Three Fridays in Dhaka

So today is my third Friday in Dhaka. I am finally feeling relatively settled in this crazy and chaotic city that is Dhaka. We moved in to our pad in Dhanmondi on Monday and today picked up some furniture for our living room from Sarah and Greg, two lovely volunteers who live a few streets away and who are leaving Dhaka in about a month. This completes the main furnishing of our house.

To say that finding a place was an ordeal really doesn’t get close to the stress and frustration involved in finding a place in a city so conservative that the very idea of renting out a flat to three “bachelor” bideshi is abhorrent to most landlords. Luckily, Casey, and Matt and I found this stress and frustration more of a bonding exercise rather than one that has left us not speaking to each other!

We literally trawled every street in Dhanmondi marking them off on the map each time for two whole weeks looking for the elusive “To Let” signs. The few places that weren’t cockroach infested, terminally dark or smelly from damp repeatedly had landlords who either outright refused to accept us or who tried to extract outrageous terms like a years rent in advance. But all that is now behind us as we have moved into a place a little ambitiously titled Villa Rose in Road #6A in Dhanmondi.

Now flats in Dhaka are generally supplied to tenants a little on the light side. Things like hot water, stoves, curtains, fans, A/C and even light bulbs are not included. So once we had the place sorted we had to get all the essentials such as a fridge, beds and a stove. There is no piping for hot water in our place so even if we wanted to splash out on a hot water system it wouldn’t work. So a year of cold showers it is!

We all elected to go for local mattresses rather than the typical western spring mattresses. The local ones are less than a tenth of the price of a western one but generally don’t last much longer than three or so months. So even if I go through three of these bad boys in a year it will still be cheaper. You have got to love Bangladeshi ingenuity –absolutely everything is reused and recycled. The local mattress has two parts (a bit like (but really not very like at all) those fancy western mattresses which now come in two parts). The harder part at the bottom is stuffed with coconut husks and the softer top part is the flower and leaves of a local tree used for timber (I think). To say that these local mattresses are a little on the firm side is probably putting in nicely. To say that they are really comfortable probably wouldn’t fool anyone.

Now these mattresses were ordered on a Sunday arvo and were made from scratch and delivered in time for our first night in the house on Monday night! For a country that it is so chaotic and the traffic so crippling, the speed in which some things happen is truly amazing.
You want a mattress made and delivered the next day - yes you can.

You want a stove connected or fans or an AC installed in a few hours time - yes you can.

You want to move some day beds, a coffee table and a book shelf right away (and for less than $5) a man will happily take it (and you) on his pedal van (a bike with a flat bed behind it) - yes you can.

You ring to enquire about internet options – you get through straight away (funny no call centres here – they are too busy taking calls from Australia) and work through the various options. You settle on the option you like – can someone come round in an hour and set it up – yes you can.

You want to walk down the street and not be asked by gorgeous street kids and the cripplingly disabled for money – no you can’t.

You want to walk outside in the sort of peace and quiet that you could hear a pin drop – no you can’t.

Jokes aside the Bangladeshis have been absolutely fascinated with US politics and the general consensus is one of absolute joy that Obama has won. As someone who is probably considered a little on the cynical side I must admit that even I was moved by the soaring rhetoric of both McCain and Obama’s concession and acceptance speeches respectively.

Now the other aspect of Bangladeshi culture we have embraced is colour. Our house has been painted in an interesting array of colours including lime green, baby blue, pink and ochre (often all in the same room!). So we decided to embrace this colour explosion and add to it! We have added bright orange and purple curtains to the living room. I have gone with bright pink curtains coupled with a peach mozzie net and yellow and purple sheets.

Our plates and bowls are a hodge podge of random and non-matching colours and our cutlery has bright blue handles. How I will cope returning to Melbourne where any colour is ok as long as it is black I really don’t know!

Now to add to all this we have been checking out the local neighbourhood that is Dhanmondi. The local lake is the centre attraction (it is even so “clean” that local catch fish from it!) and the surrounding greenery adds to the whole suburb.

Last night the excitement began when we found a bakery that sold brown bread (and even with no sugar!). We then found two galleries within walking distance and checked them out. We popped into a local Bengali restaurant adjacent to one of galleries and within 15 minutes found ourselves accompanied by about 8 other Australian volunteers! It certainly feels like home when you randomly bump into people you know!