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.