We arrived in Bangladesh at 5 am today on what amounted to a party plane from Doha. Half of the plane was families with kids. The Dads gathered around each other’s seats to talk, the kids were up very late watching Tom and Jerry cartoons on the seat back TVs.  Everyone had a duty free bag from Doha, the only airport in the world that features a duty free Bentley for the taking. Emma and I laid all over each other, trying to get enough sleep — we didn’t want to change the plans for the day just because we were twelve hours late.

Atiq had risen early to get us and paid a person in the airport visa office to get us off the plane and expedite our in country visas.  The weather was like New Orleans after a rainfall in August.  Soupy, swampy, thick.  The airport was the same as I remember when I was a girl.

Even at 6 am, the traffic was getting pretty bad and Emma and I figured out that Bengali drivers use their horns to signal 1) that they are not going to be driving in a lane, since there are no lines painted on any road, including highways 2) that they are coming up on you very fast, you better get out of the way and 3) that they are incredibly close to you when they pass.  Our driver preferred what I began to call the roadrunner method.  Come up on a motor scooter with a mom and baby on the back without helmets, “beep! beep!” then zoom around.  Repeat with a bus or rickshaw — in the way and going in the wrong direction on a one way street.

After a beautiful breakfast with Mustari and Atiq, we headed off to Concerned Women for Family Development with Mustari, where she is President.  We first visited one of 21 clinics funded by USAID, met with the staff and learned about the Ward in which they work.  Such amazingly gifted and loving women.  We had the tour of the facility and returned to Mustari, who was deep in conversation with a girl, aged fifteen.  Mustari told us that the girl had been married for three years.  She is now 5 months pregnant.  It was obvious that Mustari was frustrated with the situation.  She is just a girl.

Emma and Mustari at the CWFD offices in front of the sign about Mom’s namesake.

Then onto the Concern Women for Family Development building, which houses the family planning clinic that is named for Mom. A pilgrimage for us.  So many good memories were shared about the founding of the NGO, by the friends Mom made along the way who are still there, still giving their lives to help women, almost forty years later. Then a beautifully prepared lunch with Peggy in mind — Mustari had prepared fried chicken and tea sandwiches.  Hearing that I like hot curry, the ladies then produced a bowl of hot fish curry and some bhat — rice.

Bangla is coming back to me slowly.  I find that I am instantly recognizing words — chole for “let’s go,”  jabho for “go.”  I remembered a nursery rhyme today “Pripra Pripra coita deem?  Ekta, duta, teenta deem!”  It delighted me and the ladies at CWFD.

After a nap, shopping at one of the most pakka department stores in Dhaka for kurtas to wear to the field tomorrow.  We head off to Matlab, where Dad did his research to see how it has grown. Up at 6:15 for doi (yoghurt), mango and naan and on the road until 7 pm tomorrow night.  Can’t wait for more adventures.