Ei rickshaw!

Today we had the much-anticipated rickshaw lesson in my first class, when we learned how to catch a rickshaw and tell the rickshawallah where to go. This is perhaps THE most practical lesson we could get, because we have to take rickshaws everywhere. Two of our teachers did a role play, with one as the rickshawallah and the other as passenger. Atif, the rickshawallah, really got into the role, lounging and pretending to smoke. It was hilarious. They also taught us how to negotiate prices with our limited vocabulary. Interactions with rickshawallahs are pretty standardized, so theoretically this lesson should cover most situations.
In the next class we learned Bengali consonant signs, which are a few standardized signs that signal a conjunct. In Bangla writing, conjuncts indicate that several consonants are produced in a row without being separated by vowels. Not all conjuncts form predictable patterns, but the ones written with consonant signs are easy to figure out.
My third class was on making words out of letters and pronouncing them correctly. We only got through four sounds: k, kh, g, and gh (the h represents aspiration, which is the difference between the k sound in cat and the one in back). We spent about 20 minutes working on the pronunciation of gh, which is really difficult for English speakers because we don’t aspirate voiced stops.
Our final class was on food words, which was useful but made me really hungry (we don’t get out of class until 2). We already knew a lot of the food vocabulary because the intermediate students had told us over meals.
After class we went to the office to get our cell phones. It had taken a few days to get them, because paperwork is crazy in Bangladesh. Rozima, the site director, then told us that there is going to be a hartel, or countrywide strike, on Sunday and Monday. We are therefore not having class and should stay home for safety reasons. On Tuesday we have a briefing at the US Embassy.
Farida, Corinne, and I then took a rickshaw to Golshan Dui, to buy some school supplies and go shopping for salwar kameez. I attempted to tell the rickshawallah where to take us, but couldn’t remember the words; as I was obviously struggling, Corinne took over. I need to take a rickshaw today or tomorrow so I can practice hailing one myself.
Golshan Dui is a big traffic circle in an upper-class commercial district. We walked across the circle (in traffic circles, Bangladeshi drivers actually pay attention to traffic laws!) and went to a bookstore, where I managed to buy tape and a binder without a lot of assistance from the others (just the numbers, which I don’t know yet.) Then we walked down the road toward Banani, and came to our destination: two stores in the same building selling pre-made salwar kameez. They were definitely catering to bideshis (foreigners) like us; both stores reminded me of the little boutique clothing stores you can find in the states. On the top floor there was a selection of salwar kameez ranging between 1500 and 4000 taka each. They even had somewhere to try them on. I found one that I liked, and that was fairly inexpensive. It’s a dark red with blue embroidery around the sleeves and an orange-and- gold embellished neckline, green-gold pants, and a green-gold orna with purple and red border. I wish I could post pictures, but it’s really impossible with the internet as it is here.
We took a rickshaw back from Golshan Dui to Noddabajar, the bazaar near our apartments. Corrine showed us where her tailor’s shop is. We then went for a walk through the food stalls to find some green coconuts, so we could drink coconut water. We found one stall that had them and bought three. To be safe, we only had the seller cut the top off and poke a hole into the inside (instead of completely peeling it like they usually do) and then drank the water. It was very refreshing.
For dinner we had goat! It was definitely not my favorite meat. Bangladeshis tend not to remove bones from cooked meat, so there were a lot of bones in the goat meat. This made it difficult to eat. It was kind of tough and stringy, too.