10 Good Things About Dhaka

After my previous article on the ten craziest things that have happened to me so far in Bangladesh, I wanted to write a follow-on top ten list of the good things about Dhaka. I did have to think outside the box quite a bit to come up with ten, but here they are:

1. The street food in all its varieties. Costing anywhere from ten to fifty cents, it's both tasty and affordable. As long as you're not too squeamish about hygiene, that is. A big favorite here, especially among Bangladeshi girls, is a treat called Fujka. It's hard to describe it, but imagine a sweet and spicy filling inside a fried, tortilla chip like crust. I personally really like to get a snack (I don't know what it's called) made of an egg mashed up with onions, garlic, chilis, and other vegetables. They wrap it in an old flyer and give you a business card cut in half to use as a spoon. And while there are Western-style cafes where you can buy coffee for $3 a pop, the original Bangladeshi "cafes" are small roadside tea stalls. The tea costs six taka (about ten cents). There you can see Bangladeshis congregating, milling about, chatting, and relaxing.
2. Most people here are very kind. I've almost never had a problem stopping people to ask for help or for directions, and many times bystanders have helped me out spontaneously by translating when I was struggling to communicate with someone who didn't speak much English. People here can be so nice that I've literally been spoonfed by a complete stranger! And of course, there are the small acts of kindness, like when a restaurant worker gave me a free bottle of water when I was dehydrated after a workout, or when the tea stall workers take out a stool for you to sit on.
3. People here tend to be very optimistic, which I think is a good thing. They know their country has many problems, but they also recognize that those problems afford many opportunities, as well. Many times in conversation Bangladeshis have affirmed that now is the time to be in Bangladesh, when it is really starting to grow and take off. And they are always thinking about ways to take advantage of that opportunity to improve their situation! A staple conversation piece, at least with middle-class Bangladeshis, is about their plans to launch some kind of business or venture and made oodles of money. So far I've had Bangladeshis pitch me ideas like a paintball field, fish exporting, a garments industry middleman business, and a visa arranging service for Bangladeshis wanting to travel in the Americas.
4. Necessities are very inexpensive. At a street restaurants you can get a big lunch for anywhere from $1 to $3, and bottled water costs maybe 25 cents. Clothing is dirt cheap as well, mainly because Bangladesh makes so much of the world's garments. The factories routinely produce overruns or stock that doesn't quite meet the quality control standards of their clients. Usually, they are obligated by contract to destroy these, but most find their way into stalls on the street where you can buy them on the cheap. Good shirts can be had for less than $5, and pants rarely cost more than $10. Oh, and if you're a cell phone addict, the rates here are very affordable. I loaded my phone with $2.5 of credit about 3 weeks ago and I still have almost a dollar in credit left.
5. Dhaka pushes the expatriates together. I've met a few really cool people here from all over the world: New Zealand, Italy, Morocco, Hong Kong, etc. And perhaps because it can be so hard to meet new people in a small expat community in a place like Dhaka, you wind up getting to know your friends much better than you probably would at home. As an aside, one New Zealand woman I met works in one of the expat clubs as a hair stylist. She offered to cut my hair for free because she hated my haircut so much. She said it was worth it just so she wouldn't have to see it all the time!  This was right after I'd had my hair cut for $2 by a Bangladeshi barber who didn't understand my instructions very well, so I blame it on him. Teasing aside though, she did it free of charge because we'd become friends. I doubt I could have struck up a friendship with someone like her anywhere else but in Dhaka!
6. Western environmentalists could learn a thing or two about recycling from Bangladeshis. While Dhaka in particular has a major pollution problem, Bangladeshis are kings of recycling. Nothing here gets thrown away, but is rather passed around until it is falling apart. Then it is fixed until and used again and fixed until it is beyond repair, when it is dismembered and the pieces get reused to repair other second hand (or third, or fourth, or fifth) hand items. For example, I was chided by a colleague for throwing away an old hair trimmer that had stopped working. I had bought it for maybe $15 in Europe, and to me it was a cheap enough device that when it stopped working, I threw it away. My colleague rescued it and promptly tried selling it second-hand. This applies for anything: cars, fridges, air conditioners. Heck, the buses here get so much life squeezed out of them that they seem to be more rust than metal.
7. You can get away with a lot. In the US, we say death and taxes are the only two certainties in life. Unless you're in Bangladesh- then the only certainty is death. Seriously, it seems like there's very little that can't be accomplished with a bit of money to grease the grooves of the machine. Don't want to wait in line, or want to get an application fast-tracked? Cough up a little bit of money and the wait disappears. This corruption in general isn't a good thing, and I debated about including it in this list, but the option is there if you're willing to take advantage of it. Foreigners in particular seem to get a bit of a free pass. Again, not a good thing in general, but the discrimination definitely exists, and in this case, it can work in your favor. For example, when I flew into Dhaka I was the only foreigner on the flight. While everyone had to stand in line to get their bags checked, I was waved through security without so much as passing my bags through an x-ray machine.
8. While Dhaka is a huge city of many millions in a country of 160 million, it is easy to meet "important" people and move up the social ladder quickly. In the short time I've been here, I've been introduced (albeit briefly) to top level government ministers and some pretty successful business people in the country. Ultimately I think it's because the upper class and upper-middle class are such a small group, you've got to rub elbows with important people at some point just because everybody knows everyone else. This rule extends to other fields, too. For example, a musician I met here mentioned that because of how small and nascent the music scene is in Dhaka, it's easy to get gigs even as a mediocre musician.
9. The idea of exploring Bangladesh outside of Dhaka! In general, Dhaka is a difficult city to live in as a foreigner: it's noisy, polluted, hard to get around, and decently expensive. But I've routinely heard Bangladeshis say that Dhaka is the worst part of Bangladesh. That makes me eager and hopeful to explore the countryside, something I haven't yet been able to do because of the nature of my work here. But in the next month I'll have the opportunity to verify the veracity of this claim. Until then, it's comforting to think that Dhaka is not representative of Bangladesh as a whole.
10. If you can carve out a good life in Dhaka, then you can live a good life anywhere! Like #9, this one is a bit of a cop-out, because in a way I'm more making a statement about how Dhaka is such a difficult place to live in as a foreigner. Indeed, there's no sense pretending like it is a great city. But that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying my time here, or learning a lot. And that's exactly what I mean with this point. Yes, Dhaka is a difficult place to live in. But in spite of that, a good, enjoyable life can be made here. The city and its people have a lot to teach. At least, I am learning a lot about myself and the world. To me, these are empowering thoughts. If I can carve out a niche for myself and lead a fulfilling life in Dhaka, then I can probably do the same and make the most of my life anywhere else in the world. I suppose what I'm saying is that a good life (however you want to define that!) is location-agnostic.

Shesh- finished!