The journey to Bangladesh
During winter break, my family decided to take a trip back to Bangladesh. My parents have gone back every couple years, but my sister and I had not since 2015. For some reason, I was nervous to go back and maybe that came from that fact that I had not seen my mom’s side of the family in so long. Since 2015, I now have new nephews, and my cousins also got married, so there was a lot of change waiting for us.
The flight in total was over 24 hours long, so once we finally landed in Bangladesh, I felt relief knowing that I didn’t have to get into another plane or sit around for hours on end. Once we got through the airport, we met with our parents and got into the car to go to my cousin’s house. I remember feeling kind of jittery knowing that everyone was waiting for us. One of the most memorable parts of the trip was definitely when we got off of the elevator to get into my cousin’s house because her door is right in front of the elevator, so when the doors opened, we immediately saw everyone there greeting us. It was surreal to be there and have everyone feel the same way.
my time in dhaka
We spent most of our time in Dhaka, and we went to different markets, malls and of course food places all over. In Bengali culture, the husband of one’s sister is usually called Dulabhai, and we can also use the same term for other family members as well, so that is what I called my cousin’s husband. I did not understand this when I was younger, but there is a difference behind being a Dulabhai vs just an “in-law.” My Dulabhai did everything in his power to make sure my sister and I were having fun and doing things that we wanted to. If we even mentioned something we could possibly want, he would bring it for us as quick as he could. I felt like if I even just said I liked ice cream, he would bring a spread of different flavors for me to choose from and would also probably try to make me eat all of them. If I told one of my other relatives that I liked ice cream, they would have just said “me too” and moved on, but that’s just the difference between a Dulabhai and them!
One major difference between the U.S. and Bangladesh is the traffic. I cannot even begin to explain how bad it is over there. If there is even the tiniest amount of space between two cars, people will walk, rickshas will try to squeeze and more. We went to the Ahsan Manjil, which is a palace, now turned museum, that the noblemen, or nawabs of Dhaka lived in and it took us seven hours to get there. Mind you, it’s originally maybe a one-hour drive. What was supposed to be a small trip turned into the entire day!
Food wise my sister and I had a lot of different places we wanted to go to and of them, my favorite were definitely the butter chicken momos in Mirpur. We saw them on Instagram and when we got there, there was a sign that said “Trending” and “As seen on TikTok,” which made us giggle a little. We also loved the street food, of course, but I wish we had more fuchkas (pani puri/gol gappe).
Overall, it was so nice to go back and see all of my family and how much the country itself had changed and developed. I definitely want to go back as soon as I can and don’t ever want to go so long without going back.