In all my travels, I have cheated my way, inching across the globe in short flights or overland bus rides; this adventure has afforded my my first jetlag experience, after a 16 hour flight with a 4 hour leg on each end and long layovers between, accounting for almost 2 full days of travel. After chasing light for days, the sun finally rose over a blanket of clouds at 30,000 feet, Himalayan peaks giving their morning salutations in the distance as we flew into Dhaka.
Day 1 in the most densely-populated city in the world: not all that bad. We’re in the diplomatic/university neighborhood so its not as crowded and the poverty hides itself. Although, we did wander away from our hotel yesterday and found ourselves lost in the market amidst Sari’s and tunics, tuk-tuks and textiles… and lots of staring eyes. The women here are strikingly beautiful, so I mostly stare back. We happened upon a group of young men playing Cricket in a field of trash heaps and goats. Arie and Eric made friends quite quickly after impressing the Bengali boys with their batting skills (although the bowling attempts weren’t quite so good), as us women sat alongside cheering, the Bengali boys agape beside us. Our sunny, sporty afternoon with the locals was cut short by some overly cautious US EMbassy security guards worried we were taking pictures of the embassy building and demanding to see our cameras…
Our afternoon was a surprise visit with Chairperson Abed, the founder and director of the largest NGO in the world – BRAC. An indigenously-led aid organization which started as an emergency relief organization in 1970 after the cyclones, flourishing into today’s largest bank in the country, its own primary education center, a poultry-rearing business, and so much more. The name BRAC adorns buildings and billboards all over the city; Abed adorns the room with his humble spirit and fervent belief that poor people have the innovation and the will to make their own good choices – resources just need to be made available.
An Indian dinner I couldn’t even appreciate amidst the onsetting jetlag and a cool ride home on the back of a bicylce rickshaw (threatening my life with every peddle in the middle of traffic even crazier than Cairo) led me to a dramatic collapse on my bed, here at the Asian Pacific Hotel at 7:30. I awoke to the Muezzin’s call to prayer at 5 AM and find myself here, with a meager cup of Bengali coffee in a city waiting to be explored.
Smiles and saris, tunics and tuk-tuks, I am at home again in my wanderlust.
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