Stuff you may not know.

Bangladesh is roughly the size of Iowa with the population of Russia. I imagine that a large part of the population problem dates back to 1947 when the British required all the Hindus and Muslims to migrate to their assigned areas. Before 1947, Hindus and Muslims were all jumbled together. The British rulers thought that the mix of religions would be a problem so they required people to move. House swaps were arranged but the land mass of India is much greater than that of Pakistan and Bangladesh combined causing strain on the small countries forced to deal with the influx of people. One day per year the Indian government will allow Bangladeshis to go to the border fence, without fear of being shot, to visit with family, through the fence, that they were forced to leave behind when so many were forced to move.

Dhaka is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and it shows every day in the overly crowded streets and the new construction going up everywhere. What would be a ten-minute walk is often a half hour long drive. I recently learned that many of the buildings being built do not have permission to build. There has been a story in the news about how Hallmark is building illegally. Bridge construction projects are left half finished because they run out of funding. There are now so many children that the public schools cannot handle them all and a lottery has been set up to see which kids, whose parents cannot pay tuition, get to go to school.

Dhaka occupies 140 square miles of Bangladesh, leaving roughly 57,000 square miles of area that is not Dhaka. There are other big cities, like Chittagong, and other smaller cities and villages, the Sundarbans: a rain forest, which is home to the Royal Bengal Tiger, and the world’s longest uninterrupted beach. Being pregnant, and trying to get settled here as a home I have not had the opportunity to see most of Dhaka much less the rest of the country but I am eager to see more.

The population growth in Dhaka is largely due to climate change, lack of water because of damming and pollution, and more opportunity in the city. Our two maids come from the same village about a day’s ride by bus away. I do not know how often they go home but since they arrived in mid December, they have not gone home. One has grown children and the other has a seven-year-old son. Our driver also is from a village. He has two children, a boy and girl who I got to meet the other day. He also has a long bus ride home. The decision to come work in the city, leaving their family and everything they know has to be a hard decision and financially driven.

From what I have seen, when someone wants to hire a maid or driver they ask their friends and family to ask their maids and drivers if they know anyone who is looking to work. If the person has never been a maid before they get paid a lot less and there seems to be a large learning curve. Cleaning a mud house is quite different from a cement one. I also belong to a few Facebook pages for foreigners in Dhaka and I have seen many requests for maids or recommendations from people who are now leaving Dhaka. If a maid or driver has experience working for foreigners they usually expect to get paid a lot more.

There are full time and part time maids. I have been warned against the part time maids many times. They do not live with you in the same building and have a reputation of stealing things. The full time maids and drivers live in the same building. I have seen a few different setups to accommodate the staff. The least common is that they will stay in the spare room. Some buildings have a place built onto the roof for the maids to share and a place behind the garage for the drivers. Others have small “quarters” built right next to the flat. The staff earns a monthly wage and is provided a place to live and food to eat. Right now, we have six people living in my in-laws home plus three staff members, for each meal nine people have to eat. When we move into our own space, one of my biggest concerns is feeding the maid and driver we are bound to have eventually. I hope to find a maid who cooks well or who is not a picky eater! So far, whenever I “cook” anything, American style, no one else, besides Sara and I like it.