Fried Chicken

Yesterday four of us went to Savar Bazaar. It is a rollercoaster, a rodeo and circus ground all rolled into one. Imagine the busiest place you can imagine. Then understand that this is busier.

We took two rickshaws into Savar. The only way there is by rickshaw, which presents its own problems. Peter, a volunteer from England who is a wheelchair user, has to either rickshaw surf (hold onto the back and get pulled behind the rickshaw) which is suicide in this traffic, or transfer up into the rickshaw. Because I'm quite sure he is superman, he is able to do the transfer. Peter is causcasion with bright red hair (you thought blonds got attention here). Red hair is a sign of superiority in a religious sense. It means you've been to Mecca. You can't imagine the crowd that forms when he is performing his transfer. And I mean perform. He candidly stated, "I guess we're the entertainment for the night" as the crown around him grew and grew.

There are not really streets as they are crumbled at the edges. There are not sidewalks, just red, muddy dirt and there is definitely no wheel chair ramps. After a rain (of which there was a mid day shower yesterday) there are ankle deep "puddles" everywhere. I use this term loosely. They are sludge puddles of the murkiest smelliest fluid.

But Peter conquered Savar Bazaar as only Peter could. I keep joking that he is the king of awareness raising.

The purpose of the ardous journey: The fried chicken stall. The naan bread is 1.5cm thick and layered. There is no butter on it, but it is buttery goodness through and through. The fried chicken is coated in spices. It is fantastic. And totally worth the journey.  It was really expensive though. About 120Taka for a half chicken. That's not quite $2.00 CAD. Ha. Some parts of Bangladesh are great.

Sorry Aunty Lorraine, only buying food that other people don't touch or that can be washed would condmen me to starvation. Luckily, I'm a bit of a scrub anyways, and I'm getting used to servers handing me my meal! Plus, I've already had food poisening once, so I think my body is learning to fight off Bangladesh.

On the way home we took the rickshaw against rush hour traffic. Literally, we were heading directly into the paths of buses and trucks. As a truck slammed on the breaks and we swerved out of the way (remember, it's now night, and rickshaws don't exactly have headlights)Peter exclaimed, "This guy is fecking Mad."  (fecking may be more of an Irish translation, but his liverpool accent was close to fecking as well).

I know of a guy who believes that any day where he hasn't risked his life is a day wasted. He should come to Bangladesh.