Arrival in Rangpur

Hey friends and family,

I arrived well in Rangpur but I start my little report some days before.

My new technical advisor and another person from my new organization called “Jagorani Chakra Foundation“ (JCF) came to Dhaka to take part of an workshop regarding the one year-vounteer-service of our group. Our group of 6 german volunteers joined this workshop later. Agata and Farjina, our mentors organized everything. At this workshop we had the possibility to get in contact with the new important persons in our lives. The other idea of this workshop was to gather expectations from both sides as well as aims and to get an little impression of my future mentors. 

All volunteers had some time to talk to their responsible persons and it was good for me. We had some topics to discuss and there was almost no shying silence. 

At the end of the workshop we saved a time and a place to meet with our technical advisors to go on the upcoming journey on the next day. I was the lucky one whose bus left at 11am whereas the other busses left at 8 am and 9 am. So I didn‘t need to hurry packing and I could say good bye to my friends. After saying good bye to the last one I tried to find an ATM but I didn‘t. I had 32 Euro left. Thats even in Bangladesh not enough if you move to another city and you want to buy some stuff there, like a stove and all the cooking stuff. I was really worrying about this situation because I really don‘t like to ask my new technical advisor (sorry for these expression, they are made by Weltwärts) for some money just after two days. By the way his name is Mizan. 

So I didn‘t find a possibility to get money and we entered the bus to Rangpur. My expectations regarding as bus in Bangladesh weren‘t that high because I saw the local busses where people sitting on the roof. That‘s the cheapest but most dangerous place. These places are not available in the long distance busses. You will understand later why even bengalis are afraid to sit on the roof of a long distance bus.

All bus-tickets for the beginning of October are sold out since two weeks. The reasons is the second Eid- festival of the muslims. I will explain this festival later. The bus-station from where we left was at the outside of Dhaka but it still took 1 1/2 hours to leave the city. It was a huge traffic, but I could sleep for some minutes. The distance is around 300 km, maybe more or less but it took 9 hours to arrive in Rangpur. The highway here is not like in Germany. The driving rules in Dhaka are really crazy but on the bus-journey I was sometimes really afraid of my life when the bus-driver overtook some other cars, mostly busses or transporters. It seemed like my bus-driver took some LSD or other drugs. No other car overtook us. I‘m used that the bus is the slowest vehicle, but our bus was the fastest. It was a race. When there was a queue he either overtook on the right or on the left side even when there was no street but some precipitous grass.

The streets were so full of cars and transporters because of the upcoming muslim event called Eid. The Eid- festival is two times a year. The upcoming one is the second around six weeks after the first one when the muslims stop fasting. There is a tradition to sacrifice animals. In Bangladesh it‘s mostly cows that are sacrificed but also goats and some chicken. Always as reasonable amount regarding your money situation. 

There were thousands of trucks on the street bringing cows from one place to another. Around 10 cows are on every small transporter. I wasn‘t really happy to see the treatment of these animals. So many animals on such a little space. All these trucks with there beautiful paintings everywhere brought cows to different places. But also a huge amount of people are moving from the cities to the villages where they are actually from. Almost everyone in Dhaka is defining his real home as his/her village where their families come from. 

After arriving in Rangpur Mizan and me went to my new flat. Rana a college lives in this house and organized that I can stay here for the upcoming 11 months. 

Arriving in my flat was a good feeling. „How will my first flat be?“ was the question that was in my mind for the last days and weeks. I had no real expectation just some hopes. 

Then finally I entered my first own flat situated in a house with 3 families. In my flat there is one room with a big bed. One window is in this room with beautiful curtains in the colors of the german flag. I don‘t know if it is intentionally but it looks very nice. An office table is next to my bed with a chair. the wall‘s color is a bright blue. I have a small kitchen where I can cook something and I have a bathroom which I accept but don‘t like. I have a bengali toilet. To be honest I hate this soo much but it‘s almost the only thing I really don‘t like. 

There is a second room in this flats. It is not yet finished but it will be soon. I wonder why I need a second room but I don‘t complain about it. Some unverified sources told me that the rent is 3.500 Taka. That‘s 35 Euro. That‘s not too much. 

The first day in the room was funny. 

The house-owners invited me to eat dinner with them. There are really friendly and open-minded as almost every bengali so far. The college living in this house also went out with me and we talked for some time. I slept at 12 although I was actually very tired because of the bus-journey. 

Office starts at 9 am and it isn‘t far from here, maybe the distance I had to go to school, 5 min. 

