I play basketball with the ambassador (above) about once a week and was able to get in touch with his office and arrange a lunch with him and his wife on Friday of K & C's first day. Sometimes when we see government officials we think "wow, I hope people don't think that he represents all of America." Well Mr. Jim Moriarty and his wife Lauren incited the exact opposite reaction. Both of them are career diplomats who have had quite impressive careers. Previous to this posting, Jim had been the ambassador to Nepal and Lauren was the US Ambassador to the Asian-Pacific Economic Coperation. It was a rare and fascinating opportunity to discuss international politics with someone who has been on the inside for a long time. We all learned a lot about the ancient roots of the Tibet-China struggle, as well as some of the lesser discussed impediments to US influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. For a international politics novice it was a spellbinding afternoon. Further, they were excellent hosts and permitted us for a full three hours of delicious food. As Lauren said: we are the servants of the American tax-payer, and we feel it is our duty to do these sorts of things with them!
We then hit up one of my favorite restaurants in Dhaka, Bukhara with some of my friends. The
dinner was excellent as usual.
The next day we traveled out to the northwest of Dhaka and a town just before Tangil. Kelly plays golf with a Bangladeshi mortgage broker in Eugene, Oregon who still has family in Dhaka: his brother "Bunting." Bunting and his family had once dominated the area, estabilishing colleges and building enormous homes. Bunting himself was the ambassador to Malaysia, and now occupies himself with his family's college. His family is one of the remnants of the Moghul Empire, we're talking ooooold money. The town mosque was built by his family centuries ago. Today however, the government has imposed taxes and grabbed land from his family over the course of the last thirty years. His summer home, where we visited, was a testament to this erosion. The main house is now in ruins, being slowly refurbished by a handful of laborers while an elementary school occupies the interior.
Bunting himself was a charming host, joking with us about off colour topics and attending to our every need. On our tour of the house he showed us a picture of his family with Queen Elizabeth and the box of fifty ancient keys that used to control the house. The guest house is beautiful and well designed for talking on large decks and cool breezes to wash over the interior. However upkeep is expensive and labor intensive on a house like this; the paint job is shoddy and the bathrooms don't quite work.
Now he travels with his servants, no longer keeping help full time at the summer house. He is the only person from his family who remains in Bangladesh, and is thus responsible for the family's many assets. His family was on top when the revolution came in 1971. Power seems to have slowly ebbed, and while his name is still known throughout the surrounding college town, you get the sense that things are very different. It is the government who is control now, and he is extremely suspicious of the government's intentions.
When we left Kelly and Connie got another taste of Bangladeshi driving. I think that four hours of high way driving (counting both ways) is plenty, luckily I fell asleep for a bit.
The next day I had a hired driver take them down to Old Dhaka and tour some of the sites. It sounded like they had a fun time, though I haven't seen any pictures yet. That evening I arranged for some pearl shopping (pearls are physically huge and inexpensive here). That night we had another great dinner at the guest house in which they were staying (owned by one of the teachers at my school).
So, in the end, they got to meet the ambassador, get out of Dhaka into the countryside, eat at my two favorite restaurants, go to Old Dhaka and buy some pearls. Not a bad three days!
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