Hartal Day

Today there was a daylong nationwide hartal (the 6th time this month!), so I did not go into the icddr,b. This nationwide halt to daily life is due to political and governmental backlash from the public. Typically, shops and stores close down for the day, traffic slows, and groups periodically flood the streets to picket and occasionally blow up cars and busses as well as set off handmade bombs. I know some of you reading this are fearful for my safety; I couldn't be any safer where I am. The neighborhood I reside in is filled with police and has never had violence issues.

Yasmin and Sumitra came today around 9am and proceeded to clean our flat. They did not cook any food today as we already have a decent amount of left overs. We have a lot of main dishes, such as dal, vegetable, and eggs, but we ran out of chapattis. They started making some and I decided to join in! Chapattis is made from flour, water and salt. After mixed together well, you separate them into little balls and roll them out with flour and then fry them in a frying pan.



Sumitra frying them

 Jasmine rolling out the chapattis

 



Yours truly



Since our neighborhood, Gulshan 2, is not directly affected by the hartal, my roommates and I decided to take a walk to town to buy a few things. Though the shops are supposedly closed on hartal days, most of them remain open in the areas that are not affected. Lucky for us, the shops were all open!

Nicholas, Jak and I made the 10 minute walk down the street past food vendors and houses to downtown Gulshan. Our first stop was at one of the local markets, Lavendar.

 Inside the market



We have recently made a deal with Sumitra and Yasmin, our housekeepers, that if we each pay them 500 taka a week, they will do the grocery shopping as well as cooking for our us. Because of this, we will not have to shop at the markets so much, only food for breakfast and snacks.

After we stopped by the market we found a place to buy simcards and cellphones. Nicholas hadn't bought a phone yet and I needed a local simcard-- my international one does not work well for local calls. We walked off the street and up a flight of stairs into an outdoor-mall type area that was filled with small stores that sold cell phones and simcards. We got a pretty good deal on prices and managed to buy everything at one store.

On a side note, today was the first day that I had to walk through the traffic downtown! I was scared to take the first step off the sidewalk and into the road behind Jak, but I trust him and it had to be done or we wouldn't have gotten very far. Nicholas and I were joking about how lost we are going to be when Jak leaves because we both don't speak the language and are both still adjusting to everything. We will be fine, though. Not to worry!

 Downtown Gulshan 2



After buying phones and simcards, we made the walk back home. As you can probably tell from my recent posts, I have been anxious to try the mango and lychee fruit that I keep seeing at the local stands on the sides of the road! Lucky for me, they are everywhere! We made a pit stop on the way back to our flat so that I could finally buy my fruit :) at this specific vendor, they would only sell the lychee by bunch and not individually. Since I didn't want 10 of them in a bunch, they let me try one for free. Everyone is very willing to let you try things here, which is a change from home. And not only with the food, but at the hospital as well (my last post I talked about how the head doctor at icddr,b gave me free range of their research and hospital). It is wonderful that everyone is so open to sharing their culture and life with others and are proud of the things they have done and the roots they come from. Anyhow, The lychee fruit has a red colored outer shell and the inside is a cloudy white with a brown oval pit in the center. It tasted amazing! like nothing I've ever had before. I wish I would have taken a picture but I forgot to... don't worry, I will be buying more! I also bought two mangoes which I am planning on eating tonight :)

A few more pictures from today...

our street

Jakir (L) and Nicholas (R) walking up to our flat.

Taka! from 5 taka to 500 taka. Figured Id give you all and idea of what the currency looks like.

 

Well its only 5pm here and I have already settled in for the day. I took a shower and have comfortable clothes on from home and have been enjoying taking the time to write this post to you all. I plan on relaxing the rest of the night, eating some mango and hopefully Skyping my parents and Stu, as per usual :) Hope you all have a wonderful day!

 

Much love,

-C.