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Fruits are completely different
from what we are used to. Some we like, some we don't, and interestingly,
we seem to suffer from a "Western" taste, as most of the expats and
tourists have the same opinion. Bananas, pineapple, litchis, mangoes, they
are all fine with us. But fruits like durian and jackfruit are not popular
at all.
In the season, jackfruits are available in Bangladesh in enormous sizes,
like 4 kilogram per piece. Sometimes, we are presented with one, and that
means we get a huge (unwanted) presented. The fruit has a kind of
sweetness which is simply too much for us.
You see a lot of jackfruit trees in Dhaka. Sometimes, they have
"parasites", long purple wild orchids (see picture above). You have to be
careful not to be hit by a falling jackfruit whilst admiring these
flowers! |
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In
Bangladesh, there are also many people from tribal populations, like in
the
Bandarbans. But also in
Dhaka
you may find many, and they are mainly from Garo background, coming from
the middle of Bangladesh, in the neighborhood of Mymensingh.
They lived once in China, Bhutan and
Tibet, but after some internal
warfare a group of them moved to the Garo hills (then in Assam and
Bengal,
India) and that is were they got their name. They are a matrilineal
society, which seems to be quite rare nowadays. The daughters are most
important, which is obviously completely different for the Muslim Bengali,
who have to pay large sums of dowry to get rid of the daughters and
therefore prefer sons. In a Garo family, the youngest daughter inherits
most, in a Muslim family, often only the boys inherit anything. The fact,
that the law prescribes equal distribution, does not bother anyone in
Bangladesh in the least.
The Garos used to be nomads from
Mongoloid origin, but now have settled themselves and most of them have
been converted from animist/Hinduism to Christianity by the missionaries. They are quite serious
in their religion, strict church-going gospel singing Christians. But
there are differences: some are Catholics, some are Baptists and some are
Seventh-day Adventists. A group of Garos once came to our house to sing
Christmas songs, but we did not experience the faintest recognition. They
have a language of their own, which is taught in schools apart from
Bengali. There are a little over 100,000 of them, and they are very
popular as house staff among expats.
We have a Garo-driver (coincidentally inherited from the people who lived
in our house before us), and he invited us to his village. There was a
party, in relation to some marriage and distribution of land. Almost all
of the villagers own a part of the land around the village, where millions
of pineapples are growing. According to one of the village's elderly,
these have been imported from the Indian border in 1942 on a bullock cart.
Since there was no such border in 1942, as Bangladesh was still part of a
greater India, he was either mistaken about the
year, or he was just referring to the place where the border is now. But
anyhow, the pineapples are flourishing.
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The diet is interesting. It is said
Garos eat all animals, except cats,
but I cannot confirm that from my own experience. But thy eat, contrary to
the fellow Muslim population, pork. From the pork, they make sausage with
the blood and they eat all parts, including the ears. As we were the chief
guest, there was a little hint towards us and pork ears, but fortunately
we got away with eating the liver only.
Furthermore, they eat also snails and eel. They eat lots of fruit and
drink rice wine.
The party was a big one, it lasted three days and there were about one and
a half thousand guests. There was a lot of bargaining about land that
needed to be divided and side-by-side a girl that needed to get married.
We, the outside guests, were brought to a house far away from the scene to
have our food. We were allowed to take a look at the cooking and the
guests, but that was it. We saw one leg dangling from each of the ten
pigs, which had been slaughtered for the occasion. We also saw the men
sitting around the cooking pots, preparing a stew of pork, pig blood and
ashes. But even though that doesn't sound inviting, it looked and smelled
good. But we were told, that such food would endanger the health of the
weak foreigners, and were not allowed to taste.
 Buying
meat is an interesting issue anyway. You can buy it in the supermarket,
where it is stored in fridges. Or you can go to a place, which is called
"German butcher" even though it is owned by a Hungarian/Thai couple.
Bengali buy their meat in the bazaar. Pieces of animal or even entire
animals are hanging there, exposed to sunlight and flies. You must have a
very strong stomach, I suppose, and therefore we take pictures of this
meat but never eat it. |
