i spy sarita

thank you for all your support homeplacedrive readers! this is the end... be sure to scroll down and see the second-to-last entry of the trip back to return photos.

i am safely home now, and readjusting. bangladesh is an experience i'm dealing with still. the year was challenging. i still feel unable to convey the experience in words or pictures. i'm glad i went, and i'm glad it's done. and i'm grateful for our healthy, lucky lives in our country.

now:

just a few photographs in which the photographer, surprisingly, showed up in the picture. can you find her?

2 days before homecoming: returning prints to the people i visited this year

please stay tuned!

hello! i'm sending this quick message from Zia airport, on my way home. i am simultaneously listening to my last Call to Prayer and trying not to feel to sad about leaving this place - what a weird place to say goodbye to.

i have 2 more special posts to make after i get home to Cville - i did something neat yesterday that i want to share: i went back to someplaces in town and gave out copies of the pictures i took. it was cool and i took some more pics of that event.

so this message just asks you to stay tuned for a little longer to homeplacedrive -

see you, wonderful family, dear friends, so SOON

ps - Dave and I survived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

meet the kindergarteners!

one month of teaching Kg - we did great!
for example - we eat fewer boogers now than we did 4 weeks ago!
we love to hear stories, and we know our subtraction facts like 8-4=6! no no no! 8-4=4.
we know how to make sand castles and bake bread, and last week we took a field trip to the igloo ice cream factory and no one threw up on our bus. sometimes we call our teacher "Ms. P!" and yesterday we gave her lots of hugs when we said goodbye -

Ammar - Sudan
Chang Hoon - South Korea
Anil - Nepal
Leeyan - Bangladesh
Freya, Aditya, and Ammar

Ms. P didn't think she'd like kindergarten, but she did.

here in dhaka we have spent the week saying goodbyes. the community of AIS/D that has been a family of friends within a strange tough Dhaka prepares to break apart... as all the members go off to their own far corner of the Earth for the summer holiday. many, students and teachers, are leaving for good and starting something new somewhere else - their next step, their next posting. and this week, in every division of the school, there has been an assembly in which students thank their friends who are leaving and also say thank you to their teachers in the form of individualized speeches. how special this gesture was. finally we closed up today with a last faculty meeting in which more stories were told and thank yous made. i don't think i've ever seen a group of adults so choked with emotions. this week we've been tearful again and again with the bittersweet of ending.

but now it's through. school's out for the summer. and it's time to escape before someone realizes that perhaps i or he or she is not all that rosey and significant after, at least not all the time. let's get out of here!

in our own little household we are preparing to say goodbye to someone who has taken good care of us. Anna our housekeeper. i really love Anna. as we go we are trying to take some deliberate steps to make sure that we take care of her too...

tuesday i took some photographs of Anna with her children, 3 year-old Zaxina and 4-month old Tansik.

today became an interesting day on the walk home. i waited til a huge downpour had ended to start the walk... the road in front of school was dry enough. however

you have to cross through 2 other streets to get to our house, and they must be at a slightly lower elevation. there was water everywhere. water above the car wheels. rickshaws stuck and turning over.

i found myself walking through it; i went for it because it wasn't so bad when i first started walking through. the middle of the road is higher and at first there was a sort of path. but it got deeper and deeper. the water was almost at my knee. i was wearing salwar kameez and chacos, floppy pants that i could pull way up and sandals.

there is a big open sewer on our street corner - 1 house away from our apartment. it is nasty and i walk by it every day to get to school. the water more than covered it, and its contents were everywhere in the street soup (i think. it was all brown and nasty.)

a dead frog bumped into my leg. it was all so gross, i had a true urge to vomit everywhere. i got home and took off shoes and pants at the door and ran to the shower.

that was a bangladesh experience. i suppose i needed to have it before i left. the water has receded now. we went to a Korean restaurant for dinner. a land of gross contradictions.

some other Dhaka views

with 7 days to go...

...i feel like there is still so much to try to communicate about Bangladesh...
still turmoil in my head and heart, and definitely in my stomach, when i engage with this place.

Hello my dear family and friends. I can't wait to hug you soon.

People have been sending around pictures this morning, so (while the kindergarteners are out at PE class) I think I'll share some. You guys know that the scenes in these pictures look nothing like real Dhaka... these are pictures from the American School cloud in the sky. Please stay tuned for more real world pictures soon.

Did you know that I played on a softball team all year long?
I've been warming up my skills so I can play with on a team with our friends back in Cville, and maybe just maybe keep up with my future husband :)

We played on Friday mornings from September to May. It was in an expat league - a Korean group, a Japanese group, one group from Chevron, one group from the American embassy, and a few others. We beat the Japanese team in a final the tournament a few weeks ago! We played all of our games on the school soccer turf - it is raised and drained to prevent flooding - not bad at all; I think it actually might be the best field in the whole country.

