Operation Rescue Kitten

So I rescued an abandoned kitten from the street by our apartment yesterday. It was all wet and shivering and covered with lice. I gave it a bath and I've been feeding it milk from a dropper. It must not be more than two weeks old, if that. We've named it "Jibon," which means life. Currently our cat Shonna isn't so thrilled about the new family edition. She's been hissing at it. (By the way, we just found out that "she" is a she...we thought she was a he!) Anyway, hopefully she'll warm up to the idea and they'll be friends.

Me Decked out in Saris for the wedding

Here's me in my sari outfits that I wore for Shammi's wedding! The middle picture is with Shumi (Shammi's sister). Salma also wore a sari for the wedding! I'll put a picture of her in a sari on her blog: allaboutsalma.blogspot.com.

Shammi's Wedding, Part 4: The Reception

So the day after the wedding, everybody gets dressed up one more time for the reception. This is the ceremony where everybody pulls out their gold and gets all decked out in the fanciest jewelry they've got. Shumi let me borrow some of her gold jewelry so I could be properly decked out. There's not much ritual ceremony connected to the reception--mainly everybody eats a bunch of food, and takes a bunch of pictures with the bride and groom. And...that's it--the whole wedding ceremony!

Shammis Wedding, Part 3: Coming Home

As I said in the last post, coming home to the groom's house on the wedding night has its own set of ceremonies. The groom's mom traditionally doesn't actually go to the marriage ceremony, because she's supposed to be home preparing the house for her new daughter-in-law. We all also got there before Shammi and Nuresha, and helped get things ready. When they arrived, Shammi's mom was at the front door to greet them with some sweets and cold drinks (see the bottom photo). Then we turned up the music to dance and celebrate--Azfar's brother and sisters, cousins, and I (and Salma and Jasra, of course). But the bride is supposed to be very demure and reserved, so she sat on the couch watching us dance. That didn't last long, as we felt bad for her. She looked really tired and it didn't seem much fun for her to sit there watching us. So we moved on to the next part of the ceremony, which is letting the bride and the groom enter their room, which has been specially decorated (see the top photo). Usually some of the sisters or sister-in-laws of the groom block the entrance to the room and demand a bribe before they will let the bride and groom pass. Azfar's sister-in-law Urmi pulled me over to participate in this, so we stood on one side of a red ribbon tied across their bedroom door, and Urmi and Shumi (Shammi's sister) were teasing Shammi and Nuresha, bargaining with them over how much it was worth to them to be able to get into the room. After a bit of haggling, a sheepishly smiling Nuresha slipped some money into Shumi's hand, and Shumi cut the red ribbon and we let them pass. And that was the end of the marriage day ceremony! But wait, there's more to come! The next day we had the reception. Stay tuned...

Shammi's Wedding, Part 2: The Actual Wedding Ceremony

So on the marriage day the ceremony was held at the community center in Rajshahi, which is set up for weddings. When we arrived for the wedding with Shammi, the first part of the ceremony took place before we could even get inside. The sisters of the bride blocked the entrance to the front door and Shammi had to go through a ritualistic bargaining over how much he would pay to the bride's family so that he could marry her. After some haggling and teasing back and forth, both parties felt satisfied with the "price," and we were allowed to enter the hall. Inside there were two separate small rooms on either side of the main entrance. In one room the groom sits, and in the other room the bride sits. (The bottom two photos are of Shammi & Nuresha in their separate rooms.) As guests are arriving, they can visit Shammi in his room and Nuresha in her room, but as I mentioned before, the bride and groom don't get to see each other until after they are officially married. So everybody eats a big feast, and then the marriage certificate is signed by the bride and groom separately, and only then (about 2 hours after the ceremony began) do they get to sit together. When they sit together, they're not supposed to directly look at each other, though. (I guess it's a sign of modesty.) So someone actually holds a mirror up so they can see each other through the reflection of the mirror rather than looking each other directly in the face. Then at the end of the ceremony, the bride is supposed to burst into tears over the fact that she is leaving her parents' home. On cue, Nuresha burst into tears and her mom and all her sisters did too. So, with everybody sobbing, they led Shammi and Nuresha out to their car, which was covered in flowers. Then they drove off together, to go to Shammi's mother's house. (There's a whole ceremony connected to the homecoming, too...I'll describe that in the next post.)

