Sightseeing with Russel

Today was another Friday with no official bank duties so Russel took us sightseeing. First we headed to the Parliament building but we weren’t allowed inside the grounds because they were closed. Next, we headed to Dhaka university to explore campus a little bit. Russel took us to see some student dorms and I was surprised to hear that there are separate Muslim and Hindu dorm buildings. He said that sometimes the groups intermingled and stayed in each other’s buildings but for the most part the groups were housing separately. We also checked out an art exhibit and the School of Fine Arts and walked around their grounds where students were busy working all different types of sculpture and painting on their day off. Next we had lunch at a delish Bangladeshi restaurant that had the most heavenly fried eggplant. I would love to go back there again, but I have no idea what it was!

     After lunch we headed to a beauty salon because everyone was interested in getting our hands done with henna tattoos. Poor Russel had to translate our requests and then wait outside because the shop owners wouldn’t let a man sit in their salon. I got both the inside and outside of one hand and forearm done and it looked great until he began to fade. It turns out that henna absorbs much better on the inside on your hands than anywhere else so now my hand is really dark and the part on my arm is pretty faded. Oh well, it still looks awesome!

 That night Russel invited us to a friend’s wedding. The wedding was planned in just a few days because the groom was leaving the country in one week and they needed to have the wedding before he left. Because of the time crunch the traditional Muslim wedding traditions were shortened. A traditional Muslim wedding lasts 4 days. One day for the bride’s party, one for the groom’s party, one for the wedding, and the last one for the reception. At the wedding I attended, everything went down in one night and there was no ceremony the way we think of it. The groom had a mini ceremony and signed the marriage certificate in one room and then the bride had a small ceremony in another room where she signed the certificate. They then got together for pictures and more signing! At the reception we were seated with Russel and several of his friends from university and everyone was having a great time until they brought the food out. Food was served family style and giant bowls of assorted meats covered the table. I was with 2 other vegetarians and when it became noticeable that done of us were eating things got a little crazy. Everyone was so nice and they were worried that we didn’t like the food. Even after Russel explained that we were vegetarians and that we weren’t upset at all about not being able to eat, people kept coming up to us and apologizing. It quickly got out of hand when the caterer in charge of the whole event offered to send his staff to buy more food and to make us our own special meal. Since we were causing so much dinner drama, we decided to go ahead and leave before the whole event was ruined because of us. Instead we headed to Pizza Hut to show Russel the traditional American way of ending a Friday night. Pizza!

The Beautiful Bride and Groom!