Thoughts on a new year :: by mama

As we start a new school year, there are lots of new faces in town.  We have been meeting some great people and making new friends.  However, this year, there seems to be a new section in the script of getting-to-know-you chit-chat.  This year, when people ask how long we have been here, we say that we are at the start of our fourth year.  And because most new people don't plan to stay for more than two, maybe three, years, everyone we talk to seems to have a similar reaction: surprise, maybe a bit of awe, perplexity at why anyone would willingly stay so long, and I do believe I occasionally sense a bit of fear, fear that they may get sucked in and end up staying so long themselves.  New people be warned: it can happen.  We are starting our fourth year, somewhat to our own surprise and awe and perplexity.  Even I find myself shaking my head a bit every time I say it. 

I think it goes without saying that Dhaka is not an easy place to live.  However, I also think that is exactly why we have stayed so long.  It took us three years just to feel like we had settled in here: one year of adjusting physically, emotionally, and culturally; a second year of, well, having a baby, really, as preparing for and welcoming little Kiran into our family pretty much consumed our whole second year; and a third year of finally hitting our stride.  For us, it was only by the end of our third year that we felt like we had found our place and our direction amid the craziness of this place.  

Now, in our fourth year, we have good friends, a sense of community, activities and groups that we are involved in, and projects underway. We have found charities that we feel good supporting.  We have gotten to know the city a bit and grown accustomed to the cultural quirks.  I have even come to see the beauty in the everyday scenes of people going about their daily lives, the colorful swirl of markets and rickshaws and movement.  To be sure, there are some things that I will never, never adjust to -- the poverty is horrific and seeing beggar women with starving babies will never be anything other than gut-wrenching -- but the more mundane things, the traffic and the staring and the rickshawallahs who stop their rickshaws directly in my path because they think I will have no other option but to climb in?  Those, I am used to.

So now, we are settled, more or less.  We have largely overcome the challenges and are enjoying our jobs, our apartment, our friends.  We are more comfortable here than I think I ever expected.  We are, all things considered, happy with our life here. 

Of course everyone's experience is different, but for us, two or even three years would not have been enough.  I would have left Bangladesh with a sense of regret that I hadn't done more -- made more friends, achieved more professionally, worked harder to help those who are suffering -- and I would have felt that my experience was incomplete.  I think that after this fourth year, I won't feel that way anymore.  The only question is now... should we stay for year five?