Pray for Peace

All day Thursday - waiting, waiting, waiting. Would the cars and buses be allowed to travel? We distracted ourselves by eating a lot of pitas.

Finally around 6 p.m. we heard that the blockade was over. Now we could plan our weekend. Cicely and I decided on a trip to Sirajganj. Being the future minded Americans that we are, we rushed to the bus station as soon as we got the news that the blockade was ending (After wishing our families “Happy Thanksgiving” of course). Two foreign women in the dark bus station trying to find the Sirajganj ticket counter. All the ticket counters were closed, and no one really understood that we were trying to by a ticket for the next morning. Obviously we wouldn't board a bus at 7 p.m. for Sirajganj. We tried asking lots of people though.

Plan failed, Cicely and I stopped at the mission, picked up some fast food, bought a bookshelf, and had a night at home in Mymensingh. Semi early the next morning we rickshawed to the Tangail bus station and boarded a bus for Alaanga. The ticket man remembered that I could speak good bangla and ride a motorcycle.

At Alaanga we tried to find a bus to Sirajganj. We didn't really know what we were doing and all the buses were filled to standing room only. Finally we decided to board a Bogra bus that had a bit more standing room than the bus whose roof was full with passengers. We stood in the aisle and tightly held on to the over head compartment so we didn’t fall as the bus lurched, braked, and sped up very unsmoothly. When a cow started to wander in the path of the bus, the driver slammed on the brakes, and Cicely almost went down. I can still see her arms hanging in front of my face as she tries not to land on the women sitting on the engine at the front of the bus.

Glad to have survived that bus trip, we got on another bus that took us from the outskirts of Sirajganj to the center of the city. Immediately we knew we were in Sirajganj. All the men around looked at us like we were aliens. “What is your country?” “Do they understand Bangla?” Finally we were in Sirajganj.

Our time in Sirajganj was peaceful as it is a small town with no a whole lot going on. We visited friends and MCC co-workers, had tea and rice. On Friday we did go to the happening spot - the Jamuna River. Not the greatest idea, everyone was staring at us, and we had a crowd of 20 following us. The river was low, so we walked for miles on the sandbars.

At our departure on Saturday we waited in Sirajganj for the bus to Mymensingh, we drew a crowd of 50 or so men. Cicely befriended one who bought us tea and gave Cicely some egg and parota. Then he tried to buy us water, but I refused him. For the kindness he "helped" us get on the bus. I didn't need any help, so I ignored him. This is just something of Bengali male culture that you have to learn. Our bus was inspected by a team of RAB (rapid action battalion) persons - (there were two RAB ladies!) Then when we drove through the Modipur Forest in the dark, we had three armed policeman escorting the bus. One was armed with a flashlight.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - no blockades! I motorcycled to Netrakona on Sunday to spend time with the designers of SUS. On Monday our Sri Lankan MCC workers Rachel and Nigel came to Mymensingh to learn about the job creation program. They were going to stay until Tuesday, but Monday night there was talk of a hartal on Tuesday. We sent them back at 9 pm on Monday night, after waiting 2 hours for the driver to come back to the office. The next day's hartal was cancelled due to the funeral of a upper-level politician.

Another blockade will probably start from Sunday. The first three weeks of blockade were for the resignation of the CEC. Now he has resigned, and they are demanding the resignation of the CA. How many weeks of blockaded Bangladesh will it take for him to go? In the meantime it is impossible to plan more than an hour in advance.