When everyone has arrived there I made a little introduction about myself told the new colleges that they should treat me as a college not as a foreign visitor. 

It was the last day before the holidays because of Eid. It is very similar like in school. Almost no work had to be done and we had a lot time to get in contact. There were just men working. It was confusing for me but they are really nice and in average they are really young as the whole bengali population. I can really imagine to have a lot of fun with them all over the year. I went out with some colleges to drink a tea and later I went out again for dinner. Almost all colleges have a motorcycle. The house of the organization is office and garage for motorcycles at the same time. 

Durga-Abbild

After relaxing at work I went out with Mizan and we spend 30 of my 32 Euros for my kitchen stuff. Later we went to the Durga Puja festival of the hindus. Everyone was telling us volunteers that we are lucky to arrive in this time when Puja and Eid is shortly following each other and they also told that the hindu festivals are soo colorful. That‘s true. Puja is really nice. There are different stages presenting the God Durga with a lot of arms. Everything is extremely colorful and there is traditional and modern music played by big speakers. Light-show is also existing. A wonderful thing here in Bangladesh is that the families take their children with them to the events. You always see a lot of children because more children are born then in Germany but the families take them almost everywhere. I like to see this a lot. It‘s wonderful.

She society of Rangpur seems somehow less interested in foreigners than the Dhaka society. This doesn‘t mean that I get as less attention as I get in Germany. No, but also not that much like in Dhaka. After being forced to dance on an empty stage in front of Durga with just one or sometimes two other persons, the situation changed and I got a lot of attention. I think there are 20 videos of me in Facebook now, maybe subtiteled like „Bideshi is dancing ridiculous“ (Bideshi is the bangla word for foreigner). At the beginning I was very shy but after 5 minutes I realized better try to dance as good as possible because you will find yourself on youtube and Facebook. I also didn‘t want to represent Bideshis as unable to dance. 

At the next morning I met with a person I met in Dhaka some days ago. He is from Rangpur and he showed me some parts of the city with a friend. I asked them for an ATM and finally after trying five different ones I was able to get money. Now I have my „HomieATM“ and I will never cheat on this one!

I came home again and prepared to go out with the family living in my house. They invited me to go out with them to buy a cow/bull on the special market. 

We drove there by Riksha. I was sitting on the highest place when I suddenly saw a cow running in in front of our Riksha. A running man tried to hold the bull, but he was stronger and faster, so the man felt down crashed against a house and the bull ran really fast in direction of our Riksha. My heartbeat reached 200 beats per hour remembering my camera in my hand as the most breakable thing. I was so relieved when I noticed that the angry bull is not going to crash with our Riksha. 

But anyway nice first impression when you want to go to a cow/bull-market. 

This cow-market was huge. I guess around 3.000 people were selling and buying cows there. 

A day ago I read in the newspaper that 6.500.000 cows were sacrified for the last Eid-festival. Now I understand how this is possible. All the trucks and and the cows everywhere give me a possibiltity to understand this huge number of 6.5 million.

The cow-market was somehow scarrying. Some cows were really aggressive after being beaten for the whole day while they have no space for themselves but thousands of people watching them. 

The most aggressive one for us. He will die at the 6th of october with 6 Mio. other cows.

My neighbors bought the most aggressive cow for 290 Euro. I wasn‘t so much happy about this decision but.... not my problem! While other people bring their cows to their home, someone took our cow and will bring it for the Eid-eat- day at the 6th of October. By the way „Eid“ is a very good name for this festival. The sense is that the rich families share the meat with their own family with their relatives and the poor people. Every group gets a third of the cow/bull.

In the evening I went to Puja again with another college. After some time the hindu at the same stage as yesterday convinced me to dance for two minutes. When I wanted to leave the stage he expressed that the next song is soo good and I had to dance again. The same procedure again. The same procedure again and again. I left the stage after 20 minutes instead of 2 and 70 people were watching me. By the way there were again 10 mobile phones filming me. 

I was sweating so much after this dance went home in the back of the motorcycle and started to sleep. I woke up and scratched my whole body. I hate mosquitos!!! That‘s not the first time here. That is really bad. Today I bought some screws to fix a mosquito net.

The following days are free because of Eid. I will have some time to explore the City. I got a lot of invitations for Eid, but I think I will close my eyes when they put the knife at the neck of the bull and start to move the knife. I saw a video of the last Eid. I think I don‘t need to see this in reality. 

So I will eat a lot of meat in the next days. 

That‘s how my life goes on here in Rangpur. After the holidays there will be some work for me but now it‘s still like in Dhaka,

holidays!