And Yet More Crazy Rain

Ok, so yesterday Dhaka got 4 inches of rain in 6 hours. It was insane. I borrowed this photo from the Daily Star website. This is on Mirpur Road, which is on the way to Azfar's parents' house. This is the same spot we had to drive through on Thursday night when we were trying to get to their house--it was flooded then too. Yesterday, alot of the streets in Dhaka looked more like canals than streets. In front of our apartment, there was at least two feet of water in the road, and we watched cars trying to plow through and getting their engines flooded. I didn't feel brave enough to go through the flooded street to class, so I cancelled my classes yesterday. The thing is that when the street is flooded, you can't see where the potholes are! Many of the streets have huge uncovered potholes and it would really suck if your rickshaw hit one or if you fell into one. So I decided not to chance it. Anyway, there's a cyclone storm over the Bay of Bengal that caused the heavy rain. We're supposed to get more rain like this for the next few days. Today it rained pretty hard, but not like yesterday. The streets are clear again now. Let's see what tomorrow brings...

Monsoon rain and flooded streets

The other day we had some crazy monsoon rain in Dhaka. The streets were flooded. We happened to have quite a dramatic experience this time, because we were trying to get home while the streets were flooded. Our friend was giving us a ride home. There was at least 3 feet of water in the road. And the water started coming into the car--we had about 5 inches of water seeping into the car under our feet! It was quite a scary experience. I was amazed that the engine didn't flood and the car didn't die because at times it felt like we were literally floating down the street instead of driving. Many of the cars around us were dying and the poor drivers were trying to push them out of the street in the massive flood. And when busses went by, they created waves that would wash up against the car. It was like nothing I've ever seen before, although I know flooding like this happens on a regular basis in Bangladesh. Anyway, since my camera has broken, I borrowed a few images of the flooded streets from some other websites. By now the water has gone down and the streets are clear again, but we're supposed to have monsoon rains for the next 5 days, so they may get flooded again.

Monsoon rain

Hi family and friends,

Thought I'd send a little longer update, since I haven't in a while. So here you go...sorry if I already talked to you and I'm repeating myself!

Salma's doing good! She's pulling herself up on furniture all the time now. I think she's gonna walk soon. And she's learning words like crazy--Bengali and English. Her new word today is "brishti" (rain). We're having a monsoon today, so I guess it made an impact on her! There's about 3 feet of water in the road right now. The road is literally a lake. It's quite entertaining watching the cars go by--they look like boats. And I feel sorry for the poor rickshaw drivers who are trying to peddle through this rain--they're completely soaked. It's supposed to keep raining for 3 days. Guess we'll have to hole up in our apartment till then. I'm not brave enough to venture out in the monsoon.

Well, we just had our first trip outside of Dhaka, finally. We went to the beach (Cox's Bazaar) for four days. It was so nice to get out of the city for a few days! And Salma loved the beach, especially getting totally dirty in the sand. We also saw two people get drowned in the ocean, though--they went out too far. Scary. We saw their bodies being brought to shore. So sad. And there are so many poor kids there (as there are everywhere), begging for food while we're playing on the beach. Feels a bit out of whack for us to be having our expensive holiday while people around us are starving. But we did have a fun time. I'll send some pictures when I get them uploaded on the internet.

Teaching is going well. I'm really enjoying it. We just finished our first semester about a week ago. I think students like me so far. I've had alot of fun with them, anyway, especially in the literature class. Next semester I teach American literature again, and public speaking and composition. We don't get much of a break between semesters--just a couple of weeks, so I'm just trying to catch my breath before plunging in again!

Azfar says hi. He is certainly is in the limelight here. TV interviews, newspaper articles, journal articles, political lectures, all kinds of stuff. I went to my first Bangladeshi political rally the other day--it was in protest of police killing of some organizers against a coal company that wanted to do open-coal mining and destroy the land of lots of poor people. Although at least 6 people were killed by the police, the people had a small victory in this battle! They managed to kick the coal company completely out of the country. It was pretty exciting to watch all this happen!

Anyway, I am trying to get some work done on my dissertation before the fall semester starts up next week...I'm plodding away, doing some reading now. I found a book called _Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day_, by Joan Bolker, which is helping me feel less panicked and a bit more organized about the whole thing. I've also gotten involved with a women's reading group here--a group of feminist activists. So I'm excited about where these conversations with the group will lead--not only for my dissertation, of course, but for working in solidarity with them.

Well I hope to talk to you soon! Love you all!

Love,

Missy