| View Blog
|
|
|
|
| 12,345.34 kilometers from home |
well, that's the distance in a straight line from Orillia, ON, Canada to Dhaka, Bangladesh. the actual distance i've travelled doing stopovers at different airports and whatnot is probably a lot more. i've passed through in the past year London twice, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. lol. actually i got stuck recently in Abu Dhabi airport for almost 3 days after fainting while waiting for my flight back to Canada from Dhaka. they decided to keep me at airport hotel unti they determined that i was fit to fly and the next flight to Toronto wasn't for another two days. what an ordeal! they were oh so kind to say i could leave the airport if i wanted but i couldn't think of what to do -- looked like nothing but desert all around airport -- what was i supposed to do, go wander into the desert, get lost and get a sunburn? this past trip to visit my family was the worst flight i've ever had! they even lost my luggage! note to myself and all fellow travellers: always pack clean clothing IN your carryon luggage, in case not only do you get stranded in an airport for a few days but arrive at your final destination only to find all your belongings MIA. ~sigh~ i guess i can't blame the airline but still i won't be flying Etihad Airways again just as a precaution. when travelling half around the world it is much better to have two stopovers, even if it's less direct, it beats sitting on a plane for 16 hours straight in economy, packed in like sardines flying over Middle East, Europe and Atlantic Ocean, always following the sun so you are blinded if you try to sneak a peak out your window at the landscape below. aside from discomfort way above the clouds, i miss my husband, my home in Dhaka dearly. i came home in haste out of concern for my mother who is going through a bout with cancer and also because i missed my daughter so much. i doubt she'll ever live abroad with me; maybe when she's much older, who knows? i could only hope. in my absence of almost a year (aside from when i came home for christmas and new years), i arrived back to a cool reception. making me wish i hadn't left Dhaka in the first place in many respects, at the same time happy to see my loved ones. being back in Orillia after so many years (i lived in Toronto for several years before i moved to Dhaka) has inspired quite the case of reverse culture shock for me. the food here is flavourless and mostly unedible after eating tasty spicy fare for so long. the silence is deafening; i'm so used to the ring of rickshaw bells on the streets below, the call to prayer from the mosques five times a day, the hawkers yelling to sell their goods on the streets below... going from living in a city with a population of like 30 million people to a town with a population of 30,000 people makes me feel like i'm living in a cemetary. everybody here seems to be dead or dying. my daughter is going to summer camp this week for ten days, so i will go down to Toronto to stay sane and try to find a bit of work to pass the time. i will return to Dhaka in August, but it doesn't seem like it will come soon enough for me. so i decided to start a blog to help pass my free time and get myself writing again, even if it is just random ramblings like this. also, thank you very much airport security, i fear my laptop may die as it has been overheating regularly lately, so it is best i keep my writing online. i'd be surprised if anyone actually made it this far into my words as i write mainly for myself as i tend to forget a lot. seems like my memory is made of swiss cheese at times. i'm tired yet i can't sleep. i'm alone in a vast country where i was born and grew up in, but now emigrated to the east. i don't regret my decsion at all. i have seen things in Bangladesh that i will never be able to forget, which altered my perception of the world forever, made me feel shocked and disgusted at the inadequecies of the standard North American education about the state of the world in general. we are given a very limited view of the world; we encroach on a vast amount of land yet account for about 5% of the world's population according to wikipedia. under the imperialist boots of North America we waste and squander a disgusting amount of the world's natural resources, while too many people the world over have almost nothing, subsisting off of bare essentials, many even dying of starvation. it disgusts me to say the least. in Bangladesh they don't even use petrolium products: plastic bags are a rarity and almost all vehicles drive off of CNG (compressed natural gas). for a city as large and cluttered as Dhaka i found the pollution levels to be less than Toronto with its lovely brown sky. i need a cigarette so i'll leave this for now, but i'm sure it will continue as the days i'm here ensue. godspeed that i get back home in one piece. i look to the stars trying to find familiar constellations, counting stars to pass the time and whittle away the days...
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| Views: 14
Email This to a Friend 
