Bangladesh
- Karen Darnell
- Apr 25, 2020
- 3 min read
I visited Little Bangladesh in Los Angeles, California on March 8, 2020 – one of my last in-person cultural experiences before the shutdown. My friend Cathy and I ate and shopped at Bengla Bazaar & Restaurant. I loved seeing the gigantic vegetables that I don't know what they are and the massive frozen fish that look like they were pulled from a river in south Asia. I bought a huge container of ground cumin for the price of a small container in the grocery store in my neighborhood. Cathy and I ordered a little of each of the six different kinds of vegetables they had on their tray line as well as the dal and chicken. We ate it over big plates of rice and with roti. Nothing was as spicy as Indian food and all was good. I even liked the unknown vegetable that we were warned was bitter but the most representative of Bangladesh.
I had hoped to return to Little Bangladesh on March 26, when they celebrate their Independence Day. That will need to wait for another year, but I did read and enjoy A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, which describes the war for independence from Pakistan. I also watched “Water Wars: When Drought, Flood and Greed Collide” narrated by Martin Sheen. This describes how Bangladesh is suffering from lack of water alternating with floods partially because of dams in India that restrict water then let it out when there is too much.
The idea of microloans, small loans to poor people to make it possible for them to start a business and rise from poverty, comes from Bangladesh. Specifically, the idea comes from Muhammad Yunus who opened Grameen Bank to provide these loans to people who would not otherwise qualify. He and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for this idea. His book, A World of Three Zeros, is available on Overdrive from my local library and maybe from yours.
Speaking of Overdrive, this is how to get ebooks and audiobooks free even though the libraries are closed. Books that touch on Bangladesh available on Overdrive – online possibly from your local library – include:
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen: apparently we should have been reading this back in 2012 when it was first published. It uses evidence from Bangladesh as part of its argument. It was checked out when I looked – it may be hard to get since it is so relevant right now.
Blood Telegram by Gary Bass: It seems I have learned more about American history since I started reading about other countries than I learned in my history classes. This book falls into the category of things I didn’t know about Nixon and Kissinger and how their support of Pakistan impacted Bangladesh. It’s highly rated on Goodreads, so now it’s on my list of things to read.
Also available through Overdrive is the clothing expose Made on Earth by Wolfgang Korn, the children’s book Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea by Elizabeth Suneby, and the young adult book The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan.
If you are daydreaming about an actual trip to Bangladesh, https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-bangladesh/ can help.
Finally, when this pandemic is over, you might want to plan travel to Bangladesh using your local travel advisor. Shout out to my favorite travel advisor, Kaitlin Darnell at Laura's Travel in Redlands. May the travel industry survive and thrive - may we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in Bangladesh and throughout the world.
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