Videshi

It’s been another week, my time here as of yet has been flying by.  I just had another weekend, which was thankfully a little more restful than my first, but still quite a bit of activity to keep my occupied. Sadly it also turned out to be pretty un-productive; I guess unproductive weekends are a global malady, not just something that affects me while in america.

There are a few things that have happened since I last updated, too many to write them all out, so I will attempt to create little snippets of stories to try and fill things in, or little antidotes about life in B. I also just went on my first field visit today, which was a huge experience. Ill leave most of my story out for the time being, I want to process that more and then I will write my post on that in the next few days. As for now…short stories:

The accents/ language

I started learning how to do some STATA programming. For those non Public Health people this is a Biostatistical programming tool, used to do statistical analysis on our data for our projects. I have been trained in SAS, a different program (for the same purpose), and the difference between the two is unfortunately quite different.  I was never even very good working with SAS to begin with, so learning something new is kinda my worst nightmare. Here is they fun part though, I will be having little one hour training sessions one on one with a statistician here for the next few weeks, just to help me get going with it.  My first lesson went quite well, I feel as though I learned a lot. We did have a little bit of communication issues however; as it took me a good half of the lesson to realize he was saying the word “software” as opposed to “scepter”, also I thought him saying triple 1 was actually “341” So that was a little embarrassing. However hopefully we can work past my accent issues and really learn some quality and useful stuff.

I know also know that if I ask someone to spell something for me and I hear B..I should actually write V, I have had a few people get frustrated with me over that.

I now know my whole first sentence in Bangla, which is very useful. It basically is “I know that paying 20 TK is a fare price for this rickshaw ride” I have a tendency to try and be exploited, expecting me to be a naive foreigner (or videshi as I am so affectionately called here), which for the most part I am.

Today however I made a new friend who said he would help me with Bangla. He works in my local fruit and veggie stand and is ecstatic that I keep on asking how to say things in Bangla, he has agreed to give me a really good deal in exchange for me to keep coming to him for language practice. I feel like I’m getting the better deal on both sides, but I’ll just keep quiet.

The Money

I don’t understand why the money has to be identical here. The 100 TK look exactly the same as the 500’s and the 50’s 20’s same thing. Also if being identical wasn’t enough, for some reason there are 5 different versions of the 100 bill, that are all different colors, and with different pictures. Then there is only one corner on one side that has English numbers on them for me to actually find how much it’s worth… Better hope that corner is still attached! I tried to pay a man the other day 300TK, and rather than handing him 3 100’s, I gave him 3 500’s. Good think he was a nice man and helped the silly videshi figure this stuff out.

Celebrity Status

I was used to being pretty unique when I was little growing up in Y, got stared at, grabbed, followed and whistled at. However there was a distinct lack of cell phones in that day and age in that part of the world, so that is where the admiration ended. Now however, or maybe its just here, the latest trend is camera phones. I think every trip outside I take I end up having a picture snapped of me at least once. Sometimes they try and be sly and hold the phone to their face like they are texting intently, but then you can always here the very distinct “cutishh” of the fake shutter lens sound.  It’s interesting to think that they take my picture home with them or wherever to show their friends. “Look who I saw today! The crazy tall videshi lady with gold hair” (they call my hair golden here, I’m not complaining). I really do stick out like a sore thumb, I just wish I didn’t have paparazzi wherever I go. 

Today when I went on my field visit one of the men I even work near was taking pictures on his phone of the “site”, however on later inspection I noticed I was in every single shot, and several were just of me, and even one of a close up of just my hair.  That was a little awkward.

ORS

So every day as I walk to work or any other place for that matter I tend to sweat through every article of clothes im wearing, and dispite attempting to drink a lot, I feel like im always a bit dehydrated. Then this weekend my tummy started feeling a little off, ironically I think its from some food I ate at the American Club. I know I can actually buy some Oral Rehydration Salts(ORS) pretty easy in any grocery store here, but I decided to try and make my own since I would feel like the quintessential Public Health student in WaSH (water sanitation Hygiene) if I can say I made my own. As I have never had real, store bought stuff, I have nothing to compare mine to…but not going to lie…it was pretty disgusting. I tried to make it a little more exciting by using some drink powder in substitute of some sugar, it ended up tasting like salty diluted drink mix. Oh well, I chugged two glasses of it last night, and felt nice and before you know it my skin felt nice and turgid again.

Aparently coconut juice is also a natural ORS type solution so today on my way home I went by my fav fruit and veggie man and got my self a coconut. I felt pretty baller carrying my half chopped coconut home to drink. They peeled a little extra of the skin off in order to make a little carrying handle.

"Videshi"

There I was walking along my river bank with giant trees with red succulents growing off of them, the mixed smell of sewage and sweet flowers, in my salwar cameez, talking to a little kid in some Bangla, there, with my coconut.  I feel as though I crossed the threshold now, into a non-describable territory, but anyone who has lived in a culture different from his or her own must know it.  When you get a sort of out of body experience, and you look at yourself and think I’m doing alright here. Its not that you know all the answers, that you feel like a local or “one of the natives”, but you have found your nitch being you, the videshi, in a foreign culture.