There is a separation, I suppose, but not really. This might seem like a whiney point, but it is kind of a big deal when it is your first post. Most seasoned foreign service people look at us with pity when we tell them this our first post and "no, we haven't worked for an NGO or done the peace corps." They say, sympathetically that, "it only gets better," or "the next one will be nothing".
We are living in many of the same conditions that are prevalent in this country, yet can go to our nice apartments with electricity, internet, and running water. When you walk outside you are confronted with all that is Dhaka. I have not done peace corps like many of my husband's USAID collegues. I did live on a farm and grow vegetables (shoveled sh*t) and cut flowers to sell, and most of the time did it with horses and mules instead of a tractor, so I thought I was prepared. Not so much. We had infrastucture. By infrastructure I mean, gravel roads that sometimes flooded and washed out, two lane highways that sometimes washed out, bridges that disappeared. People weren't pooping and peeing directly in the gutters and we didn't use human and untreated animal waste to fertilize our crops.
Even though our road collapsed occasionally it was functional most of the time. Here there are roads in the city and there are no rules of the roads. None. Did I mention we haven't even gotten to the rainy season!
We are here in the dry season, which I was surprised by because it brings mosquitoes because there are open nasty gutters along every sort of sidewalk you walk down. It brings cold weather, that the people here are not prepared for at all. No rain to move the water, either, thus the mosquitoes. There really are no proper sidewalks. I am constantly worried that we will get hit by a car, rickshaw, bicycle, motorcycle, taxi, or step on a dead animal. I am not kidding. I wish I could show you a picture of the dead rats or other random dead things I almost stepped on.
I am surrounded by wonderfully happy-seeming people. This includes everyone. Locals, expats, you name it. Even the dogs wag their tails next to the dude sorting trash because he is happy he might get a scrap.
My kids are rockstars and if you don't know it you better move here. Hollis (curly blonde not in the picture because he is not cool about pictures) is the one that they target because it is mostly men that are out and about, and maybe there is a cultural thing about accosting girls. Isobel gets it sometimes, but the men have to feel comfortable enough to say in front of me that "she is pretty and her skin is like honey". This was said by a very well-meaning man that we will interact with again. He was super sweet and his intentions are "golden". You have to understand, here and in India, there is a huge emphasis on light skin. There are products and treatments that you can have done in salons and commercials promoting such things. It sounds weird to us, yeah, but....but....we use tanning beds for our white hineys in the U.S.
