If my life was a Bangladeshi sitcom (if such a thing exists) then Mr. Dhar has moved from the slightly annoying but humorous in a kind of oboxious way to the arch-nemesis category. Think of a shift from Kramer to Newman.
Initially, I was becoming more and more irritated by the requests he keeps making of Ayub. The egg sandwiches are one thing, but when he asked him to make him Chinese fried rice for dinner, I felt this was just too much. Unfortunately I am in an awkward situation since after I leave Ayub has no other job lined up (and he had been unemployed for 7 months before we hired him) so he is hoping that Mr. Dhar can refer him to the new tenants. If I stepped in and told Mr. Dhar to stop asking Ayub to make things for him it could sour the relationship between Mr. Dhar and Ayub and hurt Ayub's employment prospects. If this weren't the case I would have told Mr. Dhar a long time ago to stop with the food requests.
The relationship soured further when I returned home from work one day and Mr. Dhar handed me a bill for Tk 20,000 (nearly $300) for one month of electricity and oil (used to run the generator). We explained to him that this was included in the rent (which had been confirmed before we arrived, and when we arrived) and that we would need to talk to Azad (the Bangladeshi consultant who works for UM and set us up in the apartment). Mr. Dhar pretended like he couldn't understand me, and that he didn't know who Azad was (even though we had had quite a few conversations earlier about Azad, the main gist of which was Mr. Dhar trying to find out how much money Azad makes). After speaking with Azad, who confirmed again that he had spoken with the owner and that all utilities were included Charlie went to speak with Mr. Dhar.
Mr. Dhar showed him the bill from the UM students who had stayed in the same apartment last year. It was only Tk. 14,000. What soon became clear (upon questioning by Charlie) was that the big difference was not in the amount of electricity we had used (this summer around Tk 10,000, last summer around Tk. 9.000, which isn't surprising given that rates have gone up) but the fact that the apartment complex was now charging a flat Tk. 10,000 charge for each unit for the use of the genererator whereas last summer the surcharge was only Tk. 5,000. He further admitted that the students had not paid any of this last year. He finally stopped insisting that we need to pay the electricity portion, but that we still owed Tk 10,000. Now, whenever we are home he comes in, and complains about how much more the generator is used this summer, ( 6 hours some days) and how expensive all this is etc. I have stopped even conversing with him about it as I am so frustrated. I honestly have a suspicion he is just trying to pocket the money.
We are also stopping our car service in a week, as it is too expensive to pay for another full month when we are only here a few more weeks. Our driver, Syed, is heartbroken. He has told Charlie, that Charlie is his best friend, and he has told me I am his sister, and that he is worried I will forget him when we go to America. He is very nice, but is honestly one of the most depressing people I have ever met. He is miserable in Bangladesh, he idealizes Europe and America, and he is filled with sorrow that he cannot provide a better life for his 4 children. My heart does go out to him. In America he would be the guy working 3 jobs so his kids could go to college, but here this just isn't possible. He sees foreigners as his only friends (as we have helped him out a bit with certain things, and his former boss an Englishman did as well). He thinks that everyone is rich in America and that people there have few problems. I have tried to explain that although it is very different, there are people in America who are very poor, and who feel that they too cannot make a better life. It is a hard conversation, made even harder by the language barrier.
In other news, I think I got the Indian visa situation taken care of. To do so I had to fill out a form requesting the birthplace and birthdate of my four grandparents. This made me realize that I had absolutely no clue where and when my father's parents were born. (Poland and NY I think...) Don't tell India (shhhhhh) but I just made up some random dates that seemed realistic. I have a feeling they will have a hard time getting this verified in the 3 days it says it takes to process the visa. While waiting I started chatting with a Scottish woman sitting next to me. She had booked her trip to fly in and out of India, with a 2 week sojourn to Bangladesh. Unfortunately for her she didn't read the fine print on her Indian visa which requires a 2 month lapse between entering and exiting the country so they wouldn't let her back into India. I can't even imagine getting stranded in Bangladesh. This is stuff of nightmares.
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