Controversial Soup

Every so often the MCC expatriots in the area get together at a Chinese restaurant to "practice their English" and have some non-Bengali food. Yesterday Jerry, Ethel, Patrick, Carolyn, and I all met at the China Green. I thought that the China Green, as well as most restaurants, were closed for the month of Ramadan. We asked Patrick's tutor and he said that the restaurant was probably open. When we got there we saw that it was closed, but they agreed to make us dinner. The only thing that this restaurant does during Ramadan is host Iftar parties, and they were having one. We arrived a little after 5:00, so we were just in time for Iftar. In the main part of the restaurant was the Iftar party, and lots of men in panjabis and topis (white religious clothing and hat) were seated around a big table. They seated us in a side room, and brought us Iftar. This is very common, wherever you are when Iftar happens - whether a business or home - it is given to you. The most common Iftar food is puffed rice and spicy lentils. We also had some kind of sweet fried thing that looks like pretzels. Then we ordered our food, and part of our order was five bowls of soup. It took a long time for them to make the food. When they started bringing out the food they brought out five huge bowls of soup - each bowl was big enough for four people. There was no way we could eat all this soup with all the other chicken, fish, vegetables, and rice we had ordered. We asked them to take it back, but since they wouldn't, we had no other choice but to laugh. When we left we took the soup with us in carry out containers.