Well, let me introduce you to our wall. It stands next to our kitchen and upon our arrival into the house it was bare, and we didn't know what we should do to decorate it. But on the arrival of our subscription to the leading english daily newspaper in Bangladesh - The Daily Star, we had found our decoration solution.
What intrigued us in the first few weeks of living here, and still intrigues us today, are some of the news articles that are featured in the paper. The wall is absolutely packed now, and articles that make the 'cut' are scrutinised even more so now.
In this Blog I just want to give you a feeling of the crazy things that happen here in Bangladesh and also the strange articles that make national news!
Crossfire deaths
The articles that originally initiated the wall, crossfire deaths are deaths where criminals are "accidentally" shot by an elite military policing force called the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). It is well known that a 'crossfire death' is the deliberate murder of a well known criminal (or person against the state). Basically the RAB are judge, jury and executor. I know that many of you will be a gasp of this force, but the Bangladesh people have really taken a liken to them as unfortunately they are the only way that justice can be reached within this corrupt society. Unfortunately in such a gruesome and unjust way. Our wall would include over 30 crossfire deaths, originally there were 2-5 a week but now we would see one a fortnight. Here is a link to all of the references to crossfire on the Daily Star website... totaling 1490 articles!
But I should also mention that the elite RAB force don't have it all their way - Mob beat up 2 Rab men
Biman Articles
Biman is the governments national airline carrier here in Bangladesh, it is famous for not turning up on time and leaving many people stranded. We would maybe have maybe 5 articles about Biman on our wall. Anyone that knows Christina, ask her about her 36 hour delay from Biman! I have heard that their average delayed time is 12 hours! Favourite article is Int'l airports warn Biman of boycott
Obscure murders and deaths
Although not pleasant, these articles are really strange. Some deaths that occur here are beyond belief and if you saw such a story in an Australian paper you would be shocked and in disbelief. Here are just a few of them:
- Schoolboy murdered over cricket match
- 2 biscuits cost child's life!
- Rickshawpuller beaten to death over fare
- Train guard killed on board
And of course there are always the "trampled by an elephant" and "eaten by the tiger" articles every so often.
CNG Blasts
Bangladesh has a massive amount of natural gas reserves, and all cars here run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Every time you fill up it is required that you step out of the car and give yourself 5m's because the tanks are really badly made and will often blow up. We would see the graphic aftermath photos once a month from such blasts. Example and photo
Indian Border Security Force (BSF)
Some of you may have read that India is creating a 1300km fence/wall to keep Bangladeshis out of India. The fence is yet to be finished and the way that they keep the Bangladeshis out is to shoot them. Guaranteed that there will be one killing in the paper each week. BSF, Indian criminals kill 297 in 4 yrs
Earthquakes
Although Bangladesh has made the world news for every natural disaster known to man this year (Floods, Landslides, Cyclone Sidr and Tsunami Alerts) the earthquake is still yet to hit here. Touch wood that Bangladesh never have to deal with a natural disaster that reaps devastation as much as the ones this year, but on our wall there is 5 small articles about a mild tremor hitting the country... articles that are so small that you would only expect to see them in papers in Tokyo and LA. Tremor jolts country (searching mild tremor on Dailystar.net returns 98 results!)
Mass Hysteria
One of my most favourite sets of articles on the wall is from a period around August where there was a disease that was tagged "mass hysteria" by the media that was happening in a multiple of random places all throughout Bangladesh. The disease was targeting female teenagers. What would happen is that one person would feel sick and nauseas and when she fainted it would trigger a domino effect of fainting, there were cases where a school would be affected and 70+ students at a time would faint, followed by the teachers! Here is an example of one of the articles, but to get a better understanding read all these articles!
Personifying Diarrhoea
Diarrhoea is highly common throughout Bangladesh and there is no surprise that there are quite a few articles on it during the flood season. What I really loved about the articles this year was how diarrhoea has been personified to represent almost an army out there attacking Bangladesh, check out the following headlines:
- 2 killed 300 attacked in three days
- 1.1 lakh attacked by diarrhoea since mid-July
- 35,000 attacked with diarrhoea (I can only visualise an army attacking people with buckets!)
- Diarrhoea killed seven people and attacked 964
Well that's a list is the types of articles that are on our wall, but my 2 favourite articles on there don't fall into any of these categories because they are just so strange and weird. Enjoy
Bull trouble at ZIA
I don't believe I have to comment on this article... you just have to read the first paragraph! (note: Zia is the only international airport in Dhaka!)
A runaway bull wound up being on the tarmac of the Zia International Airport early yesterday. It left the area on its own but not before keeping some 22 security personnel running after it for around two hours.
(I would also like to point out that the bull was never caught "The animal got out of the runway area on its own"
50kg chunk of ice falls from the blue!
This was front page material that day... nothing more ever came out of it.
