A Little Ramblin' Blues for Any Hour

A definition of ‘direction sense’:

Noun 1. sense of direction - an awareness of your orientation in space

Or so says the online free dictionary, which is surely a ‘source of truth’ if ever there was one. I could go a few steps further and really interrogate the obscurity of this definition which I find about as precise and clear and unambiguous as the ‘mixed vegetables’ option on a Bangladeshi menu, but won’t for fear of becoming even more obtuse than the definition itself.

Having said that, the very ambiguity of the definition seems to fit me perfectly because, whatever this mysterious ‘sense of direction’ is – it is beyond me. As I get older, meet more people, travel, drive, and basically move beyond the geographical boundaries of my youth (home, school, places that were not home or school that I liked to think my parent’s never knew about and so on) it becomes absurdly and abundantly clear – I just don’t have a sense of direction.

(And here comes the story about the underground foot tunnel, as promised, for those of you who skipped over the earnest part of my previous post)

Last week I had to work in the Dhaka head office for two days. Having reasonably useful language skills by now and being fairly adept at catching local transport meant this shouldn’t have been a problem.

Day One – I catch a CNG (mini cab thing) and arrive at the office door 10 minutes early, but get charged a ridiculously exorbitant amount by the driver despite my best bargaining powers.

Which brings me to Day Two where I decided I knew well enough where I needed to go that I can share a rickshaw with Casey, another AYAD who works in a similar area, and walk the remaining five minutes to my office thereby saving a staggering, oh, $2.50.

Now, being well aware of my deficiencies when it comes to directions, Casey and I went over the city map the night before. All good. All simple. On the actual morning as we went our separate ways, I had her stop and point out again exactly where I needed to go very clearly. Fine, all good, my head nods up and down enthusiastically with comprehension and confidence, and off I go…

…until about 15 minutes later when I get the feeling that something isn’t quite right as I’d been walking for a while now and nothing was looking familiar enough. Another few minutes another few steps and I suddenly (yes, I swear it was suddenly) find myself heading down this tiny dirt lane way with no professional looking people around, lots of street people, and some shady looking characters who take an interest in me I don’t like the look of. Right – time for Plan B.

Turning back didn’t seem like a great option considering the shadiness of my followers and the sensation I was causing, so instead I continued walking confidently in the same direction until the end of the lane where I decided to hail a rickshaw and try again.

Rickshaw takes me back down shady laneway, much to everyone’s amusement (but mine). We get to the end of the lane and the rickshaw wallah explains that I have to cross the road using an underground foot tunnel which would take me to the market where my office is. I take a look at the tunnel and the only people who appear to be using it are men in lungis (and nothing else) with huge baskets of vegetables on their heads. At this point I remember how very white and very female and very well dressed I am in comparison to everyone else, but descend into the tunnel anyway.

Cue moment in film where everyone says “No!!!!!!” to Drew Barrymore in Scream when she puts down the phone (or not, since I’m alive to tell the tale and I’m pretty sure Drew’s character didn’t make it past the first 10 minutes).

So, here I am descending into complete darkness, pushing and shoving my way past the waves of people coming at me. Of course I’m going against the flow of people. All I can see are vague shapes coming at me, but I can feel hands and feet and arms and shoulders and backs and all sorts all over me as people scramble about inside the tunnel. I now know that the tunnel is a throughway used by market sellers who transport their fruit and veg to their stalls under here. This makes it a very attractive place for beggars to hang out in the hopes of grabbing some of the food that falls from the baskets. It also means the men rush through at lightning pace as they know beggars have this very idea in mind. Now I come to the steps up (still in the dark here) and somewhere near the top of the stairs someone had just dropped their entire basket load of potatoes and carrots which were now rolling down the stairs.

As soon as people realise this, it’s on for one and all as a mad rush is made to scoop up the fallen veggies. Meanwhile I’m desperately trying to weave a path through the madness by pulling myself up the stairs using the handrail, shoving people aside while trying not to trip on a potato. Finally I make it to the top of the tunnel and am gratefully spat out back into the sunlight and out of the madness only to find myself in the dead center of the chicken slaughtering section of the market. And I don’t use the term ‘slaughter’ lightly. There was blood and guts everywhere, and it absolutely stank.

Since I had yet to gather my bearings, I moved straight ahead to get as far away from this scene as possible while trying to avoid the trajectories of chicken blood flying through the air and rid thoughts of the recent avian bird flu case found in Bangladesh from my mind and end up in the chilli frying section. Whilst this is a vast improvement on the street side abattoir, the smell of chilli frying in the air combined with chicken gut smell combined with the adrenalin pumping through me from the underground adventure meant that by the time I found the office I was an hour late and a sweaty, watery-eyed mess from the sensory overload.

When at the front door of the office I took a moment to compose myself and glanced across the street only to realise… this is virtually where I got off the rickshaw in the first place. Brilliant.