September 3, 2011
It’s been a short week of school here on the Delta. We had three days of school, then a four-day weekend for Eid-ul-Fitr, the celebration at the end of Ramadan. Most people try to go home to their ancestral villages or towns. That means that most of the 20 million or so residents of Dhaka have left town. It is almost a ghost town this weekend, with almost everything closed. Not that this kept us from trying to shop for stuff and having Mr. Baroi on the job taking us around the virtually empty city.
The first day of the weekend, Wednesday, we went to the Pink Palace, a mansion built in the late 19th century by the local prince. It is now a museum with a limited supply of artifacts and pieces from the glory days, such as they were.
Apparently, this was the day to see and be seen since everyone still in the city was out, in the best new clothes, riding the bicycle rickshaws. The Palace and the nearby ferry terminal were the only places with crowds. We attracted the most attention ourselves at the Pink Palace, being the only white people (and Millie being the only Chinese person) walking through the museum. Crowds of boys and girls followed us and took pictures of us like we were rock stars; one guy even recorded us on his telephone as we walked down a flight of stairs. It would have been a little creepy, but we were there during a brief period of bright sunshine in between monsoon showers, so it was mostly just weird.
The Pink Palace is in “old Dhaka” and the area is mostly shabby and dilapidated. Actually Dhaka is all pretty third world, but some areas are nicer than others. For instance the Parliament building is a new, recently designed building that sits on a man-made hill in the center of a huge expanse of grassland, circled by trees, in the middle of the city. It could look like the Mall in Washington, but the area is completely secured, guarded and empty. Except for the cattle grazing on the grass.
Yesterday, we went to the splashiest shopping mall in town, but it was all closed as well, except for the cinema. Like India, you must pass through a security scan to get in; this keeps out the beggars. We attracted attention there, too.
During these holiday mornings, Millie and I have walked down to school, so she could shoot some baskets with her basketball coach. He ran her through some drills and she got a good workout. He pointed out that she never complained and was easy to coach. She has some work to do to improve her fundamentals, but the season is 10 weeks long here, compared to Woodstock’s four weeks, so maybe she’ll get to play some.
Gail’s foot is still bothering her, but she went to see one of our neighbors, Dr. Jones, who lives upstairs and teaches P.E. at AISD. He has a doctorate in sports med. He told her to ice it 15 minutes three times a day, and is looking into an orthopedic doctor for her.
I have been keeping busy with school and assorted duties that involves. Our school has a culture of meetings—we have lots. (In Hazelwood, my last St. Louis district, we had a culture of three-ring binders: Got a problem? Get a binder.) The most fun meeting this week was a school board meeting/happy hour across the street last Sunday. The school board member/hostess is the wife of a Chevron exec. They have a way nicer place than any of the teachers, and have furnished it with lots of cool things from Thailand, among other places.
We now have a place booked in Phuket for the first week of October (the flight to Bangkok and back is booked, as well). When we get back from that break, the elementary principal, the PYP coordinator and I have to attend a three-day workshop in Hong Kong. (Darn the luck!) And Gail will be a chaperone for a student trip to Bhutan in February. Millie will not be going to India with the swim team (she’s thrilled—says she’s already been to India. Of course, she’s also been to Thailand, too.)
And we still don’t have either shipment, but we are making slow progress on painting and furnishing.
September 18, 2011
Another week has passed here at the American International School in Dhaka. And what a busy week it has been! Millie had her first swim meet, we received our first delivery of things shipped, our first driver resigned, Millie and I attended Mass for the first time in a long time, and our whole apartment has been painted.
Last things first: Millie and the AISD team swam at the International School in Dhaka (ISD) yesterday. Although there were others invited, ours was the only team, so it was like the nice folks at ISD had a swim meet for the AISD kids. Millie was third in every event and swam every stroke except butterfly. Fortunately, it rained almost the entire time, which kept the temperature down—ISD has a covered grandstand for their outdoor pool, we only got a little wet and the swimmers were already wet. She swims again next weekend at the AISD invitational. And, yes, swimming backstroke in rain does get water into your mouth.
The painters came last Sunday and started with Abby’s room—a bright blue (the only room to make Facebook) and Millie’s room—a purple. Our room is taupe. The next day they painted the office bright yellow and the foyer a blue gray slate. Tuesday they did not paint because our cook had told them he could not be present. But they came back Wednesday and finished the dining room and living room in Tuscan gold.
This all worked out well. The shipment was delivered Tuesday morning, and painters would have been in the way. I stayed home to oversee the delivery of the stuff. Everything from India had been boxed up into two big plywood crates—59 cardboard boxes in all. Six guys carried it all up the two flights of stairs and placed it all in our living room. This part took less than an hour. The next hour and half was spent unloading each box, at least to the point of determining whether anything was broken. As it turns out two framed pieces for my office—a 19th century map of India and an art class project by one of my 5th graders—had their glass broken, but that was the extent of the damage. We are told we can get these repaired locally for three or four dollars.
Thursday afternoon our driver told us that he was resigning immediately to take a job with Chevron, who will pay him about twice what we pay him. He’s a nice guy with a family, so we don’t begrudge him. The school has just laid off a driver that they didn’t need, so we’ll have somebody new by tomorrow (Sunday).
We went to our first dress-up evening out last night. The British High Commission women’s club holds a ‘Casino Night’ where they set up roulette and blackjack tables as a fundraiser for their charitable efforts. We used our driver one last night to take us the six blocks and back. Millie went to a school dance, so she got to dress up, too. I would share that too, but Millie doesn’t have much to say.
We were all invited to Mass at our neighbor’s apartment last week. Gail was a little under the weather and stayed home, but since Mr. Gabriel had prepared his best chicken curry for the Pot Luck dinner, Millie and I represented the family. There were 10 in attendance. It was more like the original church we think—more talk from the congregation and less from the priest. Father Tim is from Springfield Illinois and went to more Cardinals games before his first communion than Millie and I have ever.
This week Gail is invited to the American Women’s Club, and I have an invitation to a reception at the U.S. embassy. And we have a couple parties already scheduled. Busy, busy, busy. And we need to teach Mr. Gabriel how to make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for the swim team.
And about two hours ago we felt the earthquake from Sikkim province, straight north of here in India, between Nepal and Bhutan.
Take care,
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