An Adventure Packed Day

Today was incredible: terrifying, exhilarating, nauseating, and delicious.

At 10:00am our cook/bearer arrived for her first day.  The whole dynamic is so strange to me, and I can't help but feel odd as she cooks and cleans my home when I don't have a job.  Plus it's strange being the boss of a woman much older than me - and while I am a foreigner in her country.  Nevertheless, she seems to be a wonderful woman who came highly recommended by other embassy personnel.  She calls me madame, along with everyone else in this country, and she only stops working to pray a couple times.

After she finished cleaning the whole apartment, we went out to buy some produce and cleaning supplies.  We don't have a car yet, so we had to take a rickshaw to Gulshan (on the other side of the lake).  Oh. My. Goodness.  I was terrified!  I have taken a rickshaw once since we arrived, and that was within Baridhara.  In order to get to Gulshan, you have to go on a busy street for a few hundred feet.  Those few hundred feet took about 10 minutes as the traffic is so bad.  The rickshaws do not yield to cars - they stick themselves out and assume that the car will stop.  Thankfully, all of the cars did.  Our cook/bearer was wonderful - she held on to me and acted as my seatbelt.

At the market we bought a mop, bucket, broom, and various vegetables.  It was great to have her around to haggle, plus the fact that she knew where she was going.  There were a dozen vegetable stands and the men behind each stand would look at me and hold up an onion or a pepper with a big smile on his face.  I also had a few children and a few older women come up to me to ask for money.  Sometimes our cook/bearer would say something to them in Bangla and they would leave me alone.

Now, the next thing I have to say may disgust you.  If you have a weak stomach, I would stop reading this paragraph and go on to the next.  Ok, now for the nauseating part of my day.  As we were shopping and walking around the market, I couldn't help but notice that there were small cockroaches EVERYWHERE.  All over the vegetables, all over the walls, all over the ground.  And not only were there cockroaches, but the smell in the market was absolutely awful.  It was by far the worst smell I have ever experienced in my life.  At one point I almost threw up from the smell.  Now, we definitely don't have to shop at this market - there are other places to buy produce - but the market is insanely cheap, and from what I hear, the vegetables are very good (after cleaning with a bit of clorox).

So we buy all of these things, and we still need to get home.  I'm thinking there is no way we can both fit on a rickshaw with all of our purchases, but we must.  There are no taxis here, and the only thing relatively safe to get home is a rickshaw.  So we manage to fit everything, but I have to use my arm to keep the mop and broom from sticking out too much to the side.  I'm informed that since I am on the rickshaw, we have to take the backroads instead of the main road.  I am very thankful for this, and the extra 20 taka (27 cents) is definitely worth it.  In fact, the main road is so jam packed that in the one hundred feet we spend on it, I still manage to get my arm brushed by a motorcycle.  The guy on it looks at me and says 'sorry' with a smile.

To give you an idea of what traffic is like here, go to this link.

http://www.pictureninja.com/pages/bangladesh/image-dhaka-traffic.htm

We finished our first homemade Bangladeshi meal and it was delicious!  And very, very spicy!  My mouth was on fire for a solid 10 minutes, and my stomach was on fire for even longer.  One hour later I think the spiciness has finally worn off.  All in all, a good day.  I think I will sleep well tonight!