Rickshawty what's your price?

It's obvious the transportation methods are blowing my mind in this country. The way things work around here are entertaining and provide a pretty well rounded cultural experience. One phenomenon that I have recently become acquainted with are rickshaw rides. Rickshaws is basically a third world country pedi-cabs only on single speed bikes from the early 80s and a carriage that's actually attached to the bike which holds its passengers. They're pretty ornate and their bells harmonize with then incessant honking. I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever watched the travel channel or Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom (that rickshaw might have been pulled by a dude, but the concept and sweet Dr. Jones reference are still there). Taking a rickshaw is an easy and cheap way to travel short distances around the city. A five to ten minute rickshaw ride costs less than $1. It's absurd considering I know some pedi-cabbers in Austin that had some $50 rides during South By.

The rickshaw drivers (peddlers?) are some of the skinniest men I've ever seen in my life. They're not emaciated, just muscular from working out all day. I don't think female rickshaw drivers exist. They might, I've never seen one and I think it's highly unlikely. The presence of men in Dhaka is just greater than women in general... but I digress. We can cover that topic later on.

Internship day one, myself and two other interns decide that we are going to take a rickshaw to BRAC. No one speaks Bangla, the language of the land, but somehow we manage to get across our need to get to BRAC. Being that no one in our threesome had ever been on a rickshaw, we didn't fully understand exactly how we were going to fit three people on one. The carriages can comfortably fit two if you're cool with eliminating your own personal space bubble. So we did what any family does with an extra person; you put that person on someone else's lap. And guess who got to be the Nancy sitting pretty on top...yours truly.

Ultimately that would have been fine if Dhaka's roads were in better condition and the rickshaw driver didn't have to weave through traffic. I was precariously placed on the lap of one of the interns, nearly falling off at every bump or sharp turn. Needless to say, I became instantly close with the two other interns I had just met within the previous 24 hours. Eventually we made it to BRAC University which is a block or two from BRAC Center(where we needed to be) so we counted it as a mild success, got off and paid more than we should have. I felt okay paying a little more just because it had been three of us and I really wanted to focus on the small victory of just getting there without falling off.

The next day, we took another rickshaw. When I handed the guy his money, he demanded more. We danced back and forth between his price and my price. During this short duet, other rickshaws were gathering around interested in the debate. I don't know if the rickshaw dude finally gave in or if I gave in because I was not having the band of rickshaw brothers coming after me, so we met in the middle. I still paid more than I should have according to my Bengali homies.

Naturally there's no fixed fee for these rides. You're supposed to negotiate beforehand so that you and the driver agree on a price for the service. What I've experienced is that there's a tax for being a foreigner and they love taking advantage of little ol' me. I typically ask the Bengali interns how much a ride should cost between the two locations I'm going before I begin traveling. Most of the rides, they say, should be around 30 Taka which is like forty cents. The several times I've attempted to negotiate the price, I've been relatively "successful". Meaning I managed to negotiate a lower price but they're still getting a good deal out of me. Some rickshaws want to take you places because they know you can pay them more more than they'd make otherwise. I think rickshaws benefit from the sympathy card once people really understand how little they're working for. This results in an excessive payment for a short ride and the foreigner walking away feeling better about her/himself for having improved someone's life by a dollar. In reality, all we've taught the rickshaw guy to do is overcharge the shit out of foreigners. What's cool is that some rickshaws refuse to take foreigners altogether because they don't want to deal with you. So they get to decide who, when and how they do their thing. Oh the autonomy and struggles that come with owning a small business. Can I even call it that?

The Bengali people I've met always tell me I've paid too much when I'm just trying to count the small victory of surviving the ride over. They say it's part of the culture and that I just need to do it. I get it, culture, I'm happy to follow suit. However, sometimes it just feels wrong to argue over a ten cent difference with a man who works ten hours days for change. I'd rather just pay the extra ten cents to not get into it with the dude. But then I'm just perpetuating the "foreigner tax" model. This clearly is not the worst catch 22 anyone's ever been in.

Word Vomit and Dhaka Day One.

I think it's fair to assume that anything I write during the immediate days following my 26 hour traveling experience to Dhaka, Bangladesh will be incoherent.  I had a 7 hour delay in the Kuwait airport during which my few entertainments were people watching and then documenting on my iphone my initial thoughts and feelings of this whole ordeal. I can tell you right now that the only reason I've finally created this blog is because I am so exhausted from jetlag, I need something to focus on other than how heavy my eyelids feel.