We also had a year-end faculty party last Friday. This is exciting because I put on my sari totally by myself (triumph! Mrs. Sinha would be proud!) and had a blast looking and feeling sort-of like a Bollywood actress all night long.

Bangladesh - a mysterious place where saris and burkas co-exist...

I guess I'm going to be more like a normal blogger today - no pictures, but instead I'm going to go on and on about my politics for a while...

President Obama's speech in Cairo today. I just think it was important. For me he spoke this complicated truth that we all believe in and that is always with us, but has floated elusively and been hidden by the ignorant rhetoric and fear-mongering of bad leaders.

The value of Mr. Obama's speech is not any particular implication for American foreign policy; the value is its full disclosure, which lets universal truths show through and therefore encourages more fair decision-making. For example, the disturbing situation of Israel and Palestine and the undeniable wrongs that persist on both sides.

While listening to this speech I was emotionally transported back to September 11th and the dialogue over how our country would respond. I worried and hoped a lot, like many of us did, for a response that would give credit to the full global reality -
The memory of those feelings and the disappointment is distressing even now. For me, what Obama gave today was the message that the whole world, the US especially, needed on September 12th. Today I felt finally that the US is representing the high road on Islam and the Middle East, which happens to be the road that actually faces reality and seeks peace.

I feel we've been waiting for a long time for some world-class leader to put this particular set of issues into clear and respectful words - admitting complexities but giving emphasis to universal understandings. Moreover, this is what people worldwide hoped Obama could do for us all; he's fulfilled some expectations today.

After one year in a Muslim country, Obama's words do it for me - they sum up what I see in this society - appreciation, despair, and fear. He did nothing but speak the truth, but my dear God it was beautiful.

I watched this speech live on Aljezeera this afternoon; that is our primary international news source - the whole Arab/Muslim world watch Aljazeera's broadcasting. In the follow-up coverage their reception of the speech was decidedly reverent. Not to mention Obama received interruptions of applause and a standing ovation. The choice to use inclusive rhetoric has very big implications.

May peace be upon us all. Mr. Obama, you are a gift.

some portraits, girls and boys

recent black and white photos - 20 days to go! inshallah

experiencing Bangladesh with the Sinhas

here we are!

getting ready
we got the wedding photographer to shine his light on us and take this one

family lines up to get a picture taken with the bride and groom
i think these are Mr. Sinha's many lovely sisters
the bride doesn't smile too much! but, contrary to this photograph, the groom was beaming all night long



I'm not sure I've written enough about the great big love of the Sinha family!

The Sinhas are family friends from when I was little; me and Andrew were best buds with their kids Tanya and Famid when we were in elementary and middle school. Our lives have tended to criss-cross... Mrs. Sinha even worked together with Tia Gisi for several years and they became good friends too. Since those days in Roanoke, Hasina and Jabil - Mr. and Mrs. Sinha - have moved back to a half-and-half lifestyle; they bought an apartment here and spend about half their time in Dhaka with their family.

This happen-chance thing, of having these friends in Dhaka with me, has been one of the very best parts of my time here. The Sinhas have been my family away from home, and have included me and welcomed me (and my housemates) on so many occasions. They are so generous, and we've grown really close. I have spent a lot of Saturday afternoons eating snacks and napping and watching cricket at the Sinha house - which is just about a mile away from my house in Dhaka. Isn't that wacky?

It's nice to have family here, which is how it feels when the Sinhas are in town. But they give me something else - the Sinhas are so full of life and so proud of their roots that they show me beautiful aspects of Bangladesh that I wouldn't have discovered alone... they have helped me be more intimate with culture and people. Mrs. Sinha shows me how one can interact with Bangladesh's seeming distress with grace and generosity - she shows me how it all works.

Also, Mrs. Sinha is a wicked good bargainer; she is the force behind the beautiful bridesmaid dresses and shawls that we'll have at our wedding in December, inshallah. They will all be made-in-Bangladesh by the tailor Mahsoud, from Bangladeshi silkworms - cool.

Last weekend we went to an engagement party for Mr. Sinha's niece. It was really, really fancy. The party took place at one of the country's finest hotels. We spent the whole afternoon getting ready to go - hanging out in a salon with all the aunts and cousins of the bride. Bangladeshi Steel Magnolias! I have never worn so much makeup in my life. The coal stayed on my eyes for 4 days after.

The green sari that I am wearing in these pictures was a gift from Mrs. Sinha to celebrate my engagement :) Isn't it amazing?

a brand new rickshaw

tune in for a bunch of photos:

for the next few weeks, until homecoming, i'd like to show you guys more of Dhaka - my home for this one year. hard to comprehend, this place that feels frantic, described by "survival", corruption, over-population, poverty, extreme heat.