Big hearts and open arms

 

 Hospitality in Bangladesh is overwhelming. I have experienced the same extreme cordiality regardless of the host's financial or social status.

As a guest one is treated like a king, no matter how poor or rich the host is. Surprising and very touching.

Not only are the guests served massive amounts of food but also gifts.  It's hard to know how to express enough gratitude when one leaves with both stomach and hands full. And has only newcomer embarrassment to offer in exchange. Lesson to learn here.

We were in a heavy hospitality rain during a few days trip to Chittagong Hill Tracts last week. The Hill Tracts is an area in the southeastern corner of Bangladesh, bordering India and Myanmar. 

Banana trees grow in the slopes, the nature is green, the air fresh. Cows and goats wander in the middle of the roads.  There are vast forest areas, blue waterways and nice hiking routes.

The region is beautiful but poor and troubled. Years of conflicts between the Bengali and the indigenous population have harmed the economic and social development. 

We (again I was allowed to join my husband on a field trip) visited the town of Rangamati and a little island in the Kaptai Lake, a man made lake created as a part of a hydroelectric project. 

The inhabitants of the island have very little but thanks to a development program the housing, income and education situation is better. 

A teacher who earns 2000 taka (25 euro) a month was teaching the kids about the different countries in the world. Many places seemed to be rather remote from this island. 

The parents have also learnt how to present their issues to the authorities. Most of them had never been into a public office before. 

And they had a lot of issues, can just think how desperate the local officials are now. 

Otherwise the government is still blocking the social media. The blockade is not totally effective thanks to VPN services.

Hope that everybody takes the Prime Minister's photo as their temporary profile picture when Facebook is back.  

Joy at the intellectual candy store

It's always interesting and rewarding to be in the company of more intelligent people than one self. And in my case the outsmarting is a no-challenge.

Dhaka Literature Festival this weekend was a three days event offering an intellectual candy store for book lovers, academics, thinkers and the rest of us. 

The event arranged by Dhaka Tribune at the premises of University of Dhaka was a wonderful, positive surprise in the middle of the rather insecure and grey situation here otherwise. 

The festival offered dozens of interesting debates with well known writers and scholars. Lots of people - well of course, this is a city with 20 million people - a beautiful setting and a schedule that was on time. A new and encouraging experience.

Sometimes you hope that things would never stop. I had this feeling while listening to Professor Rehman Sobhan. No mistake here, I had no idea who this guy was. But what a star!

His eloquence, knowledge and humour took the audience through the recent history of Bangladesh, or the march to independence through his personal memoirs.

Enough candy now and back to reality: we are still blocked from the social media. Kids, keep on sending e-mails.

I have a feeling that things can now turn to normal or even better or then to even more devastating chaos.

The war criminals are still waiting to be hanged and the opposition leader returns to Dhaka from a few months stay in London tonight. 

The pictures are even more awful than normally, blame Iphone.

Edit: This rather - hm - explicit newspaper illustration states the situation now.

Black out in Bangladesh

Life in Bangladesh is not boring. 

Often surprising. Most of the time rather arduous.

Sometimes a little frightening. 

This Wednesday the Bangladeshi government shut down the internet for an hour and a half, first time ever.  

Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Viber and Whatsapp services have been blocked since then. And at the writing moment they still are. 

Sorry kids, no messages from Mommy. Maybe you are just happy for this.

All these measures were taken for security reasons after the Bangladesh Supreme Court upheld the sentences of two men convicted of war crimes during the Independence War against Pakistan in 1971.

The two men convicted are to be executed. By hanging.

They were convicted of genocide and rape. 

For a newcomer all of this is both brutal and incomprehensible. 

Part of the opposition called for a general strike (hartal) on Thursday. 

The effect was rather lame but enough to make the life of the average Bangladeshi even more difficult. 

The no-show continued on Thursday night at a more more private scene. No tap water. 

The water came back, eventually also the social media network. Finally maybe also the more normal life.

Tranquility in a tea garden

 

The terror attacks in Paris are deeply shocking and sad.

In the middle of grief solacing pictures from the tranquility of a tea garden in the northeastern part of Bangladesh.

