Dark Happenings in Dhaka

Most of the posts in this blog have been focused on the "fun" or "interesting" things I've been able to be a part of so far, but I thought I would write this post in an effort to display some of the more difficult things we have witnessed. These happenings will be written without the conventional "I heard" or "she said" in order to more vividly portray the events as I have heard them described.

Two days ago a school bus full of our students aged 9-16 pulled up to an intersection at the corner of Kamal Ataturk and Airport roads. The teeming intersection was packed as usual that morning, and police officers were on hand to help conduct traffic. The bus received a "go ahead" from one of the officers and pulled around the corner onto Kamal Ataturk. As the bus lurched forward, an "infirm" older man stepped out into the street and was struck by the bus. The driver reported that he never saw the man, and he only knew something had happened by the sound of the collision. The man was killed by the impact, at first none of the students even understood what had happened.
This type of incident has the potential to form violent and emotional mob scenes that can lead to the murder of the vehicle's driver and the torching of the vehicle itself. Luckily, especially considering the presence of the students, police were on hand immediately to secure the scene. If not for the drivers own honor, the police would have "waved him on" his route without any consideration. However, as the driver could not tell whether the man had struck the bus or visa versa, he decided to give his information to the police. He is currently on paid leave, and the school is currently in the process of either going to court or settling privately.
It is hard to distinguish which element of this story is more upsetting, the fact that 10 students were a part of this, or that such deaths are relatively common in a society that has many people who never look before walking out into correspondingly irresponsible traffic.

The same day the daughter of one of the local workers at the school was severly burned while preparing Iftar, a large meal that breaks the fasting during Ramadan. Part of her clothing caught fire and 25% of her body was burned. She was rushed to the hospital where she underwent surgery to relieve the excruciating pain associated with the water that can form under burns. Many people at the school are trying to send money to help cover the cost of her health care, which is assumedly too much for her family to absorb.

In both of these instance it seems to me that the severity of the calamity would have been mitigated by everyday social infrastructure present in the United States and other more developed nations. That is not to say that there is NO social infrastructure or NOT a complex culture, but that cultural knowledge has not extended to crucial personal decisions. For instance, I can't imagine that more than 3% of the Bangladeshi population has ever heard that they should "look both ways" before crossing the street, because they seem to have very little fear of fatal automobile accidents... yet they occur with a disturbing frequency here. Also, and I should emphasize that I know few details of the burn scene, there is no "stop drop and roll" training here. Such knowledge we take for granted as "part of our cultural consciousness," without understanding the tremendous luxury it is to live in a place where our cultural energies can be directed to such unlikely circumstances.

This last vignette I recieved second hand from my house mate Sara. However, having been to the story's scene on a couple occasions, I will describe it as though I had witnessed it myself in order to more smoothly insert descriptive details of the setting.

Sara was out on a walk at dusk, strolling through the neighborhood directly behind our secluded Diplomat zone. As darkness dropped over Baridhara D.O.H.S., she crossed the "Rickshaw Bridge" into a street of tightly packed shops that open out onto the narrow road. At 7PM the traffic is omnipresent, one cannot stray from the crumbling, dirt-covered sidewalk without bumping elbows with a side view mirror. Rickshaws and baby taxis push their way between large trucks and compact cars on tight, laneless avenues. The scene creates a fog of smell that colors one's whole perception of the place. Seemingly in leauge with the hot darkness decending on the lampless streets, the smell drapes itself about the shoulders and thighs.
A few feet from the brown foot path on the side of the road, a man lay on his back in a patch of home made gravel. His eyes lolled back in his hot brain as his mouth fell open, his chin occasionally shivering. The beat of determined feet fell around him as his last sensations on earth presented themselves, perhaps unacknowledged. He was clearly dieing, with no family at his side, his body a mere and minor impediment to the pedestrians passing by, not looking.

Sara is someone who has, I believe, learned the best messages of the Bible and views its stories as examples of how to live a good life. When recounting this image to me, her eyes slightly glassy, she said she felt like she was "on the wrong side of a Bible story" when she observes the many personal catastrophies of the Bangladeshi people. We all wonder "what can I do right now, at this moment?" and it seems like "nothing" is the stony answer. But upon consideration we cannot help but realize that WE are the one's with the resources, so does that make it OUR responsibility to step in and help a dieing stranger? This man seems, in a way, to be a symbol of many of Bangladesh's grave problems. Never has one nation had so much conspiring against the success of its people (EG- if global water levels keep rising the country will be completely submerged; India has built dams that give them the power to cut off Bangladesh's already meager supply of potable fresh water; there is no effective sewer system, all waste is dumped in water that many people drink; the government is one of the most unapologetically corrupt in the world; even with all these problems, it remains the country with the world's highest population density; there is little or no insurance or affordable preventative medicine, so few people receive care before they have become seriously ill, at which point prospects for recovery are increasingly slim).

There is an inescapable irony to my life here, I hope this post provides some subtext to the other things I write.