One of the several items I remembered from the Fulbright orientation was that we should not expect schedules to be kept or well-laid plans to be carried out. This having been my fifth trip to Bangladesh, and also having traveled to Columbia and Mexico, this did not come as a surprise. Nevertheless, I hoped things would go more smoothly than they have.
            My original understanding was that classes would commence on 1 January, and I would have 40 M.S. students. After several permutations on this plan we arrived at a figure of 70 M.S. students and a starting date of 1 February. This was both good and bad news. The good news was that I would have more time to be relaxed around my family which joined me for the first three weeks of the stay. The bad news was that 70 is a lot of students for a lab course and I had lost valuable time for the amount of material I intended to deliver. More good news: the faculty members are very generous with their time and very interested in helping make the course successful; I am certain it will be a productive experience for all of us.
           We arrived in Dhaka on 29 December, met with the U.S. Embassy the same day and then headed out to Mymensingh. Dhaka is a large chaotic and highly polluted city with a crush of people, rickshaws and vehicular traffic. It is also extremely stimulating and always interesting. Men pull large handcarts full of produce, metal, garbage or whatever needs to be moved, right along side and in between motorized vehicles and rickshaws. At red lights vehicles may or may not stop and occasionally vehicles are driven the wrong direction on divided highways; Bangladesh is not a place for the casual or timid driver.
           Pictures of street scenes in Bangladesh hardly portray the live experience. Absent in the two dimensional portraits are the blaring horns, the strong smells of diesel smoke, open sewers, incense, and cooking stalls; and especially absent are the frenetic vehicular traffic and rickshaws with pedestrians constantly weaving in and out as the stalling of the traffic permits. When traffic comes to a stop beggars come into the traffic and tap on the windows. The blind and the crippled are often assisted to the cars by young children. Boys and girls selling maps, popcorn, books, flowers and food are also numerous. Among all of this turmoil are street sweepers stooped nearly in half and others doing repair work on the road that pay little or no attention to the threat of a collision.
          The trip to Mymensingh starts with a long introduction to the sprawl of Dhaka as you head out of the city proper. As the country opens up the vehicular traffic eases a bit and the speed of the vehicles increase considerably. The Dhaka-Mymensingh road used to be in such bad shape that motor vehicles could only get up to high speed for relatively short distances. Now the road is a nearly perfect ribbon of asphalt all the way to Mymensingh. For the inexperienced passenger the drive is terrorizing. Buses, many with cargo and 20 people on the roof, and trucks overloaded with bricks or sand compete with drivers in vans and cars for the elusive front of the pack. This dangerous game of vehicles overtaking one another results in several spectacular wrecks each day resulting in many deaths and injured people. As you watch out of the front window you witness one close call after another. Bangladesh has the highest per capita motor vehicle death rate in the world and this would come as no surprise to someone visiting the country. Drivers have no respect for pedestrians, rickshaws and motorcycles which they frequently force off of the road rather than slow down.
           I prefer to watch the countryside unfold out of the side window rather than look toward the oncoming traffic. Always people working in the fields or in the villages, carrying wares, digging and plowing, cooking, transplanting, and washing clothes. Rice paddies are the most familiar site but brick factories, boat traffic, fish ponds and dwellings roll by. Villages with markets and truck stops are particularly intriguing. Bangladeshis are a colorful people, the men figuratively and the women literally. When we stop to rest at these areas we attract a lot of attention, particularly my wife and 19 year-old short-haired blond daughter. Most Bangladeshis are genuinely interested in us and if they know a phrase in English, they will use it.
          The 115 kilometer 2.5 hr ride ends at Bangladesh Agricultural University, just outside of Mymensingh proper. From the BAU web page: “Bangladesh Agricultural University was established as the East Pakistan Agricultural University on 18 August 1961. The present name was adopted in 1972. The University is 4 kilometer south of the Mymensingh town and occupies a 1200 acre area by the side of Old Brahmaputra River.” (http://agri-varsity.tripod.com/bau-intr.html).
           I am staying in the International Guest House, a house that was refurbished with USDA funds. There are three rooms to-let, a sitting room and a screened in porch. There is a small pavilion in the back yard where I can sit and play my guitar while I look out over the Old Brahmaputra River. The Month of January has been foggy every morning making for beautiful sunrises over the water. Boats move sand, cattle, people and produce up the river and a half dozen local boats move college students across the river for tea or simply to enjoy a relaxing time on the river. You can watch farmers tending their fields across the river and planting rice on the bank as the water recedes. From December through May very little rain will fall and the water level of the river will continue to drop.
          TThe BAU market place, which is a local hangout for college students, offers a bevy of shops selling all kinds of convenient personal items, snacks, etc. Xeroxing can be done for about 1 taka per page. Fresh vegetables, spices, fish, live chickens, goat heads, rice and everything else you would want for supper in is available. Internet is available for 20 taka per hour but the broad band connection is very slow compared to what is available at UMass.