Shammi's Wedding, Part 1: Holud Ceremonies

Here are photos from Shammi's and Nuresha's wedding in Rajshahi (a large town in northern Bangladesh). Shammi is Azfar's cousin. Shammi has been living in New York, but he came back to Bangladesh to get married. It was an arranged marriage--Azfar's sister choose Shammi's bride for him. I had been very skeptical of arranged marriages before coming to Bangladesh, but now my attitude has changed a bit after meeting a number of happily married people whose marriages have been arranged. Anyway, Shammi and Nuresha seem very happy together.
So, back to the marriage ceremony...the whole ceremony is quite elaborate, and lasts a total of four days. The first day, the groom's family (except for the groom) all go to the bride's house for a "holud" (turmeric) ceremony. (The bride and groom don't get to see each other during the whole marriage ceremony, until AFTER they've actually said their vows and signed the marriage document. I guess this is to make sure there is no "hanky panky," so to speak, before they are officially married!) Anyway, for the holud ceremony, the bride sits on a platform decorated with flowers (see the top photo), and the groom's family brings her gifts, and feeds her lots of food (see the second photo). Everybody takes a turn hand-feeding her a piece or two of sweets, fruit, and other foods, and then they smear a bit of holud (turmeric) on her forehead and face. The turmeric is supposed to be good for the skin, and make it shiny and pretty for the wedding. So we all went over to Nuresha's house for the holud ceremony, while Shammi waited at home anxiously. We filled him in about how gorgeous she looked, of course, as soon as we got home. Then the next day was Shammi's holud ceremony, so it was Nuresha's family's turn to come to our family's house and bring food and gifts for Shammi, and it was Nuresha's turn to sit at home, anxiously waiting to hear how things went. In the next post, I'll describe the marriage ceremony itself.

In Azfar's home village

We just got back from a trip to Rajshahi. We went to Azfar's home village and to his cousin Shammi's wedding. We were there for a week. Here's some shots in Azfar's village. The top shot is a view looking out into the rice fields that surround the village. The shot below that is of a hay stash for the cows, who often roam through the village. The third picture is of a typical clay house in the village. The clay is really strong, and holds together even through the monsoons. And clay has its own built-in air conditioning system! Sitting inside the clay rooms on a hot afternoon, you would think there was an AC running! But of course most of the houses in the village don't have any electricity. The fourth shot is of fresh red peppers that had just been picked--drying in the sun. In the fifth shot you can see what people use for firewood in the village: cow dung dried on sticks. There's just not enough firewood to go around, so dung works very well to keep the fires going. Very ingenious, if you ask me! Nothing goes to waste in the village, not even cow dung! The last shot is Azfar and Salma--this is Azfar's first trip to his home village in eleven years! Some of his family members there just cried when they saw him. They've been waiting such a long time to see him again. It was really moving. Anyway, his family in the village was very welcoming to me, and extremely hospitable. What little they had to offer, they shared willingly, and served us a huge feast, something I'm sure they couldn't really afford to do. We also went to two other villages--Azfar's dad's brother's village (in other words, Azfar's uncle), and Azfar's mom's home village. In his mom's village we saw the mud hut where Azfar was born, which is now part of his uncle Tuku's house. Azfar's mother also wanted the midwife who helped her give birth to Azfar, to see him again. We went to the midwife's house, and it was really sad to see her lying basically on her deathbed. Azfar's mom brought her a sari and told her who Azfar was, but she could barely open her eyes and I'm not sure she was fully coherent, but she did say hello. We all had tears in our eyes. So that was three villages in one day. Whew! It was a long but special day.

At the Park

Here's Salma and I at a park in Gulshan by the American club. This park has a really beautiful lake, as you can see (as long as you don't look too closely and notice the garbage floating in it!).

Beef: It's What's for Dinner

This photo is from January, but I just got it developed...here's Audry with our cow that become dinner the next day. Sacrificing a cow is part of the ritual of the Eid that is celebrated on New Year's day (called Eid Corbani). I chickened out on seeing the cow slaughtering--I'm not so crazy about all the bloodshed, but I do have to admit that it was very yummy beef curry that we had the next day.

My office at school

Here's me and mom in my office (ok, my and Azfar's office--currently we're sharing one) at North South University. It's hard to see in this photo, but I plastered my wall with photos of Salma. It always puts me in a good mood to see her face!

Bye mom and dad!

Here's mom and dad saying bye at the airport...mom was here for 10 days, and dad was here for a month. Dad just left on Tuesday. We had a great time with them and we miss them!

Azfar the TV Star

Here is Azfar giving one of his interviews on TV! He has been appearing regularly on tv, giving interviews and discussing various topics including world literature, Baoul music, literary theory, and current politics.