from its colonizer Britain. When independence happened, the Hindus and Muslims who had been living together began a migration and separation so that the region became separated into religious zones: Muslims went to the eastern and western extremes of the land, while Hindus moved to the center. The transition wasn't easy; this was the conflict that provoked Ghandi's assasination. In the end, India partitioned into two countries: India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim). Pakistan, then, was one country in two geographic parts - West Pakistan (what is Pakistan today) and East Pakistan.
The political center of Pakistan was in the western part, and the Pakistanis in the far away eastern part felt they were not being regarded properly by their government. The proof came in 1970 when a huge cyclone (like the one this year in neighboring Myanmar) hit East Pakistan. West Pakistan did nothing to help its suffering countrymen, rather continued to undermine its local government. So East Pakistan waged a bloody war for independence, and India sided with it. In 1972 independence was won and East Pakistan renamed itself "Bangladesh" which is "the land of Bangla", Bangla being the regional dialect. Some of you old folks might remember George Harrison and his August 1971 concert for Bangladesh, raising awareness about the cyclone and the independence movement...
Bangladesh is a 36 year old country with lots of natural foreces to face: it has the greatest population density of any country in the world. It is also a flat pancake; essentially Bangladesh is the river delta of Asia's mighty Ganges and Bramaputra rivers. Annual flooding destroys development but ensures a level of fertility in the soil - a catch 22.
BOOK
Author Amitav Ghosh wrote the contemporary Bengali novel The Shadow Lines about life growing up in the Desh. Dave sent me a copy of this book right after I got the teaching job, and I definitely recommend it for an interesting take on Bengali culture and history in story form.
ARTICLE
Ghosh wrote an editorial in the NYTimes this spring, relating to the Bay of Bengal countries and their shared burden of protecting people from cyclones and severe weather. You can check it out here:
Death Comes Ashore
By AMITAV GHOSH
A nation need not be wealthy or technologically advanced to be well prepared for natural disasters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10ghosh.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
BOOK
another reader-friendly highly acclaimed novel about Bangladesh is
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam.
