Democracy in all its glory

I never refuse an invitation to a Bangladeshi wedding or the opportunity to travel to a new place. So when I was invited to the wedding of Mokhles, the administrator of the MCCB PARE program, I didn't give a second thought to my attendance. The day after Eid I met Robin in Dhaka, and we got a bus for Chopai, a dozen kilometers from the Indian border of Bangladesh in the west. We stayed at Mokhles house with Phillip, Rebecca, and Hannah and observed and participated in all the wedding events - guyholewd, ceremony, boebhat, and lots of eating.

After two days the events were finished, and we were ready to leave. Then we heard that all the buses were not going. Being foreign we thought we would just rent a car to drive the 6 hours to home. We said our goodbyes and dozens of wedding guests crowded onto Mokhles' front porch to bid us farewell. Our car was only 20 kilometers away when we were stopped by five young boys with sticks. They demanded that we pay a bribe to pass. If we refused to pay they would possibly knock out our car windows or burn the car. We gave them 50 taka and resumed driving, but immediately we saw a huge mob of people on the road ahead. Hannah was sleeping on Rebecca's lap, and her motherly instinct told her to turn around as fast as we could.

We returned to the wedding house, put on our sharis and mingled with the guests. The next several days were the same - the roads were not safe to travel on and no one had any idea when it would be safe to leave. On TV we watched the Bangla news channels reporting on the riots in Dhaka. We could see the horrible scenes of thousands running with sticks and cricket bats beating each other or all turning on one victim, but we couldn't completely understand what was happening as everything was in Bangla and no one spoke English. In addition we didn't have access to phone, internet, or English newspapers. For three days we were in the village taking walks with Hannah, drinking tea, eating big plates of rice, and going to the market to buy popsicles. We were in a safe place as we were so far from Dhaka.

There is an explanation for all the chaos. The government has completed its five year term, and three months of interim government rule has just started. The interim government will run the country, and oversee the election process - so it is important that the government is unbiased. The old government appointed the interim government, and the opposition party is not at all pleased with who the old government appointed. (The interim prime minister is the former government's president, how's that for unbiased?) The opposition decided to break its programs after three days as to allow travel of people and goods. (Mymensingh had no food in the market for a few days, and yesterday the whole city was out of butter.) Many people were in their village home for Eid, and not in their place of work when all this happened. The opposition has made 11 demands, and if they are not met in three days (Saturday), the country will be shut down and riots will begin again. This will start on Saturday, and everyone is speculating whether there will be problems or not.

Yesterday we rented a car and made our way home, the buses and trains were so full - people were sitting on the roof. Today I am hearing all the stories of people being stuck in riots, traveling by train from Dhaka to Mymensingh (this three hour trip took 12 hours for some of my co-workers and the train was attacked by a mob), close encounters with riots, and relatives being injured in riots. The next three months could be exciting.