Hartals ruin weekend plans, heading to India later this week!

I was holding off writing this blog entry until after I returned from a weekend trip to Banderban arranged for the fellows by AUW, but as the title would suggest, hartals ruin weekend plans. So instead of going to the beautiful Chittagong Hill Tracts region last weekend, I laid around my apartment pretending to accomplish things.

But I've been told people are curious about what hartals are and what happens during them, so this will be more text-based since I haven't been out taking pictures recently. I'll include pictures that aren't at all relevant just to break up the text.

Check out the sunset from the roof of my building!

If you google hartal, the definition comes up as "Hartal is a term in many South Asian languages for strike action, first used during the Indian Independence Movement. It is mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience."

Here's a guy selling guavas on the street. Yum!

Hartals are almost always called by a political party who is protesting some kind of government action or court decision. This latest hartal was called because of a court ruling sentencing a major revolutionary figure to death, later amended to life in prison. Nobody should take my relaying of this court case and the figure as fact - everything I know about it I got by scanning Daily Star articles posted on Facebook! Hartal was called for Thursday and Sunday, leaving the weekend open and clear but apparently in the past hartals resulting from court cases tend to be more volatile so AUW's security head decided it would be too risky trying to get a bus full of foreigners out of the city. This hartal was national too, which means just getting out of the city doesn't mean we would avoid the protests. During hartals motorized vehicles (so basically anything other than rickshaws) are banned from the roads so trying to haul a bus full of people through town isn't necessarily the best idea.

Here's a view of Chittagong from the top of a green hill we walked up one afternoon.

Luckily this hartal was pretty boring - as far as I know Chittagong was fairly calm although news reports did say it got messy in other cities and villages. Most of the time I find out about hartals through Facebook, funny enough. I follow the Daily Star which is the major english-language newspaper here in Bangladesh. They'll report pretty immediately when a hartal is called and it'll pop up on my newsfeed. Otherwise I'll get an email from the US embassy in Dhaka, where I registered my location after I moved here, or an email from our security department here at AUW.

I might have already posted that picture, whoops. Here's a rickshaw!

Last year the hartals were pretty regular and much more uncertain in terms of violence and damage, so campus was closed more often and movement for people here got pretty restricted. Generally it's safe to go out during hartals if you stay in the neighborhood. I feel fine walking down to the grocery store and picking things up. Many people will take rickshaws into school if the campus is still open to get to work, but since I only have class one night a week it's pretty easy for me to just work from home and skip the hassle on hartal days. The main issue is trying to get through GEC circle (actually more of a triangle, but whatever), which connects a few major roads and is sort of the center of town. Where I live is on the opposite of GEC circle from school, which means crossing it is a must. When things do get hairy during hartals, it can be the worst around GEC circle. 

Every time I go out I get mobbed by children. This guy had pretty good english so we chatted as we walked. 

For the most part though, hartals just sort of ruin any weekend plans we make, and give me an excuse to stay home and work in my pajamas all day instead of having to come into work and look presentable. 

No idea what these say, but I'm pretty sure it's the "father of the nation" who was a major player in the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971.

Not much else to say here on this one other than I'm going to India on Thursday for the duration of our fall break! I might update again before I go, I'm thinking of bringing my camera into school to take some pictures of the campus to put up if anyone's interested. But I'm busy trying to get everything done before fall break.

I'm trying to get out of here before the Eid break starts and the cow sacrifice that will be taking place all over Bangladesh. Eid al-Adha (Festival of the Sacrifice) is celebrated by Muslims worldwide to honor the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his promised son as asked by God. Before he could finish the dirty deed, God intervened and told Abraham to just sacrifice a lamb instead.

IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, DON'T KEEP READING

To honor that sacrifice, families who can afford it are expected to sacrifice their best halal animal which in Bangladesh is expected to be a cow. Some of the meat from the slaughter of the cow is given to neighbors and the poor or needy so that nobody will go without the sacrificial meal during the holiday.

What this means for me as a vegetarian and animal lover though, is several days of public animal slaughter throughout the country. It's difficult for me to try and write about in a culturally respectful way because it is a longstanding tradition that has benefits for the economy and health and welfare of impoverished populations, but from a western standpoint it's pretty brutal. If you're curious you can google Eid cow sacrifice Bangladesh and see some of the really gruesome photos.

The animals are killed by slitting their throat, which is supposed to be very humane, but the cows generally know what's going on and so apparently you can hear them crying as they are slaughtered. The slaughter usually takes place in the garage of the family's apartment building or home, and the blood is allowed to run into the streets.

We were warned about this holiday pretty early on once we've arrived and I've made very sure to leave the country before it gets going. Hopefully when I come back from India the whole deal will be over and I can go on pretending that a couple dozen cows didn't have their throats slit down my street.