On Leaving

One of the things about a place like Dhaka is that it takes a while to learn how to take advantage of what's available. In the states when you move to a new city, you can go to that Whole Foods and get high quality food, though it may take you a couple months to learn about the farmer's markets. When you come to Dhaka, you only know what people tell you. Sure you can go on adventures and find new restaurants and stores, but after a certain amount of digestive disasters and running colors, you tend to stick to places you can trust. So word of mouth is important, because when someone recommends a place, it matters a lot more than in a city where you can generally trust what's around.

As a result, the longer you stay, the more you learn. Well that seems pretty self-evident, but there is a strange learning curve here. The city is so alien, that for the first couple months you are just learning non-stop like an infant, almost literally everything is new. I don't know anyone who failed to take about 75 pictures of rickshaws in the first couple months, before replacing wonder with being annoyed. After this initial period, you find a routine, you have joined the clubs, the commissary, made some connections outside of school. In short, you have carved out a place.

For the next six months its hard to make big gains in understanding. After the first three months of living here, you know what's up, and it's just a matter of optimizing your use of this information. Things feel a little repetitive and you get bored with the social circle you are in not by any fault of your friends, but when you work with your friends, you need a fresh perspective every once in a while, or at least a new activity.

For me, I joined a play and tried to spend time at clubs besides the American Club. This latter part didn't really pan out, but I did start to finally feel less like a visitor and more like a resident of this city. When I drive by a westerner I stare just like all the Bangladeshi's, wondering to myself "hey! what do you think you're doing here?!" I got possessive of Dhaka. I was repulsed by hippies in Kathmandu not because they smelled funny, but because they seemed to believe that by approximating native dress (unbutton that vest, go on!) and not combing their hair they were being "real." Well, when you are hanging out in the tourist district the whole time you aren't really getting an authentic experience, if you want to look like that, go farm and look dirty for a reason.

This is how I felt anyways. It's not that I felt I understood native culture and customs better, but I knew that I was different. I know that no matter how much tea I drink and how crazy I drive, I am still a westerner in a foreign land. I had gotten my third world baptism in a land where it is basically impossible to be friends with most native people because of the vast cultural divide they see. It's silly to think that you can ever truly understand them simply because you wear the same clothes. I'd rather be an aid worker in khakis. I suppose that a large part of it is that I see myself as having accomplished something by living here. My insecurity read on their faces "Oh I get South Asia! Look at my poofy pants!" and it just aggravates me to no end....

Well that was a little bit of a tangent. The point is, back to some form of coherent thought, over the last couple months I've lived here. There is a freaking French Bakery a half dozen blocks from WHERE I SLEEP EVERY NIGHT. I hadn't had a baguette in five months. It's only open from 10am to 12pm Saturday mornings, and it's run out of someone's house. Why didn't anyone tell me about this?! People want to keep good things theirs here, because there aren't enough rolls to go around. Well I am finally getting into this inner level, and now it's getting time to go (18 days!). It seems that 8-9 months is about the amount of time it takes to become really close to a friend. Perfect timing.

As with all impending departures, the closer you get to the finish, the faster the time seems to have passed. I do not feel like I've been here as long as I did 3 months ago. Explain that. Wait, don't. What matters is that it has the odd effect of cheapening the intervening time, giving me the impression that I should have met more people, bought more shirts, played cricket, done MORE. Maybe this last few weeks of writing will help me to recollect all the things that I will miss and will be happy to see from an airplane window, help me remember who I was 9 months ago.