Eid al-Adha

WARNING:  The pictures for this entry are pretty graphic.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice) took place yesterday.  Last year, I flew to Thailand to avoid it.  This year, thirteen of us were supposed to go down to the Sundarbans for a boat trip (once again to avoid this event).  Unfortunately our tour company (Guide Tours – they suck; avoid them if you come to Bangladesh) refused to arrange our transportation, and despite many attempts, we were unable to arrange transportation on our own.  After being forced to cancel that trip at the last moment, I was stuck in Dhaka.

All week I have seen people walking their new goats or cows home.  By Sunday, you could not go out without seeing many animals being walked on the streets.  On Sunday, I went to one of the local cattle markets, where there were few cattle left, but still food and chopping blocks for sale.

I ventured out on the morning of Eid with some trepidation.  The night before, I noticed many goats and cattle lined up outside the houses and apartments in my neighborhood.  By 9:00 a.m., when I finally went out, most were already dead.  The roads near my apartment were covered in blood, and the carcasses lined the street.  Fortunately I only saw one animal being killed.  The goat squealed while its throat was being cut, and then its jaw kept silently moving as its lifeblood drained out on the road.  Surprisingly, none of the other still alive animals appeared to be aware of the carnage going on around them.  They kept eating silently, seemingly oblivious to their upcoming fate.  I had thought that animals would panic when they smelt blood, but this didn’t seem to be the case at all.

The initial skinning and butchering occurred right on the road.  Then the large hunks of meat would be taken into the carports or driveways, where they would be cut into smaller chunks.  The head of the house is supposed to kill the animal, although most seem to hire someone to do this.  Once the animal is butchered, they are supposed to keep one-third, give one-third to friends, and give one-third to the poor.  

By early afternoon, huge crowds of the poor were wandering the streets in search of meat.  They carried their own plastic bags, to be filled by those with the money to buy animals to sacrifice.  The owner of the house right outside my classroom window slaughtered six cows.  They placed a huge plastic tarp on the ground and covered it with hundreds of piles of chopped meat for the poor. 

So, in the end I survived my first Eid.  I liked the way it seemed to bring people together for a common purpose, and that a good portion of the meat goes to feeding the many poor here in Dhaka.  I also didn’t vomit in the street, although my stomach did churn quite a bit.  I haven’t eaten any meat for three days now, and probably won’t for some time more.  But eventually I will forget what I saw and go back to pretending that the neat little packages of chicken, beef and pork that I buy in the Commissary were not once alive and frolicking in the fields.

 

Ashulia Hash

I’ve discovered that Hash is the gateway drug to exercise.  Now that I’ve tried it, I can’t stop myself.  Nothing like a walk in the country for exercise, fun and good photo ops.

It rained all day Friday, so the turnout was light.  Our destination this time was Ashulia – much closer to Dhaka and much more developed.  This did give us a chance to walk through more villages and meet more people.  We started at a restaurant and ended in a field for the circle.  Soon there were local people running in from all sides.  Our little circle of hashers was soon surrounded by hundreds of curious locals.  They found our singing and antics quite entertaining and the cell phone cameras were clicking like crazy.  

 

 

 

 

Pumping water takes group effort.

 

This is so typical of Bangladesh – the men and boys all came in close to investigate, while the women kept a discreet distance.

Gazipur Hash

I participated in my first Hash (no, not the marijuana-based product) on Friday.  I had not joined in with this group last year because it sounded like a bunch of alcoholics who used running as an excuse for drinking.  Although I’m not opposed to drinking, I have never been a runner and didn’t see any reason why someone would run just to get a drink; unless, of course, it was last call.  It turns out, however, that the Dhaka Hash is a group of really fun people who walk/run in the countryside and then socialize afterwards.

This hash was held in Gazipur, an industrial area about 90 minutes outside of Dhaka.  We started at one of the garment factories.  The hares leave a trail of shredded paper to mark the trail – which in this case followed through forests, rice paddies and villages.  It was a glorious day to be outside, and I couldn’t believe there was such a beautiful area so close to town.  It was messy though.  After the first person slipped and fell into a rice paddy, I decided that it was much better to intentionally wade through the mud rather than risk swimming in it.  I didn’t think of potential leeches until much later.

 

Since this was my first time, I didn’t realize that the hares leave false trails to get you lost.  We had one local man and two boys following our group.  At one point they became very insistent that we ignore the trail and follow them.  Anywhere else, I would have thought they were leading us to an ambush to rob us.  Not in Bangladesh though; it turns out they were actually keeping us from accidently going through the army shooting range.  It was a holiday and there was no gunfire, but it was very nice of them to keep us away from any potential danger.