So for our studio audience out there, let's just recap my lovely trip to the other side of the world. I think I've decided that I really couldn't have picked a further place from the U.S. to visit. In my mind, Dhaka is the last place you fly east to get to; for traveling to other parts of Asia you fly west. Either way, it feels far. The whole journey started on Friday, May 27th when some competent United Airlines check-in counter associates told me my flight to Dulles was cancelled due to inclement weather. Great, no problem, just reschedule me on a flight for the 28th and I'd have been happy. The drama happened when it became my responsibility to coordinate the communication between United and Qatar airlines. Each airline told me the other had to reschedule my flight. After about 40 minutes of holding with United, their customer service representative then informed me that my flight to Dulles had, in fact, not been cancelled and asked if I was able to get back down to the Norfolk airport to catch the flight. A gross miscommunication on their part. My voice was shaking with anger but I thought I did a good job of asserting in a relatively calm manner that they needed to fix their mistake. They had royally screwed up and it just wasn't the kind of stress I needed given that I was already trying keep my anxiety about everything else subdued. By this point in time, my parents had already driven us back to the peninsula. Anyone from the 757 knows that trying to get to Norfolk at 6pm on a Friday evening (especially with an accident just after the tunnel ) just ain't happening. It's like equivalent to I-35 through downtown Austin on a Friday evening. Or the DC metro area any time of the day...There was no way I was making that flight.

It took them an hour and a half to rearrange all of my flight plans and I flew out of Dulles around 6:30pm on Saturday, May 28th. They upgraded me to Economy Plus which didn't occur to me until about four hours into the ten and a half hour flight. Clearly it's been awhile since I've traveled internationally. The majority of my flight to Kuwait was packed with military personnel, both civilian contractors and active duty. Man, if I had a nickel...Since my flight plans were royally screwed by United, they also thought it would be cool to ship my lovely vegetarian meal on the flight I was supposed to be on. The flight attendant was quite rude about it, so I reluctantly ate the noodles around a gross looking piece of chicken and the man next to me was kind enough to offer me his salad. Two vodka cran-apples later (a delightful twist to the standard vodka cran), I fell asleep becoming instantly aware of my upgrade due to the noticeable extra leg room.

Arriving in Kuwait was fun. Growing up as a military child with the Middle East almost always at the forefront of military operations, my assumptions were confirmed; that area of the world really does look like a large sandbox. It was also 112 degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived; a very hot sandbox. I didn't know at the time that my layover would be seven hours so I was happy to be off of the plane. I took a nap across a row of chairs in the terminal because I was quite exhausted. Then I befriended a gentleman by the name of Joel who was waiting for his connecting flight to Baghdad. Joel, as it turns out, is also from Austin. Halfway around the world and I can still find another person who understands my preference for Mopac over I-35. We got coffee and chatted until his flight at 4pm. Quite a lovely fellow. I then spent the next four hours people watching and being stared at. Never in my life have I been the object of curiosity by so many different people. I clearly stood out. It was a fun new dynamic to experience and one that I'll be experiencing for the next seven weeks. Commencing mental preparation now...

Another BRAC intern, Ali, was on the same flight to Dhaka with me but I did not know when she was arriving in Kuwait. The lucky girl arrived right as I was standing in line to board our Kuwait Airways flight to Dhaka. I was the only little white girl in the airport at that time and had not spoken with anyone in around four hours so I was very happy to see her. The flight attendant on this airline was much more accommodating then our delightful United flight attendant and he upgraded my new friend Ali and I to business class. The five hour flight to Dhaka was possibly the best flight I've ever taken. I had plenty of room, the food wasn't half bad, and I had a new friend to get acquainted with. Additionally, the flight attendant was just wonderful, offering us magazines, gum, mints, hand sanitizer and at one point he brought us "ice cream" which in reality was simply cold pudding that had the consistency of cake batter. Regardless of how it got that way, it was enjoyable.

We arrived in Dhaka around 4:30am on the 30th, "two days" after I started traveling. I think the universe should reimburse me one day this year for losing a day to travel. I want my full 365. Immigration, baggage, customs went smoothly. Our transportation, which had been arranged through my dear friend from college, Samier, found us instantly. Of course, it's hard to pick up two American girls from the Dhaka airport and not be able to immediately notice them, especially when I was very specific about the color of my shirt and bag.  A clever move on my part, I thought, just in case we didn't stand out enough.

Right now I do not have all the words to describe to you what it is like being in a developing country for the first time. The drive to our hotel was a great introduction. It's confusing, intimidating, exciting. It made me feel curious, anxious and overwhelmed. There is much to be learned in a very short amount of time. Ultimately, I'm happy I feel excited to be here because I am a long way from home. I know for a fact that there is no amount of preparation I could have done stateside to mentally prepare me for this. It's like trying to describe to someone how painful it is to get a tattoo; you really aren't going to know exactly until you get a one.

So this is all very new and exciting. My first blog post written during my first trip to a third world county. A great time to start in my opinion and also my grandmother would be very angry with me if I didn't document any of this. I only hope someone teaches her how to find this blog. Day one in Dhaka, a relative success.