A long, solitary walk in a tea garden should be mandatory to everybody. An unending, hilly forest of tea bushes is bound to make one a more thankful and better person. 

Once again, I was lucky enough to follow my husband to a meeting, this time to a little village called Lalakhan, close to the Indian border. 

The area looks like a paradise with beautiful trees, colorful flowers, a turquoise river, fresh air, shy children and sweet baby animals.

The night in Lalakhan was so silent that you could almost hear the stars twinkling. Accompanied by a large chorus of frogs, a wonderful combination.

Like in many other places in Bangladesh, here too people work extremely hard for very little money. 

But this is a beautiful place to struggle. 

People make a living on collecting low quality coal from the bottom of the river. And since labor force in Bangladesh costs next to nothing, everything is done manually. 

Men stand in the water, dive, catch and collect coal. The coal is sold to brick factories which use it as fuel.

Some fill sand bags sold to the construction business, others collect pieces of firing wood from the bottom of the river.

Sylhet is also the "Tea Bordeaux" of Bangladesh. Blame the British. They started tea gardens here and made the whole world addicted.

Lalakhal Tea Estate is now owned by a Bangladeshi company but it's still a showcase of the colonial time and style.

The tea company offers a small income, primary education, health care and no big future plans for the 5000 people living inside the tea farm. Many of them work, live and die there.

Most of them are hindus. Women work in the fields, they pick tea leaves and earn round 80 takas (less than a euro) a day.

Men work in the factory where the leaves are dried and cut. 

In the living quarters the tea workers have small houses, they get water from the wells for an hour twice  a day, they wash their clothes in the river. Many have cows and sheep, everybody has a mobile phone.

On the edge

 Life in Dhaka has been dramatic during the last few weeks. 

There have been attacks against foreigners, shia muslims, secular writers, publishers, police officers. Among others.

New security measures are announced almost daily, police check-points grow up like mushrooms.

People are afraid of an invisible enemy. Nobody knows for sure if the attacks are co-ordinated and who are behind them.

Bangladesh is on the edge: either to continue with the thriving, dynamic development or to sink into a circle of violence and despair. 

I hope naturally for the first alternative. All bets for the Bangla resilience, people who work hard in order to give their children an education and a better future.

These are big issues. 

To balance, a small issue.

As a newcomer, I'm not quite used to the domestic fauna here. 

I am startled every time a see a lizard in our apartment. And they seem to outnumber me and my husband. They are also faster, more flexible and shrewder than the two of us together. 

They are useful since they vacuum clean mosquitoes and other insects but they lack hygienic training. 

But one gets used to everything - collecting lizard droppings has become a daily routine like brushing teeth.

Finally, a clarification. 

I write this blog as a private person though I am married to a diplomat who represents another nationality than I do. I have no agenda more than to share my newcomer thoughts and observations with eventual readers.

Raw intolerance paired with brutal violence

Halloween is supefluous in Dhaka since the city is a kind of permanent house of horror. Instead of plastic swords and artificial blood the monsters here are equipped with sharp machetes and guns. 

Saturday was another sad day when non-religious publishers and writers were attacked in a most barbaric way.

A publisher of a slain blogger was hacked to death. 

Meanwhile there was a co-ordinated attack on two writers and a publisher. One of them is now in a critical condition, two others wounded.

Bangladesh prides itself as a moderate Muslim nation.

But for a non-Muslim, moderate sounds slightly exaggerated. This is a country where women are supposed to cover legs and shoulders, arranged marriages are common, alcohol is not allowed, pork is not on the menu.

Ansar al-Islam, al-Qaeda's Bangladeshi affiliate, claims to have carried out Saturday's attacks. They also warned that any writers criticizing Islam would be next in line.

Compared to the present state of the nation, these al-Quada boys would like to see a very little moderate Bangladesh. 

For a newcomer, all this is both sad and frightening. Violence and terror just seem to escalate. 

Freedom of speech is in real danger, too. From two fronts: the goverment which doesn't tolerate critic and the Islamic extremists who have their dark agenda.