A little rain - little water song - city rain/city streets

My monsoon look

Confession: I am enjoying a natural disaster. I know this means I'm playing with karma, and earning some of the negative kind, but I can't help it. My paltry excuse is that I am from a country where the Google keyword search results for "drought" would number in the quadbillions (if there is such a thing) so I have a reason to get all excited over rain.

But I know it's wrong and I feel awful for all the areas being completely devastated by this weather depression/tropical storm/cyclone (depending on which disaster warning you read) currently taking over the Bay of Bengal. I also suspect that since this is just the beginning of the monsoon season I'm about to get very unexcited by rain, so expect my fascination to dissipate rapidly.



Off come the thongs

In the meantime though, I had fun tonight entertaining the locals who found the dripping wet white girl absolutely hilarious. I think I made more people smile and laugh in one half hour tonight than ever before. Especially when I took out the camera - thongs in hand - and waded through the water* to get home.



*I know, I know, there was a lot more than 'water' being waded through, and yes Mum - and all the other medicos/water nerds in the fam - the minute I walked through the front door I went straight to the shower and scrubbed scrubbed scrubbed scrubbed scrubbed

[Irrelevant bit - there are many, many, many song titles containing water, rain, and floods and I couldn't settle on one so have gone for three. The excess fairly reflects what's happening outside my window right now anyway]

What if no one's watching?

Humans are social creatures. This is not some epiphany I woke up to this morning over my (non existent) cornflakes. Really smart people with degrees n stuff have asserted this theory many times over - too many for me to list them here. And while that's all very good and well, frankly I'm far more interested in what happens to humans when they can't be social. Luckily I'm conducting my own human experiment into the phenomenon through living alone in a city where I know no one in a country where being alone is as foreign a concept as toilets that flush. To both myself and my colleagues, my daily activities are being studied like that of a lab rat in a see-through cage.

Here's a snapshot of things I am learning:
* I like that no one knows I ate Ovaltinies for breakfast, in my undies, listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
* Flying solo means there are no support troops to assist in my ongoing War Against Roaches
* There is no one else to blame when I run out of toilet paper, or juice, or gin

And here's a snapshot of things I am learning specifically about myself:
* I have depressing and repetitive taste in music when left to my own devices
* In fact, a lot of what I do when left to my own devices is repetitive: I cook the same meals (as in pasta six nights in a row this week, with the same six ingredients), listen to the same music (Bon Iver repeated 17 times so far), and stalk the same five people on facebook even though I have another 102 'friends' to stalk
* I actually love being alone for about three consecutive days, but know when I start conversations with my fridge, the fan (particularly when the power is out), my thongs (my brown Havianas, not my black ones), or my favourite packet of incense (jasmine, from Nepal) - that I've reached my Healthy Limits of Aloneness.
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Having reached such a limit this week, I unusually accepted a colleague's (let's call her Sarah for ease of storytelling) offer to spend the evening with her. Unusual because usually the last thing I want to do is hang out with work people all night when I've been hanging out with them all day - and I've never been a fan of talking about work 24 hours a day. So normally I'm quite happy to leave work talk largely to work time, and spend the rest of my free time debating with people not from work whether PJ Harvey's new album is ace (it is), whether Government-Government aid creates more problems than it solves (still chomping through this one, the arguments are a mouthful), or pondering whether I should blow a week's food budget on one expensive but unbelievably enjoyable tofu bento box when next in Dhaka (of course).

Okay, so now I should clarify that my colleagues are not privy to the actual day to day minutiae of my 'alone' life (unlike you, you lucky devils) - rather their curiosity and interest stems to taking alternate responsibility for inviting me to lunch, inquiring as to my weekend plans, asking if I cook my own meals etc etc. Basically as a culture where extended families live on top of each other, their concern at my solo-living is both genuine and endearing, and in a bid to make me feel less alone they ask every day how my parents are, how my brother and sister are, and whether I have considered their offer to find me a good Bangladeshi boy to marry (since that clock is ticking, you know). While it can be annoying, on the whole it's pretty flattering that they care. I'm not sure if the situation was reversed I'd be as thoughtful and attentive to a new colleague back home.

