First trip to the bazaar

The power is out again, so I’m going to write this entry and post it as soon as I regain Internet. Today was our first full day of class, and it was really mind-blowing. There is so much to remember just from this one day. In conversation class we reviewed the greetings and basic conversation words, and then moved on to a lot of other vocabulary that covered important nouns (mohila, woman) and adjectives (gorom, hot). Then we got another list of important things to know for class, such as “how do you spell this?” (etar banan ki?).
The next class was working on the alphabet, and we learned to write all of the consonants and how to pronounce them. Bengali writing is interesting, because there are several letters that are pronounced the same and a few sounds that aren’t represented in writing. I have noticed that Bengali speakers are very aware of the origins of bideshi (foreign) words, and pronounce them in a way that is similar to the original – even when that particular sound isn’t usually used in Bengali or represented in its writing system. For example, Bangla doesn’t normally have a z sound, but in the farewell khoda hafej the last letter is pronounced z just like in Arabic. The same goes for the s’s: in most Bengali words, it’s pronounced sh, but in loanwords from English and Arabic it’s pronounced with an s. Just something that I thought was interesting about the language on the second day of class.
The third class was vocabulary, and we learned the numbers from 0-20 and 30, 50, 100. These are supposedly the ones that will be most helpful in purchasing things, but I have yet to find anything that costs only 19 taka. We have to memorize the numbers for tomorrow, which is going to be difficult as they don’t really fall into a pattern like numbers do in English. In Bangladesh, they use a special way of counting; instead of counting on their fingers like Americans do, they count by the joints of their fingers; each finger has 3 joints and a tip, which adds up to 4 on each finger, making 16 in total. I’m using this counting method to become familiar with both it and Bengali numbers at the same time.
Finally, in our last class, we learned how to give directions, specifically to a rickshawallah. We have to memorize all of those words too, because we’re role-playing in class tomorrow morning. Lots and lots of vocabulary to memorize tonight! But it’s all going to be very useful stuff once I have it.
After class and lunch we had a lecture about the history of the Bengali language. And after the lecture Farida, Andrew, and I went to the bazaar down the road from our building. We took a rickshaw with three people, which is a bit complicated as the rickshaw seats are only big enough to fit two people. The rickshawallah set us down in the bazaar and we went looking for a bookstore and/or somewhere to buy pre-made Bangladeshi clothing. Andrew knows the bazaar, so we wandered down the street looking at all the stalls. This particular bazaar is a maze of little streets and alleys filled with stores of all sorts. There are quite a few tailors, and I’m probably going to buy fabric to get some salwar kameez made. Our wandering took us to the end of the bazaar, and we went down one of the side streets trying to find the book store. Andrew and Farida asked several people where one was, and we kept following their directions and not finding one. When we finally did, we had returned to the very front of the bazaar where we were dropped off. In the wandering I went in several places and finally bought myself an orna for 150 taka; it’s orange and lime green and doesn’t match anything else I own, but I love it nonetheless. We stopped at the bookstore and Andrew negotiated the price for the items, at which Farida and I asked him to teach us how to haggle. Andrew went across the street to one of his favorite cha stands while we went to buy a bundle of lychee fruit. Farida went to two different vendors and managed to get the price down to 260 taka, which was about the right price. I was really happy that I was with the two of them during this excursion, because I wouldn’t have been able to communicate that well in Bengali. Tomorrow I’m going to Golhan 2, a big shopping area just west of here, and then on Friday we’re taking a trip to the huge bazaar Newmarket with Farida’s cousin. Let’s hear it for shopping!
Dinner tonight was delicious, as usual: really good chicken, rice, vegetables, and pineapple for dessert.