Last Friday we were lucky enough to be invited by Megan (Charlie's family friend who lives here permanently) to join the tour of Old Dhaka that she was leading for the new arrivals of her NGO. Karen and JR also accompanied us.
Besides the 4 of us the group consisted of Derota (the woman we are sharing our car with, who was also put in contact with Megan through friend of a friend connections), Sarah (who I had met at Megan's previously), Nancy, and then an absolutely wonderful family from Togo, Grace, Anthony and their absolutely adorable 6 year old Jerome. Jerome is quite possibly the best kid I have ever met. If not at the top of my list then definitely in the top 5. He was fearless, outgoing, funny and extremely positive. We all joked how it would just be impossible to remain in a bad mood with him around.
You can probably imagine that a group of white, asian and black people drew A LOT of attention. At the very beginning of our tour we stood in a group listening to Megan give us an overview of what we would be doing that day and we attracted a crowd of nearly 100 people completely surrounding us, looking at us with a mix of confusion and interest.
As we walked towards the docks (where Megan had arranged for us to take a small boat in the Buriganga river) it became apparent that Jerome was attracting even more attention than I could even dream of. He was dressed in a traditional Bengali outfit that was a bright green. Everywhere he went people stared, and wanted to come up and talk to him, especially the street children. My anxiety levels were definitely on the rise as I watched him randomly talking to people and just wandering around the street in general. His parents were incredibly good-natured and have like a 1000% more laid back approached to child-rearing than I do.
After some haggling with the boat owner Megan got us 2 large gondola type boats. We climbed aboard and set sail. It was incredibly hot, and being on the water made it even hotter. We passed other pleasure seekers (so to speak) who all gaped at us. The shores of Dhaka are not the most picturesque, the river being filled with rusty boats and the shore filled with dilapidated buildings. If you squint your eyes it almost looks kind of pretty.
The boat ride lasted about 30 minutes, and we were all drenched with sweat when it ended. As we climbed onto the land the gondolier (think Venice, if Venice was a poor, third world country) rather aggressively asked us for more money. Of course.
From the boat ride we walked down a tiny market street filled with stores selling all kind of goodies from vegetables, to grains, to live chickens, to slabs of raw beef hung on a wire. The street was so narrow that we were constantly being nearly collided into by rickshaws, CNGs and mobs of people. Much gaping ensued of course. At this point Karen and I thought it would be fun to walk hand in hand with Jerome and lift him up and swing him on the count of 3. Because kids are the same the world over he of course loved this game. I have to imagine that a white girl and an asian girl lifting up an african boy and swinging him around while yelling "whoo whoo" is an event that hasn't occurred before in Old Dhaka.
While in Old Dhaka we went to the Armenian Church. It was a nice respite from the nearly intolerable heat, but as far as old churches go was not really anything to write home about. There was this really creepy street kid, who grabbed my hand, kissed it and refused to let go, then tried to get me to kiss his cheek. I wrenched my hand away and made a "no no no no" gesture and ran away. He followed us around the rest of the time, staring at me with very creepy, dead eyes. This was especially awkward for the 10 minutes we were locked behind the gates of the church waiting for the guide to let us out, and he just stood there looking at us. (my attitude towards street children growing a little more hard-hearted).
Next we drove down Hindu street which I guess is some famous market street in Dhaka. Driving down it is one of the more ridiculous things you can attempt in this city, but some reason the driver of the van (whom we were following in our car w/ Sayed) thought because it was Friday we could do it. We drove slower than it would have taken to walk, as the street was completely jammed full with rickshaws and people. Sayed got very upset, and stressed understandably and gave the van driver an earful as we finally got through the street. My descriptions if you notice are becoming less and less detailed as I was by this point hungry and tired and just wanted to eat lunch.
We ate lunch at an Indian restaurant, which had a decent lunch buffet. It took them forever to seat us (of course) so we all entertained ourselves by taking a bunch of pictures with Jerome.
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