Rickshaws and "Stuff White People Like"

Disclaimer #1: No, I am not white. Obviously.

But whether I like it or not, this site is pretty darn applicable. Especially:

"This explains why a white person with an $800 backpack will haggle with a poverty-stricken street vendor about a $2 dollar plate of food."

I read that and was like... yeah... I do spend time haggling with rickshaw drivers over 10-20 taka, which is like 30 cents. But it really infuriates me when they think they can charge me 20 taka for a 5 taka trip. I live here and am learning the language. I know I'm being overcharged to learn Bangla from a tutor who teaches Westerners--we each pay her per hour what many people at DCH earn per day. I guess I draw lines for what I'll deal with (stares, questions, taunts, laughing, loud pounding on my door early in the morning for any little thing that doesn't stop even when I tell them in Bangla) and what I won't put up with, and I just don't like to be taken advantage of in a country where I am dedicating a good amount of my time and energy, and making a serious effort to assimilate.



It is disturbing and sad to think of the lives of the rickshawalas, though. They have a look: wiry bodies, with rough faces aged by sun and sweat. They pedal heavy loads of two or three adults sitting in their tinkling, multi-colored rickshaw wagons. They make maybe 200 or 300 taka (three or four dollars) a day and often have families of five or six to feed. They generally live in the slums, and their children can't afford the books or uniforms for school. They are a ubiquitous presence in Bangladesh, whether in Dhaka, or Chittagong, or the villages of Pabna and Sirajdikhan. Many immigrate from the countryside to Dhaka. During Eid, the streets of Dhaka are completely empty because all the rickshawalas and CNGwalas go to their rural homes.

Rickshaws here are an established and major means of transportation, whereas in China it is personal bicycles and everyone bikes themselves around. In Vietnam, apparently it is small motorbikes that take passengers. Rickshawalas are relegated to the bottom of society, but are here to stay--the country wouldn't run without them.

And they always seem to be the first to get killed-- on that Wednesday, the first civilian casualty was a rickshawala. In 2006 (?) when 400 small bombs went off across the country one morning, a rickshawala was killed.

But there are so many-- who cares? What does one death matter? There are so many beggars, poor families, wives whose husbands have abandoned them... what does one matter?

It's a terrible thought process, but it is the reality.
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In other news, I just had my Let's Go interview in the office at DCH and looked down to see six mosquitoes feeding off my foot, no joke. Shit just got real. Yesterday, David told me that there is definitely malaria in DCH and because the nurses don't always put bednets over the patients, potentially any mosquito here is infected with malaria.

Thank goodness for mefloquine. Thank you to all of you who are going into medicine or scientific research.