Culture shock begins at gate 17

I have spent the past nearly 4 weeks traveling to Swaziland, Zambia and Uganda assisting with a documentary about youth involved in HIV prevention. My role was to ask the questions while Shawn, an MCC employee, ran around coordinating and filming everything. I’m not quite Katie Couric, (lacking the stiletto heels, blonded hair, and talent), but stumbled along, and enjoyed meeting many interesting young people.

I had been looking forward to returning to Africa since Africa and African people have a special place in my heart and I am still trying to figure out what I miss so much in Bangladesh. African people just have a vibrancy maybe that I’m drawn to. I certainly love the wild nature that can be found there.

Each place we visited was different. Swaziland was young adults who visit churches to do a drama and music program and help establish support clubs to promote abstinence among unmarried and faithfulness in marriage. It was a group of young people really talented (a number of them could take American Idol, I’m telling you) who were really committed to their cause and really fervent in their faith. It was fun to meet them and join them for some of their activities. I was able to go visit a friend in South Africa who has married and moved there permanently. Having added 2 little daughters to her family since my last visit, it was great to see her. I realized I had been to her house in 2001, 2003, 2005 and now 2007, so this trip was destiny, I’m sure of it.

The next stop was Zambia, where we spent the first night with the MCC reps, Sigi and Lois, who are responsible for me joining MCC in the first place. They fed us cappuccino’s topped with dark chocolate, shortcake and fruit (nectarines…. After 15 months with no sign of a peach or nectarine, what a treat!), later dinner of Sigi’s spaetzle, and we were sent off to Choma (about 4 hours from Lusaka towards Victoria Falls) for the project. We were looking at a youth peer educator program at the Brethren in Christ school (Brethren in Christ is part of the Anabaptist group and fairly connected to MCC). The youth were really well spoken and especially animated when discussing in a small group about the issues they are facing. We took a day trip to Vic Falls which is impressive even if it is lacking water at the moment. The morning before we left I went to my old workplace and saw my former boss and current friend, Reberiah. I was really pleased to hear that the things I was working on there are still going forward like the schools I worked with are using the radio program which walks the teacher through a set of lessons improving the quality. One of the schools that my aunt has been raising money for is gradually being built and should be finished with the latest installment. Home based care groups are growing and have more resources now.

Final stop, Uganda, and although I didn’t have any friends to connect with here, I was excited to go somewhere I’d never been. In Uganda we were visiting a project called AEGY which trains peer educators in schools and has care and support programs for people living with HIV/AIDS and for orphans. This project was fun because we got to visit communities and people. One thing I was amazed by was people’s openness about being HIV positive. There is still stigma, but at least people participating in AEGY’s programs are bold and active in their support groups. We visited some homes, interviewing a couple who were both positive and leaders of a support group, as well as meeting some children. I have been a bit haunted by a few children I met who are living with HIV. One is a young girl…by size you’d guess she’s 2, but the expression on her face of wizened sadness, makes me think she’s probably quite a bit older. I don’t believe she’s on ARV’s (AIDS medication), and certainly looks like she could use them. Another girl is only 18 years old, and has been scarred and crippled with HIV and herpes. She also had given birth to a still born baby. I kept saying that any youth who saw what had happened to her would surely be turned off casual sexual relationships.

In Uganda I was reminded what it’s like in Africa constantly being greeted with the local word for white person( in this case, “mzungu”) which DOES get old…although maybe not as creepy as the unabashed stares of Bangladesh villagers. As we drove back to Kampala we stopped and saw some falls on the Nile River…that was a treat! I also relished a bacon and avocado salad before heading back to a country without much of either!

I heard about the cyclone headed toward Bangladesh that evening, and it seems we (the cyclone and I) were scheduled to hit near the same time. Sure enough, it hit Dhaka right when I was supposed to be boarding my flight. So instead I managed to score a lounge chair in the “quiet lounge” (aside from the loudspeaker directly ahead announcing each flight loading) of Dubai airport, and arrived in Dhaka about 12 hours late….little to pay in light of all the loss of lives that has been experienced here. My friends’ colleague was flooded in the previous blight, and now had a tree land on their house. Getting it from all directions, but again, Bengali’s are used to suffering and calamity and take it with resignation and grace.

I was pleased to finally head to gate 17 for boarding, and this is when you leave the normal planet and enter the “Bangladesh Zone”. I doubt I can describe this in a way you can truly understand until you yourself make the journey, as it’s like nothing else you’ve experienced. You reach the gate, and instead of the wide range of families, tourists, backpackers… it’s men. Bengali men. Lots of Bengali men. Maybe a few women, clothed in Bhurka’s or a sari, perhaps also a child or two, but a heavy majority, men. The call for pre boarding in not the usual quiet group of people in wheelchairs and families with strollers and young children….it is hundreds of men crowding into the gate, ever pushing forward even before the gate is open. The people needing the extra time and assistance to board haven’t a chance and resign themselves to moving aside until the hordes have moved through.

Once on the plane, things don’t really calm down. Trying to keep people in their seats, wearing their seatbelts, with their cellphones off. Few of the stewards speak any Bangla, and 95% of their passengers are speaking no English. There are always multiple reminders not to smoke in the bathroom as people are caught doing so. As soon as the plane touches ground and is hurtling down the runway, people are up and grabbing their bags from above. Comical if it wasn’t so indicative that you are arriving in a place where your normal mode of operandi is suddenly topsi turvey!