Catch-up post

This post will cover what I’ve done since last Sunday. Sorry that I haven’t been updating as frequently as I had been; I’ve had a lot more work this week.
In class we’ve learned a lot of grammar this week. I can now conjugate verbs into simple present and future tense; use the possessive, locative, and objective cases; and use postpositions. Theoretically. It’s really helpful to know verb conjugations; people take you much more seriously if you can communicate in complete sentences! There’s only so much you can say with zero-verb constructions. We also learned vocabulary for household items, body parts, fruits and vegetables, and talking about being sick. The last one came a few days late; several people in the group (not me!) came down with shigella earlier this week. The doctor gave them Cipro and it cleared right up. On Wednesday and Thursday we started our reading class, which promises to be really good. I learned so many new words!
One really fascinating thing that I learned this week was the days of the week in Bangla. They go in the same order as the Spanish ones! That is, their names are based on astrological items and follow the exact same order as they do in Spanish (and English, to a lesser extent): Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. I wish I knew more about other Indo-European languages. Based on just this limited data set, use of the same pattern in these two distantly related languages seems far too coincidental.
On Monday I went to Noddabajar by myself twice. It was a really good experience, because it forced me to use what Bangla I know; there was no safety net, so I had to just plunge in and hope I could get by. It actually went really well. The first time I bought a kilo of mangos and a pineapple (anoroush). Bangladeshi pineapples are much smaller than the typical American pineapple and very sweet. After studying a while, I went back to the bazaar to find a tailor that could alter the kameez I bought the day before. It needed to have the sleeves let out and a string made for the pants. I found one tailor that had a sewing machine out, and walked into their store. I was able to make myself understood by pointing to the sleeves and saying “Eta chotto, ami boro size” which means “It’s small, I’m large size.” (This was before I learned verb conjugation.) Not the best way to say it, but it was the best I could do at that point. They understood me, and set to work with the sewing machine. It was an easy alteration; pre-made kameez have extra room in the seam so you can let them out if needed. While one of the tailors worked on my shirt, I talked with the other one using my minimal Bangla and his small amount of English. It worked out pretty way. His first question was whether I was married. This is pretty standard when talking to a young woman here, but it always seems like a strange thing to be asked. When I said I was American, he told me about his nephew who was living in America. At least I think that’s what he said; I didn’t know enough vocabulary to understand him completely! He couldn’t make a string for my salwar, so I walked over to a little area with 5 or 6 tailor stalls looking for one that could. I had trouble finding one, and when I did there was a major miscommunication because he thought I wanted a whole pair of pants! A large part of this miscommunication was a guy who tried to translate, but whose English wasn’t very good. He can probably get away with a lot because his pronunciation was highly above average, but he couldn’t understand even simple English like “I have this, I need that.” Eventually I sorted everything out, but they charged me 50 taka because they had already cut out a large piece of fabric. I made one more stop in the bazaar, at an electronics shop. I wanted a reading lamp so I could read in bed, and managed to negotiate for a nice rechargeable LED one at a reasonable price.
I spent a lot of time studying this week, so I don’t have much to report until Friday. On Friday Moumita and I went shopping in Banani. Farida had given me the task of finding a fancy salwar kameez to wear to the conference today. After class, Moumita and I went to an Indian restaurant in Banani and I ate some really good chicken biriyani. Then we went shopping. There are a lot of small boutique stores in Banani, and I went to three or four of them before I found one I liked. It’s a dark green-blue with lighter decoration on the front and back, and it was cheaper than I had expected. We then went to an ice cream parlor for dessert. It serves American ice cream, and was like Coldstone but with sit-down service. The amusing part about it was that they were playing a CD of Shakira over the loudspeakers. It was very strange to hear “Hips don’t lie” in Bangladesh. Across the street a man was making window shades by placing long pieces of bamboo or reeds on a stack, and then tying it off with weighted stones. This fascinated me and I took a picture (I’m going to try to upload it here). We then went back to Golshan Dui, where I got some money and then went to Lavender and a pharmacy for malaria medicine. We’re most likely going on our big three-day trip next week, although it’s not finalized yet. We will be visiting Srimangal and Sylhet, both of which are supposed to be gorgeous. Tomorrow we’re visiting Dhaka University and the Liberation War Museum.
Today I spent most of the morning writing essays for my Fulbright application. I went with Margo and Farida to the conference, but left before it started because I wasn’t feeling well. I managed to get a CNG by myself and direct him all the way back to Baridhara. As far as I can tell, I was just dehydrated; I felt much better after drinking a Tasty Saline. I will post again tomorrow after I get back from the field trip.