Talking over Tea
Devon Arndt and Kristina Fosse, students participating in HECUA's Development and Community in Bangladesh program, recently wrote a short reflection on their group's experiences adjusting to the language barrier.
Traveling to a foreign country is always an adventure, especially when the destination is a place drastically different from your own. The inability to communicate using a shared language can be frustrating. And yet, it can also be a gift. Rather than focusing on the differences you can use it as an opportunity to find a commonality between groups.
In Bangladesh, cha is our commonality. Cha is the Bangla word for tea and it is an essential part of the Bangladeshi diet. It is served in restaurants, at hotels and in homes. Additionally it is served in local tea stalls. Tea stall operators prepare the tea, infusing it with fresh milk and sugar. The stalls serve as a center of social activity in each village.
Our first encounter with a tea stall was in a small village near Galizpur. Enroute to the Rural Development Academy where we would do our field work, we stopped to spend the night at the home of professor Talim sir’s parents in a rural village. We had just left the busy streets of Dhaka and were desperate for a break. We arrived in the village via a dirt path to find his family cooking dinner for everyone over clay fire pits. While we waited for dinner, our class walked to see the center of the village, where we were met by a crowd of curious men who promptly invited us to drink tea with them. Drinking the tea, smiling, nodding, an unexplainable warmth surged through our bodies. We finally felt at home in Bangladesh.
We have now left the village, but have found that tea continues to bring us together.
Such connections would be impossible without the strong support of HECUA's Bangladeshi co-director, Talim Hossain and the many student guides from Independent University, Bangladesh who translate for the U.S. students during visits to rural villages. The program brings together U.S. and Bangladeshi educators and students to learn about the complex (and often competing) processes of development in a relatively new democratic state. Experts consulted on the program include academics, rural villagers and entrepreneurs, religious leaders, NGOs and the many communities that constitute urban and rural Bangladesh.
