Our brightly-colored bus is creeping down a jam-packed country highway, jockeying for position in a low-speed, high-mass horse race. Horns are blaring. A heavy rain pelts the windshield. Shopkeepers and fruit sellers on either side of the road rush to cover their goods and produce while mothers in brightly-colored saris hurry their children to shelter. Lightning cracks the sky. Inside the dark bus, the passengers sing lilting songs in Bangla.
I CAN'T STAND IT!
There's too much traffic. The windshield wipers don't work. The driver won't stop honking. Somebody is smoking on the bus with all the windows closed. The Bangla singing is driving me mad--it all sounds the same. The guy sitting in the seat beside me touches my leg when he talks to me. I stare out my rain-soaked window and seethe.
If I don't sound like the Enlightened Traveler, narrator of all Lonely Planet guides and Study Abroad brochures, there's a reason: I've been in Bangladesh for six weeks, and this isn't just study abroad anymore. This is life!
It seems that many study abroad programs are basically just cool "field trips"--there's a tour guide, a syllabus, and classmates to share the fun with. These programs are useful; they are a chance to learn to appreciate a different culture. For me, living abroad--with no tour guide, no syllabus, and one classmate--has provided, in addition, the opportunity to learn what I don't appreciate about this other place, and conversely, what I value most about home.
Seriously--if the United States government was ever intent on creating a generation of true patriots, it could do a lot worse than to send every American student to the other side of the world for a few months. Government corruption in Bangladesh makes American campaign finance scandals look like Monopoly money transactions; Dhaka is covered with garbage, not because people are too lazy to find trash bins, but because there are no trash bins; and at this point, there is nothing I crave more than a clean McDonald's bathroom.
There is a giant list of things I love about Bangladesh, too, of course: our Bangladeshi friends, young and old alike, who are some of the most interesting people I've ever met; the sharp-prowed, ancient-looking sea ships that trade out of Chittagong; parata, the fried bread we often have for breakfast; the cool breeze across the Meghna river as it flows out of Chandpur; and much more.
But I'm afraid that sounds like I'm writing the setup for a lovingly-rendered documentary film--"Bangladesh: Rivers of Change" or something like that--and I have come to value this trip precisely because it's not a National Geographic special. It's not a vacation or a safari, not one step removed from reality. No, here in Bangladesh, I've got a very real daily routine that sometimes borders on the mundane--and what an experience! Yesterday, I saw amazing 1,700-year-old Buddhist ruins. Today, I got fleeced out of seventy taka by an auto-rickshaw driver. Tonight, I will be forced to eat way too much meat at dinner. Here in Bangladesh, the days can be interesting and exhilarating, but they can also be frustrating and even maddening. Hey, just like real life!
-RS.
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