Another day, another flight. Very early Saturday morning - 4:30 to be exact - Barb and I flew to Calcutta and then on to Dhaka. As I passed through security in Calcutta, I was informed that my boarding pass did not have a necessary immigration stamp. The immigration officer had failed to stamp it. We rushed back to immigration, and Barb talked with the manager in fluent Bangla. He stamped my form, yelled at the officer who had failed to stamp it earlier, and we were off to the departure lounge. While enjoying a couple of cokes at the drink counter, we talked to a teenage man behind the counter who informed us that he liked George Bush because he had been good to India. This was a fairly questionable assertion, but we let it go and boarded our flight. Half an hour later we landed in Dhaka.

Dhaka, Bangladesh   See Map

As we drove in from the airport, the roads were eerily uncrowded. It turned out that Dhaka was in the midst of one of the frequent hartals, or general strikes that the opposition periodically calls to show its displeasure with the government. During the hartals, no motorized transport is allowed in the city. Violators are asking for trouble, and their vehicles are often stoned. We were taking a slight risk in driving that day, but apparently foreign travelers on the highways were rarely bothered, and we arrived at the hotel safely. Grameen Bank was hosting a field trip to some of its villages that day, and the participants were not so lucky. Most of the activities were cancelled, and the participants of another one had to be taken to the village inside an ambulance, sirens blaring, in order to avoid being harassed by the participants of the strike.

That afternoon Barb introduced me to her friend Nahas, an architect whose family befriended her during her year in Bangladesh. Nahas took us to the Grameen Bank headquarters using a series of stratagems designed to circumvent the restrictions of the hartal. Grameen Bank is ground zero of the micro-finance industry. Its founder, Professor Yunus, popularized micro-credit in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank is now headquartered in two large buildings in Dhaka. As we walked around, Barb was treated like a conquering hero come home. Everywhere we went, people would get up from their desks, warmly greet her and ask us to have tea. There was some commotion in the building when we were there. A reception was being held for Queen Sofia of Spain, a supporter of micro-finance who was in town for the summit. While there, we met Abser Kamal, a man with whom I had corresponded on a project I worked on for the Grameen Foundation, but who I had never met. We agreed to meet again a few days later.

Later that afternoon, the three of us returned to our hotel, the Pacific Inn, after stopping off to see the house where barb lived while in Dhaka, and meeting some of her neighbors. The neighborhood was apparently much more built up compared to when Barb was last there, but none of the buildings looked new. The whole area had the look and feel of a slum. There were dilapidated and half-completed buildings everywhere, and the electric wires hung loosely everywhere. Back at the hotel, we met up with Dana who had arrived in Dhaka the day before. Nahas invited us to have dinner with his family that night, and we enthusiastically agreed. It was a unique opportunity to visit a Bangladeshi home. We were greeted by his extended family including his father, a former general, and his gregarious father-in-law. Everyone was very friendly, and welcomed us very warmly. Nahas’ house is quite large and well-designed, consisting of several floors and a couple of apartments. We talked about a variety of subjects from religion to politics and dined on a variety of Bangladeshi food. The evening was quite a special ending to my first day in Bangladesh!