 

One of our "guides" in front of the firing range sign.

After the race is over, everyone forms a circle to welcome the newcomers and chastise anyone who cheated or took a shortcut.  This involves songs and guzzling of beer.  Much like a college drinking game, I think the object is to lose so that you have to drink free beer.  After that, the hosts provided a great lunch of Bangladeshi food.

Some of the villagers:

 

On the way back I noticed that they were resurfacing the highway.  They were melting shredded plastic bags and gravel in barrels to make the asphalt, and then applying it by hand.  Everything here is so labor intensive, but interesting.

Sylhet

I had my first visitors from the United States – Mary (who I consider to be my debate mentor) and her friend Carolyn.  We’d also had two teachers from a monastery school in Nepal visiting the school for the month of February.  I thought it would be fun for all of us to head north and visit the tea country.  My friend Barry is trying to start a tour company, so he arranged everything and provided a guide to take us from Dhaka.

We took the train north.  This was a last minute trip, so we couldn’t get a first class AC cabin.  Instead we were in a normal car.  Fortunately we had the guide, because he had to remove people from our seats.  The normal car was fine because it gave us a more realistic experience and allowed us to talk to the Bangladeshi people on the train.  Keeping the windows open gave us great picture-taking opportunities, although it also meant my face was covered in dirt and soot by the time we arrived in Sylhet.

 

The trip up took most of the day, so the first night we just had time to visit several shrines.  It was Friday, so they were closed to women and very crowded.  While Kalsang, Tenzing and I battled the crowds of worshipers, Mary and Carolyn stayed behind in the women’s area.  In Dhaka, the local people see few foreigners and will follow you around and ask you to take their pictures.  In Sylhet, they see even fewer foreigners.  Here, they would ask to take your picture (or your picture with them) and want to talk to you.  All of us kept attracting large crowds.  In the pictures below I’m being quizzed on my knowledge of Islam (FYI, Mohammed is not a prophet, he’s the prophet), and Kalsang and I are being photographed.

 

 

Day Two was Independence Day in Bangladesh, and actually the 40^th Anniversary of independence.  Now I feel old realizing I’m almost 25% older than the country I live in!  We kept running into small parades of children celebrating the holiday.  We were also accosted by highwaymen of sorts – at one intersection these guys in painted faces and fake beards blocked the road demanded a toll to let our car pass.  The driver was arguing with them, and it might have gotten ugly, but then I took out my camera to photograph them and they quickly agreed to a small gift ($2) and let us through.

 

We went through one large town that had a huge viewing area set up and hundreds of students assembled.  We stopped to take pictures and quickly attracted the police.  I thought we were going to be harassed for taking photographs; no, we were being invited by the mayor to join him in the viewing stand to watch the festivities.  We of course agreed.  It was a little awkward sitting in the front, with the people we displaced forced to sit or stand behind us.  The children re-enacted various scenes leading up to independence and it was quite entertaining.  We stayed long enough to be polite and then continued our journey.

 

 

We next visited a famous waterfall.  With it still being drought season, there was little water.  However, there were hundreds of people here.  It was strange to see the men, in only shorts, swimming with their wives/girlfriends, in veils.  I think we were photographed more than the waterfall itself.

We hit a sudden rain storm right after that.  The sky looked like tornadoes were coming, although I don’t know if they get them here.  The wind was bending trees over and it was very difficult for people walking or on rickshaws to get to cover.  I think I just had a preview of what monsoon season is going to be like.  We had lunch at CRP (a rehabilitation complex).  We were supposed to walk through the forest and visit a village after that.  Unfortunately the rain had flooded the paths and we decided not to risk it.  All of the tea plantations were closed for the holiday, so we just walked through some of the fields.

We had to leave on the second morning.  We had business class seats on a modern bus.  The seats at the front of the bus are actually just like first class seats on a plane – very wide and fully reclining.  My friend Barry had warned me not to put the ladies in the front row.  I quickly realized why.  The highways in Bangladesh are two lane roads with almost no swale and steep drop-offs on the side.  They are crowded with pedestrians, rickshaws and other slow moving vehicles.  The buses and large trucks drive like maniacs, continuously blowing their horns and passing when they shouldn’t.  At one point we pulled out right in front of a small truck.  It went careening off the road, and we raced on.  I am sure we caused an accident because some people started running and others grabbed rocks to throw at the bus.  I checked the newspapers for the next two days looking for any reports on the accident.  Although there were dozens of accidents, and more than 50 people killed, none of the accidents sounded like ours.  It was so disturbing to know we left the scene of an accident and that we might have killed someone.  I won’t ride in another bus in Bangladesh.

I end with a picture of people going to market.  Does anyone know what those large vegetables are?