-Yesterday was 4th of July. All 17 of us, plus our teachers, went to a restaurant called Spaghetti Jazz for dinner. The prospect of tomato sauce and cheese, neither of which I've had since leaving American soil, sounded appetizing. Although I've since come to the firm conclusion that the most appealing food to eat - given climate and product sourcing- is that local to the country in which I'm eating. (This seems obvious, right? I've tested the theory a few times when my cravings for coffee or chocolate or something kick in, and it still holds.) Anyway, it was a really fun, long dinner and a nice break in the middle of the week. We were also allowed to go to school at 10 instead of 9 this morning, given the copious amount of alcohol imbibed at the fete. We students were invited to a military 4th of July party in our neighborhood, which I was not planning on attending. But one of the other students got the bus to drop us off at the party instead of going home, so I...went. That's right. It was all marines and military American ex-pats, with some other white people -Brits, for example- thrown in the mix. I kid you not, there was Juicy-Juice for a mixer (WHO is importing this? It's almost as bad as the Snapple and Cheese Doodles they had at the American embassy. I'm not kidding.) and red and blue jello-shots. blech. And music from the early 90s. I don't know what else to say about this right now. Actually, I could say a lot, but not in any semi-articulate, concise way, so I'll stop here and let you imagine my words.
-Tonight I watched Massud's "Clay Bird" and I just finished the book "A Golden Age" by Tahmima Anam. I recommend both, but especially the book. I've been learning a lot about the liberation war, which I was pretty (embarassingly) clueless about before arriving here. The language is such an integral part of the national identity, given that Pakistan tried to force Urdu as the national language (even though the majority of people in West Pakistan in the '60s/'70s didn't speak Urdu). Bangladesh literally means "the country where bangla is spoken." (desh= country. Amar desh America = I'm from America). Hundreds of thousands- close to 1 million- Bangladeshis died during the war. And it was so recent. I really want to explore Dhaka University, which was the seat of the resistance movement. We visited the Liberation War Musuem this past week, which was typical of other musuems I've visited in Vietnam and West Africa in it's crumbling, mildewing nature. Despite the exhibits' disorganization and decay, the images and newspaper articles were moving.
-We are learning to read in school. It's fun to be literate. Except that I know hardly any vocabulary so it's all just sounding out words and then asking what they mean. Still, it's fun to drive around the city and be able to read signs.
-Last weekend I went to a wedding with my roommate Annie and a friend of a friend through the World Bank. We went to one of the last events of the wedding- the bride's reception. (I think this was wedding day 5 or 6). We were as much an attraction as the bride, and we were seated near her throne so that people could visit her and see us. I felt pretty bad/mortified about this, but no one else seemed to mind, and she seemed quite happy to have us there. It's possible that it's even more uncomfortable that having white people at one's wedding is seen as an honor. There were probably 700 people at the wedding, and we mostly just sat around and talked and had people come stare at us. We also ate lunch, and it was pretty intense to have what felt like 700 people watching me eat greasy mutton chunks with my right hand. Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a film crew present, and we are definitely on the tape. I think the bride and groom are distant cousins, but I didn't want to press too much. In any case, their (distant?) family relation resulted in them knowing each other, and the bride didn't seem too unhappy about the marriage. We left before the groom was to come into the room and see the bride for the first time through her reflection in a mirror. Her dress was so incredibly beautiful; the orange-red of the cloth served as a brilliant background for ornate silver and gold beading, and she had more gold jewelry on than I've ever seen- the headpieces were especially beautiful. The henna designs on her hands and arms were amazing and she had strings of jasmine flowers hanging in her hair.
-Tomorrow we are going to a gender-friendly mosque and I'm very excited.
More soon (maybe!/hopefully!)
My roommate Annie took all of these pictures at the wedding:
The bride (in orange)
