Old Dhaka

I went to Old Dhaka with two friends: Daniela, from Germany, and Claire, from Switzerland. It is the oldest quarter of the city. This trip was one of the most interesting and intense experiences I have ever had.
The streets are narrow, full of shops and people walking without stopping. Rickshaws occupy all the streets so, we had to walk very carefully.
We were the attraction everywhere, people stared at us, kids followed us and some of them even took pictures with their cellphones. Others came close and asked us which country we were from. Most of them were happy to hear that I came from Argentina as most of them knew about Maradona and Messi. It was strange and fun at the same time: we had our cameras working amazed by such an exotic landscape (considering our occidental point of view) and Bangladeshis took pictures of us because, from their perspective, we were the exotic ones.
As it is a very poor country, Bangladesh does not receive lots of tourists. Most foreigners are people who come as volunteers or to do research.
I went to a very pretty mosque. It is strange for women to go inside a mosque, most of the times they go to an isolated and special place for them.
This wasn’t the case. We had no trouble to get in, even though it was time of prayer, we only had to take our shoes off. We were lucky! I was able to see the way men prayed and a group of kids studying the Coram with their teacher (red bear, as you can see here in the picture, is a sign of status).
We continued wondering around. The streets interweave with each other, with no streets´ names or numbers. We were trying to go the river when we met a woman who offered to guide us there. She spoke only Bangla so, we had to make an effort to understand her words with our little knowledge of the language.
We followed her together with a group of women. After a while, we realized that we were not heading towards the river; we were going to her house. We got into a narrow street of the neighborhood and finally, we got to a small door. They invited us to go into their humble house. We were both very happy to be invited.
The place we went into had many rooms, a shared backyard and a sort of kitchen outside. The girl was 22 and had two kids. Her sister, aunt and mother were there too. We took our shoes off before we went in. Each family has one indoor room, sometimes two, where the whole family sleeps.
The first house we entered, we saw our host’s father sleeping on the only bed in the room. Nevertheless, they asked us to sit next to him. There were a lot of people at the door staring at us and laughing. They offered us Coke. In fact, they went to buy some in order to give us something to drink. They spoke all the time and did their best to be clear. We learnt a little more Bangla today, they were our teachers.
Then we were invited to another house. This one had a small room at the back with a bed. We sat there and they gave us some cookies. We continued chatting a bit more, and then we met their kids and some neighbors came to talk. People were so nice with us…we were very grateful for this experience.
Everything happened without any plan and it was amazing. We let ourselves flow with the current, along with these women, with no worries about our destiny. I think that, the fact that we were all women, allowed us to live this experience. Maybe, if a man had been present, women would not have invited us to their houses because they cannot be with a man if their husbands are not at home. They also wanted to invite us to lunch, but we decided to go on with our tour, we didn’t want to bother them. They offered us to be our guides and company. After we had walked and talked for a while in Bangla (we didn’t understand what they were saying) we arrived at a station where we said goodbye. We could see tears of sadness in their eyes. We were sad too. The kindness and sweetness of these women is incredible: we went to their houses and met their families, it was wonderful.
Our last stop was at the river. We met some Bangladeshis that came close to talk. The landscape was beautiful: a grey sky (Dhaka is one of the most polluted cities in the world), a reddish sun, a bridge, small ships and men having a bath in the river, or washing their clothes. A strange and lovely scene.