           After a few days in Mymensingh we headed back to Dhaka to fly to Cox’s Bazaar (southeastern Bangladesh) which has the longest beach in the world, about 75 miles. Young Bangladeshi tourists come here to watch the sunset which is exactly what we did. The sunsets were simply stunning, every night. The wet beach sand, water and sky becomes alive with color. Kids ply the beach with wares to sell or things to eat. Bangladeshis do not swim in the ocean, they wade a bit, but Michael braved it.
           From Cox’s Bazaar we took a jostling 2.5 hour van ride south to Teknaf, a river town where ferries come and go. From Teknaf we took a 2.5 hr ferry boat ride to St. Martins Island, a small fishing island in the Bay of Bengal. What a gorgeous place. We stayed in a new but unfinished hotel. No hot water (not even a faucet for it), no television (thank goodness), no telephone, and no electricity for much of the day, but the accommodations were modern and very nice. The food was delicious. The scenery in St. Martins (coconut island to the Bangladeshis) includes many coconut trees, both sandy and rocky beaches, many fishing boats and small villages. Sunrises and sunsets were breathtaking. The island is small enough to walk the perimeter in a day.
          My family was scheduled to head back to the U.S. soon so we spent two days in Dhaka, mostly on business, and then headed back to Mymensingh to relax and enjoy Eid with our Muslim friends.
          Eid (Eid-ul Azha), which occurred on 11 January, was quite an interesting cultural experience for us. It is the time when Muslims sacrifice animals to commemorate the sacrifice of Hazrat Ibrahim. According to the local paper, about 4 million bulls, and as many goats are sold in the market for slaughter. As we walked down the driveway we came upon our neighbor family sacrificing their second bull. The animal’s legs were unceremoniously tied up; the bull pushed over and its throat slit with a long knife. As we walked across campus, bulls were being slaughtered all over and by afternoon, they were dressed and cut up into small pieces. According to custom, one third of the meat stays with the family, one third goes to relatives and one third goes to the poor. Local poor people were walking through campus picking up bags of meat as they went along. That evening we visited and dined with several families, as is the custom for Eid.
           The department of Plant Pathology is exactly a half mile walk from my residence, and I look forward to the walk each morning. On the way I pass students and professors walking; goats, cows, many rickshaws, bicycles and a few motor vehicles. The large, red auditorium on the way has a dramatic statue of three freedom fighters, one of which is a woman. The buildings on campus look much older than they are owing to the fact that they desperately need a coat of paint, and mold growth resulting from the long hot rainy season. The buildings on campuses have security like Fort Knox. A metal gate with an impressively large padlock cordons off the entry way to the building, and each floor has a similar locked gate. All of the offices including mine have large padlocks which people are in the habit of locking whenever they leave their offices, even for a short time. The bathrooms are also locked. My office is austere but just fine. It has a desk, cabinet, sink, clock and window but the window certainly has not been cleaned since the building was built. The window cannot be cleaned from the inside because of the metal grating that covers it.
           The faculty members are very friendly and stop by to introduce themselves or offer a greeting. My assistant, Mohammad Monirul Islam (Monir), a graduate student of Professor Bahadur Meah, takes me to the market for tea and makes sure everything is going well. Lately we have been discussing practicals (lab exercises), and collecting plant material for the clinical plant pathology course. I have been enjoying my participation in several English classes. In exchange for my effort, Professor Abdul Razzjack is teaching me Bangla.
            For breakfast I eat an egg or two scrambled with some onion and chili pepper, parathas or chapatis and coffee (yes, I brought beans from home). I have lunch at the Teacher Student Center. My lunch costs 20 taka (about 30 cents) and is always delicious. Rice, dhal, vegetables, and fish beef or chicken are served fresh every day. The cook prepares all of the food on the floor, true to her Bangladeshi heritage, from fresh ingredients picked up from the market each day. Spoons are available (forks rare) but I find it much more satisfying to eat like my colleagues with my unadorned right hand. Feeling the temperature and texture of the food with your hand before it goes into your mouth provides a more complete dining experience. Fish tend to be bony but absolutely delicious. Lunch is my favorite and largest meal. I tend to skip supper because I often have tea and a snack late in the afternoon. Also, the amount of oil I consume provides enough calories to take me through to the next day.
           Now that I am getting settled into a routine, I try to get up about 6:30 and run 5 miles or so, stop by the gym and move a few primitive weights around. I walk as much as possible, 4, 5 or more miles in a day, and try to play some badminton or table tennis. While I am reasonably good at badminton and table tennis in the states, I am rather pitiful compared to the deshi players. When I find time, I play my guitar for 30 minutes and read a few pages of the Qur’an. I recently discovered that a local group of young people get together every night about 6:00 pm and play traditional Bangladeshi music. I will try to sit in and listen when I can. Ok, enough of the summary; from here on, I will post items chronologically as I get an opportunity.