When you first step off of a plane from the Third World and into the U.S., there are all sorts of things that strike you. There is hardly any noise. Indeed, nobody's using their horn or clearing their throat. The traffic is going so fast- so fast it feels a bit dangerous. The orderly roads meet deliberately at intersections, rather than at haphazard encounters. There's no trash or vandalism heaped in many layers. There are no beggars wanting handouts. There are no rickshaws or CNGs weaving in and out of traffic on all sides of the road.
There is only five weeks until I'm in Colorado once again. It really hit me last night when I came home. The room mate that joined me in February was surprisingly out of town visiting a village named Bogra. The thing that made this weekend's five week mark hit home was the smell and atmosphere of the apartment. There was this certain smell and a particular atmosphere to my new home when I first arrived here. Such a feeling of alone-ness accompanies it. It melted away eventually, but now it seems to be back. Logically, the smell can probably be blamed on Bangladesh beginning to cycle back into its monsoon season, like when I first got here. Emotionally, I blame the calendar.
How am I going to cope with saying bye to my class? How can I say ''See you again'' to my friends? How can I go back to paying $3.00 for a gallon of gas for my SUV?
You can't go anywhere in Bangladesh without meeting people (lots of people). Many people's lives are lived outside on the streets. Children knock premature fruit down from trees and hit each other with sticks- kid stuff to pass the time. Adults chat and watch people. They watch each other go by. When the school year began, Kim had to keep reminding me, ''People are going to stare no matter what.''
At home, people move smoothly and purposefully. I've been told that, upon arrival back home, after a while, I might start feeling like maybe I'm not looking good today because no one's watching me. People's eyes won't move to left and to the right- there's no tree growing out of the sidewalk or continuous oncoming traffic or basket of cow poo.
I'll always remember something that happened on one of Allie's first days in this country with a smile: we were walking to the grocery store, just having mourned the loss of her two baby street bunny rabbits. We were joking, ''Day eleven, bunnies go to heaven'' testing if it was too soon to laugh and not cry about this general fact of life in Bangladesh (any pets you hope to have WILL come to you sick and MOST LIKELY die). All of a sudden, there was this big basket of cow patties on the road. I turned to her and said, ''Day two, basket of poo!'' Everyone in the vicinity was just going on with their lives as they normally do- no strange attention to the basket of dried poo bits in the road.
Dear Bangladesh, I will miss you. Looooove, Krista