After spending two hours at Sara's place, meeting her family, talking through power and gender issues she's having at work, and generally having a really great chit-chat, I confess to being relieved when my rickshaw departed that I was being delivered to the doorstep of my deserted apartment. There are seven people living in three rooms (including the kitchen) in Sarah's place. Their front door is never closed. Personal space is an impossibility. Sarah has absolutely no idea what it's like to eat Ovaltinies in her undies for breakfast while listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. More to the point, Sarah probably doesn't ever want to know what this is like.

Lucky for me I'm not Sarah, and lucky for Sarah she's not me.

I was only 19

In an unusual move I am taking the time out of my Bangladeshi adventures to add my two cents worth in to the The Matthew Johns Incident even though I’m far away and even though it’s no doubt been done to death in the Australian media and even though I see so much worse on a daily basis in terms of the treatment of women and the construction of masculinity and femininity here in the ‘desh but … this particular media issue has basically enraged me more than most, and the subsequent Facebook retaliation of ‘bring back the biff’ and other such ‘support matty’ groups leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

For a more articulate and considered position on the issue than I can muster right now take a peek at this response by Rachel Hills, a young Sydney based journo firmly in my age group.

My response:

I've tried picturing myself at 19, buoyed on the confidence of too much champas (ok, let's pretend I would not have been skolling Bicardi Breezers), in a room with an older (semi) famous sportsman flattering me enough to part with my clothes and then trying to work out what to do as another (semi) famous sportsman and then another (semi) fam.., and another, and.... until I couldn't help but want to run and hide from the naive, insecure, inexperienced and easily (mis)led girl I remember I was when I was 19.

Consent; rape; power; age; masculinity; femininity; just say no; she didn't say no; we should all say no; oh to be a footballer's wife; oh to be older; did she say no? I don't remember; what goes on tour; just get over it; she's in it for the money..........whatever

To borrow (and slightly amend) from Redgum: "She was only 19".

Six months in a leaky boat

Three things I love about Bangladesh (right now):

· My job: I’m back from a week in remote Kishoreganj mixing it up with Early Childhood Centres and Women’s Empowerment Groups and loving it. Now I get to spend the next couple of weeks turning these hours into case studies, articles, fact sheets and monitoring and evaluation assessments. All while wearing aqua and lime green pyjamas, Birkenstocks, and belting out renditions of “We Are One, But We Are Many” off key. There are worse jobs (and many of them are here).



Getting in amongst it: a women's empowerment group in an urban slum

· The random factor: Ben the Backpacker has been and gone, and it was great to experience the weird and wonderful of Chittagong through fresh eyes. In three days Ben had near death experiences, got married to someone he’d never met before, donated money to a coffin, found out turtles have toenails, discovered the wonders of Mini Bangladesh, had more photos of himself taken than he took, played cricket, found out his choice in sunglasses is closely linked to Bangladesh’s political history, ate at the best restaurant in town on a backpacker’s budget, and learned the usefulness of the Bangla word “shesh” (meaning finished) when discussing public transport. Oh, and got drunk; he is Australian after all.

Ben the Backpacker and I rickshawing through the streets of Chittagong

· Watermelon: it’s cheap, everywhere, and unlikely to kill me. Especially good when chilled. Mmmmm.

Three things I don’t love about Bangladesh (right now):

· The Dhaka-Chittagong highway: three (relatively minor) traffic incidences in three months makes me a very nervous passenger these days.

· The bug factor: living alone and having a job which sends me out and about frequently means the cockroaches and rodents can have quite a field day in my place while I’m gone. I suspect this is what some parents feel like when returning from time away while entrusting the family home (and the liquor cabinet) to their teenagers - albeit without the advantage of the extermination process. I must look like a bit of a mix between a character out of The Terminator and Ghostbusters each time I come back home – can of bug spray in each hand, jumping out of my skin at every movement I catch out of the corner of my eye, and cautious when opening cupboards.


watching kids de-lice each other - a great way to make the scalp crawl

· Power outtages: No power means no fan. No fan means one very hot, sweaty and inappropriately dressed bideshi (foreigner). It’s really quite impressive how much sweat one can generate while not moving a muscle. Impressive, and gross.