Vegetarian blood in the sunset

6.50 pm. Or round there. Finally.

The daily fast is over and people can start eating.

Ramadan has so far been a very intense experience. Especially for a person who doesn't fast.

Many of my colleagues join me for lunch. They sit and watch me eating while they are enjoying (or suffering)  their 11 or so hours fast. Day by day their cheeks are hollower and hollower, their eyes softer and softer, 

First the setting was very embarrassing, but they insist that they get extra points by not eating while others are doing that. 

Maybe I can get  bonus by offering an opportunity to temptations?

I have learnt to love the time just after the sunset. The normally so overpopulated, crazy, busy, sickly overactive city is empty, dead, desolate. 

For fifteen minutes.

After binge eating starts the shopping. It is just insane. Think of Christmas shopping, multiple it with a billion and you are in the Dhaka Eid shopping spree.

Bangladeshi people are extremely generous, and holiday shopping is a serious sport. The prices are higher than normally, the quality of the products lower, service is an unknown factor. But people buy gifts to family, friends and relatives like crazy.

No shame to ask for gifts either. The staff in our building started to remind us of the time of generosity for a while ago. One is expected to give to money to everybody from the newspaper boy to the security guy. Or course we do it. In the bigger picture, gifting also keeps the economy rolling.

Now a couple of weeks vacation ahead. 

In August we have been in Bangladesh a year. I thought that it would be a natural time to stop writing about my experiences as a newcomer. Maybe it is not. In Bangladesh every day is an adventure, a place for an eternal fledling.

The pictures in this posting are - again - a random selection.

This is also the season for fruit. One of the most extreme things is Bangladesh's national fruit, Jack fruit. Already as a "baby" is looks - well - strange, as a ripe fruit it is almost gross. Jack fruit can weigh up to 35 kilos. Cutting a jack fruit looks like slaughtering a plant. With the smell of vegetarian blood.

Street cafees are hidden behind plastic walls during the day. Out of sight, out of mind.

 

The diplomatic quarters of Dhaka is home for many things - like cows.

Bikinis and binge eating

"Earthquake secure, full generator back-up, 24-7 security", the broker shone like the infernally hot sun in Dhaka. 

"The servant's room" he presented proudly a minimal room with a hole in one end of the space - the bathroom. Staff are supposed to to their business (whichever) standing.

Once in a while I have a vague feeling that I'm starting to have an idea of Bangladesh. But no, I bump to cultural differences every day which makes me more and more confused.

House hunting here focuses on slightly different criteria than I am used to. Not so many words of quality materials,  beautiful finish or practical layout. But the brokers are as eloquent as anywhere. One promised - without a blink of an eye - that his building would tolerate a 12 magnitude earthquake. The construction must be quite solid since the most severe earthquakes have been just under 10 magnitude.

While most  of Dhaka's inhabitants live cramped and saddenly many without basic amenities, the wealthy part of the city (ours) is full of expensive, oversize apartments.

Our present apartment is so big that the first days I really had to concentrate to find my way to the outdoor. 

Presently we also have - at least in theory - security. Our gatekeepers are experts in sleeping while standing. Our front desk man reads and chants loudly the Quran all day long and doesn't like to be disturbed. No blame on the poor guys. They are always at work and earn next to nothing. During ramadan they are also hungry all the time.

Ramadan dominates life now. Naturally, since more than 90 per cent of the population  are muslims.

People eat their main meal while I'm sleeping tightest round 3-4 am. After sunrise they eat or drink nothing, not a piece of snack,  not a drop of water. Smoking is not allowed, nor is sex. 

Just before sunset everybody rushes home like crazy for Iftar, the meal after sunset. The traffic in Dhaka is always chaotic but these days it's a honking, dusty, hot, impatient, irritable hell of non-moving vehicles. 

The long hours without food and water must be really hard for the body but I'm afraid the real danger is the daily binge eating in the late hours of the day. The typical Iftar food must make any ambitious nutritionist change careers. Think of all fat possible and pair it with sugary sweets and you have the perfect sunset menu.

This is also mango time. I had barely tasted a mango before moving to Bangladesh. Now I could live on banglamangoes. 

It's getting really, really hot here but the weather has no impact on the local dress code. Women are covered irrespective of temperatures. No light summer dresses, no spaghetti tops, no shorts. 

A couple of weeks ago I visited a water park in Chittagong. Fully dressed people enjoyd swimming, ocean wave pools and water slides. Fortunately, saris were forbidden.

And yes, in August we are moving to a new, smaller apartment.