Thursday's the new Friday

In a land of no pubs, bars, or liquor stores, there IS alcohol to be found in Bangladesh if you look hard enough. It’s mostly found in hotels and expat clubs really, and I've discovered the delights of the Regency of course. Recently, I’ve also heard rumblings about ‘locally’ produced wine, but I’ll bet that makes you go blind or something, so I’ll focus on legit poison for now!


Anyway, last Thursday we headed out to the British club aka The Bagha. Some of the other volunteers outside of Dhaka were in the city so there was a guaranteed crowd, which motivated us to head all the way across town in the onek jam. After a ‘minor’ freak attack on my part - we couldn’t get a CNG for almost an hour from our flat and I was panicking at the thought of missing out on the delicious Bagha restaurant food before 9pm so I started shouting and swearing in the middle of the road… not one of my finest moments - let’s just say, I needed to relax and unwind. Sometimes Dhaka makes you go crazy. I can't explain it.

Now, the thing about the Bagha, and these other kind of venues, is that they’re like a bubble. A strange, surreal bubble, that houses such a contrast from typical Bangladeshi life, that it fights with one’s conscience. When half of the population here live on less than 40cents a day, it’s hard to be surrounded by so much wealth at the expat clubs or hotels, but then on the other hand, it‘s also kinda nice to have some Western-type surroundings. Really nice. I hate admitting that but it's true. I got so excited about apple crumble and custard being on the Bagha menu the other day, that I almost fainted. No exaggeration.

We arrived at the Bagha in time for food - hurrah - and the wine was flowing. Since I’ve started drinking less here, I am now an official lightweight. After a few glasses of 200taka vino ($2!), I was starting to feel giddy and my stresses seemed to fade away. I had also picked up my illustrious Bagha membership card upon arrival so now I have… wait for it folks, a tab! Trouble was on the horizon and the night was getting into full swing. The place was packed, loud, full of people talking, laughing, music playing, clouds of smoke everywhere (everyone smokes here except me it seems), and all of the volunteers were gathered on the terrace, enjoying the hot winter night’s atmosphere.

The thing about the volunteer circle is that, even though we’re all so different, coming from a range of cultural backgrounds, experiences, countries, there’s one thing, one really strong thing that unites all in a very special way; we’re here. And that’s what bonds us together. Now, I know I have the blog to tell other people about what it’s like in Bangladesh, and there’s email, Facebook, Skype, you name it, but nothing can really describe what it’s like to really be here. The sights, the sounds, the language; being a foreigner in a foreign land.

Anyway, as the random bunch of us continued to enjoy the flowing alcohol of the Bagha and swap stories of our time here, eventually we started to branch out away from our ‘table’ and befriended a group of production people from the BBC London. It turns out that they’re here creating a drama series for BBC World. I hazily remember asking them for a job when I’m finished VSO which was awkward and unsubtle but hopefully it got lost in the other bouts of conversation, smoke and wine! We also met some other NGO workers from Oxfam and the UN, plus embassy workers and corporate types - basically people earning a lot more money than us so we got a few drinks off their tabs. Hehe.

Before I knew it, it was 2am. An old man fell off his stool at the bar and the place was clearing out. Time to go. There were four of us left and we all rolled out of the Bagha, in search of a CNG home. Could we find a CNG? Could we hell. Rickshaws a plenty swarmed around us but we live way too far to get one of those home. Walking, walking, walking up the longest road ever, hiccups in tow, we eventually found a yellow cab. Yes, seriously, a yellow cab, and home was one step closer. After navigating the driver to our flat in Bengal-ish, going around in circles a few time, we arrived at our front gate to see our landlord, standing, waiting for us. Seriously. He locks the gate after 11pm and only he has the key. He refuses to give anyone a copy. We have to tell him when we are going to be late and then he waits up for us. No joke. It’s like being sixteen again. He asked us where we’d been and we just said ‘Gulshan‘. He nodded, peered into the cab looking suspiciously at our chaperone volunteer guy friends, and ushered us through the gate.

After getting into the flat and several glasses of water later, I fell into a coma until I started stirring with the sound ‘Murgi! Murgi!’. Oh God, I thought, where am I? I’m in Bangladesh. With a hangover. Lord help me. I eventually woke up late Friday afternoon to find my flat mate in the same state. Having a hangover in Bangladesh is like electrocuting yourself on purpose. Terrible, horrible, pain. Pain, pain, pain. I don’t know why it’s so bad here but it was a firm wake up call that the Bagha CANNOT be abused on a weekly basis. I can’t handle a whole day lying in bed hearing ’Murgi!’ from the chicken salesman in the street with a throbbing wine headache. An addition to this is that I have yet to get a ’bill’ for my ’tab’ at the Bagha too. Something else I’m also worried about, earning $150 a month.
 
This Thursday night, I'm watching a DVD.