HOW IT ALL CAME TO BE

I began life here, in the middle of strangers, staring at me with their hungry voyeuristic eyes; in the middle of a humid, sweat-the-DNA-out-of-your-body kind of day back in June 96'.  I was wearing a red Lehenga, a pearl choker and matching earrings (given to me by my sister-in-law who I had met just two weeks before); standing outside of Dhaka airport following my husband's instructions of giving “Salaam to anyone I meet”. I was waiting to meet the rest of his family.

Dhaka airport was much more chaotic back then.  People pushed and smashed up against glass windows and iron gates, looking, waiting for their loved ones.  The sound of shrill whistles cut the air followed by shouts of airport guards as they chased laughing beggars with their batons. Police walked past with guns bouncing up and down on their backs. And I must admit…I was terrified.  

It was the beginning of many firsts for me. In that first month I saw three men urinating in public. A thief was caught stealing from our house, beaten and kicked by the public while the police stood and watched. My first close encounter with poverty, which left me crying almost every time we went out.

By the time the year ended, I had experienced my first ride on a massive airplane, my only move to the other side of the world, and my first time in a foreign country. The one and only time I had been away from my parents for more than two weeks in my twenty years of living. It was also the first time that I was the minority and considered a 'foreigner'. It was the first time I realized that I was a tiny speck in the universe and how big the world was. While I was asleep in Dhaka, lives were being led in other parts of the world.

I experienced the uncomfortable feeling of being stared at; the spice of chicken tikka; the sting of people commenting on my weight like we were talking about the weather; the joy of being welcomed into people's homes and their delight when I spoke a few words of their language; and the shame of realizing that I never felt that same joy when someone spoke in English.  

I look back at the eighteen years that have passed since that hot and humid day way back in June. I am so humbled and blown away by the love I have received from Dhaka, Bangladesh.  I look back at where I began as an outsider, and at where I stand today as someone who feels like a local, someone native to Bangladesh.  I can't help but feel ever so grateful for that opening chapter of my life. My beginning.