Saris, and dolphins, and zaminders, oh my!

We're finally back home in Seattle, but thought we'd catch up on our last two days in Bangladesh.

Thursday was spent on a very pleasant river cruise-- the same one that Sharon blogged about when she visited Bangladesh back in February. Although the name of the boat means "Beautiful Woman" in Bengali, John dubbed it the Partridge Family Boat and subsequently, I had "Come on, Get Happy!" cycling through my brain for most of the day. Yet, it was a somewhat appropriate, if irritating soundtrack, as you couldn't help but be happy as we drifted slowly down the river, under a shady awning, sipping tea and watching a quieter, less polluted, and seemingly peaceful version of Dhaka from the water.

Our party was fairly small-- joining us were three other embassy worker family members-- Elaina, David, and Carma. Elaina's husband Charlie just arrived in Bangladesh to start work as a general counselor. He joined the foreign service after they had spent a number of years living in India and Pakistan doing ministerial work for a non-denominational church for expats. Since coming to Bangladesh, Elaina has been spending her time getting to know their new home and looking for work doing ultrasounds with nearby hospitals. Also joining us were David and Carma, parents of an administrative assistant at the embassy. Of all the weird coincidences, they are not only from Salt Lake City, but David's law office is only a block from where we lived in unincorporated Salt Lake County!

We chatted with our fellow site seers and made our way slowly down the river watching various water taxis, fishing boats, boats heavily weighed down with produce such as the pumpkins (pictured here) or with sand for making bricks or concrete, and life on the coastal villages pass along. Frequently, people in other boats or on the shore would wave enthusiastically at us, and occasionally we'd get the thumbs up sign. By they way, according to our guidebook and as vaguely confirmed by our river cruise guide, the thumbs up in B'desh is not a sign of "good work." As John put it to our guide-- in the US, we use a different finger. Our guide laughed and said yes but insisted that he felt that those who gave the thumbs up to us were just messing with us to see if we'd do it back.


Just before lunch we pulled the boat into a dock to visit Rajibari-- home to a now abandoned Hindu temple and a zaminder palace which is now used as a university. a zaminder was a land owner, similar to a feudal lord. This palace belonged to one of the wealthiest zaminders in the area. Built in 1889, the palace had a water pound open in the front of the building separating it from now inactive crematorium. We walked through the building observing the beautiful but decaying stained glass windows, rusted by delicately detailed spiral staircase, and intricately designed tiles. We then walked through the central courtyard and found ourselves behind the building facing another garden area and man made pond area called the harem. Here, the zaminder's wives and consorts would bathe, protected from the views of outsiders. Now it offers a quiet, peaceful place for children to splash around and be chased by their mothers who are trying to get them to dress and get back to their studies or chores.



We got back on the boat and shortly thereafter, were served lunch-- curried chicken, mixed potatoes and squash, rice, and koftas, yum! Despite our training in Ghana and reminders from this trip, we couldn't help ourselves and ate some of the raw (peeled) cucumber, tomatoes, and mango for dessert.

The boat then turned around and we made our way back north along the river. We passed by ship building, sugar and salt factories and continued to watch the industrial and farming activities along the coast. Along the way, we occasionally saw Gangetic dolphins surface then dive underwater-- these are "fresh water" dolphins that find their way over here through the estuaries of the Ganges River.


We made one last stop before returning to our port. Our guide led us to a village in which the local industry is traditional weaving. We visited several cottages in which pairs of weavers sat in front of looms, weaving brightly colored, translucent scarves and saris for sale in Dhaka and at the local market. We noticed that many of the pairs of weavers were young couples and indeed, our guide said that many of the weavers were husbands and wives who worked side by side. One cottage appeared to have no one over the age of 24 working there, as they blasted Bengali pop to keep them moving. If this makes any of you worry about sweatshop conditions and child labor exploitation, the village sells their weavings to a local store Aarong which only works only sells handicrafts made by artisans who are paid a fair wage and deal with fair trade.



After sifting through some scarves and saris available for purchasing, we made our way back onto our boat. The boat tried to pull out of dock, but somehow, we struck a boat docked next to us. We couldn't get a straight answer from our guide-- part of the Bangladehsi concern to not cause worry to guests, I suppose, but just kind of irritating when you're sitting still, with no breeze, in the heat and humidity and not getting any straight answers. Finally, I think we were told that although there was no damage done to the other boat, amends were somehow made to the angry boat owners, and the crew of our boat was trying to hammer back out a dent that the collision had made on our own boat. We did out best with the half hour delay, acting the full colonialist role by sipping tea, eating biscuits despite their being swarmed by ants, and quietly chatted about whether there was incoming rain above the clatter of hammers striking metal down below.

We eventually set off again, and pulled into port. The air conditioned van was comfortable, but the noisy, crowded traffic of Dhaka was no match for the otherwise relaxing day on the water.