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| wash day in the village |
Yes it was all hugs and xxx when I met up with my men in
Dhaka. All the past has been forgotten and forgiven. Unfortunately
Sam seem to have gone through a very bad time since he was posted outside Dhaka
, million miles away from nowhere, in the coastal region. The
place is full of drug addicts and prostitutes. His badly run NGO failed to pay
his wages for the last 3 months and he ran out of his own money, thus living on
very little. Lack of communication from the outside world including our head
office in
Dhaka meant that he was unable to
reach for any help and with very little food to eat he had lost a lot of
weight. I was very, very sad to see him looking so thin, especially since the
night before our meeting Inga and I went out to an exclusive French restaurant
and blew away equivalent of half of my salary on just two meals (£ 40). Life
has been very cruel to sweet and kind Sam who is totally committed to his work
in
Bangladesh.
John has promised to visit my very own Net……. for a night or two provided we
don't fight over who is doing the cooking or washing, he has agreed to stop
over in my spare room? He knows, there is always a guesthouse nearby, if life
for two days with me gets unbearable. Mick who is always in
Dhaka
to meet up with love of his life, Sally (VSO member) is doing well, by doing
very little other then hanging around in Bagha Club. From time to time, I do
bump into Jake, Peter and Sue and they are all plodding on in Dhaka and they
all promised to see me in Net…….. , when ? Jake has made use of his time here
and been to
Thailand and
Nepal and Peter visited
India over the
New Year, Sue is still waiting for the right time to be liberated.
Whenever I have to share my bed with lovely Roxanna, the
film title “Sleeping with the enemy" immediately springs to my mind. Why? No,
I have not given my heterosexual status. However, whenever I visit Dhaka, if I
don't stay in my 5 star hotel or at Inga's penthouse, Roxanna often accompanies
me to Dhaka and we have to stay a night or two
with her relatives. It is an eastern tradition to make sure that the visitor is
never left alone and almost in all cases
he or she is provided with a sleeping partner, of course always of the same
sex! (Other then if you are visiting a brothel or you just managed to find your
self in a room full of boys and girls and sneak in bit of fun under the sheets?).
I have been brought up as a Sikh and history reminds me that the majority of
the Sikhs, even to this day, will never eat ( never mind share the bed ) in a
Muslim home. I am committing a sin! For centuries Muslims invaders from the Middle East
have been India
and converting Hindus, (majority of them of lower caste) to adopt Islam. The
Sikh army formed 500 years ago fought back and sacrificed their lives to keep India
for the Hindus. Good thing they did then, but today and tomorrow I continue to
disobey my upbringing because I see Roxanna and all the Muslims I meet everyday
are like ' me , ' you' and rest of the human race. History aside, I do actually
enjoy having the sisterly “sharing of bed" with Roxanna or any other
female, which is missing so much in the Western culture and I am ashamed to say
with my own sisters back home in England.
What do I do with my spare time when I am not entertaining
or being entertained? Well beside, continuing to dream my life away, for my
tall , dark and handsome hunk who will have my candle lit supper with me one
evening , I spend great deal of my time writing , reading and listening to
radio in Bangla only. I no longer employ any one to do my household work mainly
because I have time on my hand. Every Friday, I do go down on my knees to clean
my apartment, just the way my mother did in Africa.
I wash my clothes and also do my weekly shopping before going out for a long
walk Friday afternoons or I might go and visit Roxanna’s home. I now have
luxury of a cup full of fresh milk every day which is brought to me from the
local farm and from there I can also collect fresh vegetables and seasonal
fruit. I continue with my morning yoga and skipping, which is keeping me fit. Now
that the hot weather is on its way, we are all suffering power cuts through out
the day and especially at night when we desperately need overhead fan to keep
us cool and to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Things are going to get worse in May
and June when the sun really hots up and sleeping will become unbearable. The
water supply is also becoming scarce for the poor but lucky for me I have my own tank full of water all the time. My home is open to my friends like
Fiona and Peter for free bathroom facilities. I have bought Indian drums (tabla)
and plan to have lessons soon and Peter and Fiona are also joining me so
that we can at least spend dark nights playing drums and making music to pass
the nights away. We still meet up at my place once a week for supper and a
gossip and now we have Tim every week, to entertain us with his knowledge of
Hollywood movies ( he studied movies in USA). Life in the slow lane is
sometimes very slow and sometimes so desperately slow that it is hard to kill
time.
My Boss has been away in the West for almost a month,
raising funds for her NGO. It is very quite without her and I am getting on
well with Lady Jane. So Lady Jane is forgiven for being a pain and she will
have to stay to finish her work or else I will end up with two jobs. I change
my mind and will pray to Allah for her to extend her stay, I hope he will
listen?
I have created my own personal work (in order to keep myself busy) by designing various household textile for the Western
market. Bangladesh
is famous for its unique type of embroidery and most of my work will have
embroidery stitch using vegetable dyed yarns. I feel that some of you can help
me reach my goal? I plan to have enough household textiles (such as bedspread,
cushions, tablecloths etc.) so that I can have an exhibition to promote the
work of my girls in the West. I have made contact and getting help from other
European countries and I am desperately looking towards England for a
venue for displaying the work. If anyone of you has any connection with Fair
Trade Org. and any other idea or venue you can think of I will love to hear
from you, Either E-mail or write to me at
the following address:
c/o NGO....................
.................... road, Net..... Bangladesh
If you can't help but like writing a letter or two, please
send me mail through the post. I don't miss cheese, wine, eggs, tomatoes or
bacon but I do miss desperately my letters through the post! Once again many
thanks for excusing me for my bad English. I am not a linguist; I am only a polyglot,
my husband use to say to me...........my darling Mr Jones?
Love,
Davinder
xx
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