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BANGLADESH|
Development & Community
2
of 2 reflections
I came back from Interim with a small
rhinestone stud gleaming from my left
nostril. Walking the streets of London
over term break, I felt I was dismissed
by dozens of Londoners as another teenage
thug. None of them asked me why my nose
was pierced, I didn’t expect them
to, but I longed for one person to inquire,
just one.
I got my nose pierced because I fell in
love. Not in Italy with a tall, dark,
handsome stranger, or in Ireland with
a cute boy with a cuter accent, but in
Bangladesh. I fell hard for a village
called Anandapur, a village full of women,
each with a stud or post glinting from
her nose.
I got my nose pierced because I wanted
to remember. When I looked in the mirror,
I wanted a tiny, tangible reminder of
dirt roads, mud huts, and banana trees;
of children with machetes in hand and
baskets on their heads, clamoring for
a smile or a sticker from me; of men with
though faces from years of hardship and
strong backs from days in the rice fields.
But mostly, I wanted to remember the women:
women who are pierced as babies and who
stay pierced as they grow – not by
choice, or because it looks cute or tough
but because it is beautiful, submissive,
feminine, expected. It is the way of the
village. It is not the way of my world.
Bengali women are offered a mold to fit,
standards to live up to. I am offered
infinite freedom.
And with this infinite freedom, I chose
to make a small and permanent decision
to honor who these women are. To honor
a life free from pretense, free from the
pressure to meet the accepted standards
of beauty, to wear the masks. A life defined
by and measured in wide open homes and
hearts, fierce desire to provide for children,
eyes hardened by time and condition yet
sparkling with laughter, hope, determination.
By songs and dances and mischievous humor.
By joy beyond circumstance and wisdom
beyond measure.
I am in love with these women and passionate
about what they’ve taught me. Determined
that everyone I know understand their
stories. Desperate to return to them,
to halt their passage from my daily conscience
to the corners of my memory.
Ask me why I got my nose pierced. Let
me tell you stories of primary schoolteachers
and midwives and housewives; of widows
and fiancées and wise old souls.
And above all, a story of a woman who
went away on a journey to Bangladesh and
back, and will never be the same
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