Unforgettable Moments

We all have these small moments that happen in our lives that somehow create a much larger impact upon than one would originally think. Often these moments would be deemed insignificant to another, but instead they tug at your emotional and psychological state so much so that you cannot forget a millisecond of such a moment.

Today I was having my usual Sonibar (Saturday), starting with a late wake up and then a trip down to my local café for breakfast for the usual eggs and toasts. I then took a trip in a CNG (3 wheel auto-rickshaw) to the orphanage, which actually happened to clean up a lady that didn’t look to cross the road and stepped out right in front of us; but she managed to pick herself up again… a tough lesson in road crossing for her. Although it quite shocked me, it still didn’t inflict the aforementioned moment.

I arrived at the orphanage to give the toddler boys their weekly male role-model interaction that they always really look forward to. As soon as I arrived, I was swamped with the screams of “uncle” and “uncy, uncy” as well as numerous cuddles. The afternoon was filled with the usual ball games, the stealing and wearing of my hat and thongs and the odd potty training incident. Again, these few hours didn’t quite create that unforgettable moment, even as it was the last day at the orphanage of one of my favourite toddlers.

I wandered through the old city for a while, and somehow I ended up at the national stadium watching a top-league clash in the national football league. I was admitted into the VIP section for only 100 taka ($1.80). It was an interesting game that ended up goalless, although both teams had legitimate goals ruled out which left me really worried about the livelihood of the referee who was escorted off the pitch by 10 policemen.

In what had been a really fruitful and enjoyable day for me, I jumped in a cyclo-rickshaw just as the monsoonal rains hit. It was whilst on this trip home that the one certain moment was etched into my mind forever. We had come to a stop at a major intersection waiting to cross. Finally we got our chance as the policeman waved us through, surprisingly we were not given even 10 seconds to get across before he was trying to pull us up, many rickshaws continued to go even though the policeman was blowing his whistle and waving his stick. In his fury, the policeman stormed across to where an obedient rickshaw-wallahs had stopped his rickshaw, although hesitantly, upon the policeman’s request. The disgruntled policeman then proceeded to punish him through stabbing his tyres with a sharp object, a method that is sadly all too regularly used.

This was not the moment that will be etched in my memory forever, rather my memory is of the wallah turning around in the monsoonal rain to the hissing of his tyre and I can clearly remember his face dropping into despair as the sole income generating tool of him and his family had just been ruined for the day. His face stared not at me but into oblivion, his eyes welled up and a few tears joined the raindrops that were rolling down his cheek. He had realised not only was he going to have to pay to repair the tyre, he wasn’t going to be able to get any work for the rest of the afternoon. This ultimately meant that he wasn’t probably going to be able to feed his family for the day.

It is amazing how one stupid action can have such devastating effects… sadly this is a problem that happens at a national level here, not just to the poor wallah trying to earn a crust.

Bangladesh - A Fantasy Kingdom???

When it costs US$63 for an adult to get into Disneyland, many tourists do not really blink an eyelid, but here in Bangladesh a trip to “Fantasy Kingdom” only costs US$4 for an adult entry ticket but yet the average bangladeshi's family trip to this kingdom will cost them approximately a tenth of their yearly household income. Although “Fantasy Kingdom” isn’t Disneyland, it is the closest that many of the 140 million Bangladeshi’s will get to “a wonderland where your dreams come true” – a wonderland that doesn’t present any of the realistic elements of the poverty outside but somehow this US$600 million theme-park can exist in a city where approximately a quarter of it population (3 million) live in slums.

My expedition to this new kingdom was lead by intrigue, although I wasn’t sure what I was most intrigued about; was it the intrigue in seeing women in burkha’s going down waterslides, or the chance to experience a western theme-park all for $8, or was it just to see such a juxtaposition within society, or just simply was it a chance to get out of Dhaka? To be honest I think that it was all of these factors that led me to heading north-west of Dhaka in a beaten up old taxi!

After an initial fight with the attendant at the gate about whether he was charging us skin tax on top of the price we had seen in the paper that morning, in retrospect we were arguing over $3, but somewhere between the marketing department and the gates there was a 100% increase. To be honest it is a wonderful advertising ploy, get people to come an hour out of town with the expectation of a day in a “Fantasy Kingdom”… and then offer them the options of a 100% increase in price or a return trip back to a place far from the world of “Fantasy Kingdom”.

So our little aussie possie decided to spend the day in the “water world” half of the kingdom, far from Bangla reality was this kingdom. There were girls showing skin and not getting stared at, teenage boys and girls openly cuddling and flirting in public, no crowd watching the foreigners every second move… and of course $600 million of theme-park fun! But the reality of all of the waterslides, the random water cave disco and the biggest rollercoaster in Bangladesh was all gone when it was time to get stuffed back onto the hot and humid local bus home!