I wrote this a few days ago but wasn't able to post.
We spent the last couple days in transit or wandering, fatigued, around Dubai. We didn’t get out much there, but managed to have a couple meals. I didn’t learn too much about the way people live in Dubai, but I did learn that it’s much more embarrassing when your daughter has a tantrum on the streets of a foreign city than it is at home. Oh, and I enjoy date milk. Not all was negative. We all slept about 12 hours the first night there and had our one real meal of the day around 4 in an Indo-Chinese restaurant named “Stand View.” For whatever reason, everyone who went in that place ordered hamburgers. The Indian Chinese was good, but I’m left wondering how good those hamburgers were. Maya spent the meal playing with two girls (Haya and Hala) from a nice Muslim, Northern Sudanese couple and their kids. I’m very shoe and foot conscious when I am in Muslim nations because their views on these things are so far from the Western view (don’t show the bottoms of your feet to people as not to insult them, the shoe is a dirty, dirty thing). Thus, I found it very surprising that this family allowed their kids to eat their whole meals while sitting on the tables, shoes and all. In any case, Maya built a lasting peace and understanding between our nations. Darfur was not discussed.
(One other thing I saw there that I had never seen before: a cat eating a cockroach. Dubai is devoid of the animal life that you find on the street here in Dhaka but does appear to have a fair number of wild kittens).
Our airport experience coming into Dhaka was not so great. I’ll do my best to relay this story while remaining culturally sensitive. Dubai has a lot of itinerant workers. Whereas the US may have Mexican immigrants who come to work in agriculture or meat packing, Dubai appears to have a great number of Bangladeshi’s. So, when we arrived at our gate, just about 95% of the people there were 20-40 year old men, all of which a little rough around the edges. Men who had spent too long in the company of men alone and thus lost a bit of their civility. At the gate, Tania went to use the bathroom, and I sat there with Maya. Tania hadn’t been feeling so well and had been feeling nauseated. A few minutes go by and then I hear someone yelling; I look over toward the bathrooms and Tania is full out yelling at an Emirates Air staffer. There were men in the women’s bathroom smoking; when Tania went in they didn’t leave or apologize for being there. They made her wait for a stall. The flight was mostly sedate but with incidents of the same: people unwilling to follow regulations, smoking in the bathrooms, mad scrums to the door, etc. We later learned that a large number of men on the flight (all the men wearing white pyjama) had been deported from Dubai for overstaying their visas. When we got off our flight, all the men gathered around, as their belongings were sent down the baggage turnstile. All their belongings were bunched together and wrapped in one very large sheet. It was like a giant hobo bindle.
Arriving in Bangladesh this evening allowed us to exhale. The care we get here is immeasurable. At the airport, we were greeted by Tania’s Berry Phupu (Aunt) and Panna Phupa (Uncle) and cousin Salman. They were accompanied by several airline officials who did everything for us: they took our documents, had them checked, and we never saw a single line. The most I had to do was point out our luggage, and no one here let me lift a single thing. It’s very nice. We went back to their house, had a nice dinner, and went to bed. It’s hot and exceedingly humid but what is new. I just have to get used to sweating. Maya doesn’t seem to care, which is a relief.
Well, I’m up late because I had a mefloquine fueled dream. Mefloquine, our anti-malarial drug of choice for this trip, has “vivid dreams” as one of its side effects. My dream this evening was of thousands and thousands of strands of different colors and in some cases, flavors (some tasted of mango). What disturbed me about these strands is that they seemed to present some sort of choice for me, some fate perhaps, and all were associated with some probability. Probability of what? Who knows. My problem was that I was trying to solve these strands, pull them apart, make some sense of them and then choose a direction. Hence, I am awake at 5 AM. Tomorrow is a lax day. We get the boys on Saturday.
(One other thing I saw there that I had never seen before: a cat eating a cockroach. Dubai is devoid of the animal life that you find on the street here in Dhaka but does appear to have a fair number of wild kittens).
Our airport experience coming into Dhaka was not so great. I’ll do my best to relay this story while remaining culturally sensitive. Dubai has a lot of itinerant workers. Whereas the US may have Mexican immigrants who come to work in agriculture or meat packing, Dubai appears to have a great number of Bangladeshi’s. So, when we arrived at our gate, just about 95% of the people there were 20-40 year old men, all of which a little rough around the edges. Men who had spent too long in the company of men alone and thus lost a bit of their civility. At the gate, Tania went to use the bathroom, and I sat there with Maya. Tania hadn’t been feeling so well and had been feeling nauseated. A few minutes go by and then I hear someone yelling; I look over toward the bathrooms and Tania is full out yelling at an Emirates Air staffer. There were men in the women’s bathroom smoking; when Tania went in they didn’t leave or apologize for being there. They made her wait for a stall. The flight was mostly sedate but with incidents of the same: people unwilling to follow regulations, smoking in the bathrooms, mad scrums to the door, etc. We later learned that a large number of men on the flight (all the men wearing white pyjama) had been deported from Dubai for overstaying their visas. When we got off our flight, all the men gathered around, as their belongings were sent down the baggage turnstile. All their belongings were bunched together and wrapped in one very large sheet. It was like a giant hobo bindle.
Arriving in Bangladesh this evening allowed us to exhale. The care we get here is immeasurable. At the airport, we were greeted by Tania’s Berry Phupu (Aunt) and Panna Phupa (Uncle) and cousin Salman. They were accompanied by several airline officials who did everything for us: they took our documents, had them checked, and we never saw a single line. The most I had to do was point out our luggage, and no one here let me lift a single thing. It’s very nice. We went back to their house, had a nice dinner, and went to bed. It’s hot and exceedingly humid but what is new. I just have to get used to sweating. Maya doesn’t seem to care, which is a relief.
Well, I’m up late because I had a mefloquine fueled dream. Mefloquine, our anti-malarial drug of choice for this trip, has “vivid dreams” as one of its side effects. My dream this evening was of thousands and thousands of strands of different colors and in some cases, flavors (some tasted of mango). What disturbed me about these strands is that they seemed to present some sort of choice for me, some fate perhaps, and all were associated with some probability. Probability of what? Who knows. My problem was that I was trying to solve these strands, pull them apart, make some sense of them and then choose a direction. Hence, I am awake at 5 AM. Tomorrow is a lax day. We get the boys on Saturday.
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