Messy Work

Life's a Mess 

Living the life of a trailing spouse is like living in one big Mess.   The origins of the word “mess” comes from the Old French word “mes”, meaning portion of food, which was taken from the Latin verb “mittere”, which means “to put” or “to send”, with the primary sense of “a meal put on the table.”

The meaning of “mess” then appeared in English during the 13th century, and was often used specifically with liquid or cooked dishes, like soup or porridge. And by the 15th century, the same word “mess” was used to describe any group of people who dined together. This is why the military dining hall today is called a “mess hall.

Now to give you some background knowledge - a Mess in military terms is a place where one eats, drinks, socialises etc. Now there are various types of mess's in the military depending on rank, regiment, nationality all with their own peculiar rules, traditions and modus operandi. In most ones's I have been in, you sign a 'chitty' which goes on account. In this instance the same process works but all in Madam's name of course, for whatever food / drinks you have consumed and she gets billed monthly. Brill!

Other clubs, you buy a book of vouchers and pay for your revelry. Nectar points haven't caught on here yet, but there maybe a new business opporchancity in future. In fact, the concept of paying anything by card just hasn't reached here yet. It is all cash, which has taken a bit of getting used to. Here you can be a millionaire in Taka terms quite easily and in fact it is worth less than £10k. 

It is not a wallet you need here but a bag for the wads of money you need to carry to buy anything. Even more confusing, you could have 3 or 4 different variations in terms of size and colour for the same denomination. God knows what would happen if you were colour blind! Buying groceries feels more like playing monopoly when you get to the counter!

Ironically, Bangladesh is one of the few countries that leads the world in using microfinance (community loans, savings etc) with community businesses. They are even starting to use their mobile phones to manage all their financial dealings etc - ahead of the game compared to G8 countries! In fact a forward thinking Bangladeshi bank - Grameen (yes you read it right - a forward thinking bank) invented the microfinance concept. So in the rural communities they have made a generational leap or two to do their business, whilst us 'colonials' languish in what we think is cutting edge. All in all when it comes to money or paying anything here - life's a mess!

Traffic

Traffic, More Traffic and Dhaka Traffic

The first few days in Dhaka as a TS (Trailing Spouse) are an onslaught on your senses.  The most in your face onslaught on so many levels is the traffic.  Now I have realised that all rules and regulations related to management of traffic do not apply here.  All perceptions of how traffic should work or how it works does not apply.  This is Dhaka Traffic!

Firstly, anything with wheels, has the right to be on and own all of the road.  Doesn’t matter what state your wheels are in, how many you have got, what speed you are travelling – they all feel they have a right to own the road.  Secondly, the only rule that seems to apply, if I am bigger than you, then I have priority.  The best way to look at it, is that its Darwinian’s natural selection process in action based on a hierarchal vehicle species and traffic system of survival. 

Thirdly, if your bell, and yes every bike has one, and they probably need serviced more often than the bike itself to your car horn – if it doesn’t work – you are on a suicide mission.  Make sure you have signed that will, made the appropriate arrangements as either two things will happen – death or … you don’t go anywhere, as you will be still stuck trying to get out of the driveway.

Fourthly, if you expect to go above 20mph – forget it.  Fifthly – there are pot holes and there are pot holes.  With the latter, having climbing equipment and ropes may be an essential item to have in your vehicle, as if you drive into them – you may end up at the centre of the earth – who knows.  People are still missing.

Sixthly – giving way, stopping at junctions, indicating, giving due consideration to cyclists or other road users etc just does not apply.  The whole concept of a highway code just hasn’t reached this part of the world.  I think there is a driving test, and if there is, who knows what it contains.  Oh and to cap it all – on most roads there is no paint to indicate any lanes, and if there was, why bother – no-one follows it.  Also there are few traffic lights, and if there are – they don’t work.  Starting to get the picture?

Add to the whole traffic ‘management’ dysfunctionality is the noise.  In some ways I haven’t noticed the pollution as much as the noise.  Bells ringing, horns tooting, which is quite amusing as bigger the vehicle, the deeper sounding the horn is.  There a rickshaws (three wheeled bikes used as taxis); tuk-tuks' – a mini version of a reliant robin and a lawnmower engine looking like a cage on wheels (used as a taxi), cars, SUV’s, lorries, busses (more often or not they have been in the wars with other buses and are held together with sticky tape and whatever else you can find) and and and… 

The next thing one notices, is that if you leave space in front of you in case the other driver brakes etc, as you would do being a considerate and careful driver – the space has gone!  One of the aforementioned list of vehicles will have taken it, or muscle in to take it.  Being a passenger is like being on a slow moving, pulse racing roller coaster.  If the mosquitoes don’t get you, the stress of driving in traffic will. 

So the next time you are stuck in your traffic jam, give some consideration to the TS in Dhaka.  What you are experiencing is just mild inconvenience, a bit like indigestion.  When you come to Dhaka - it’s a full on corony!

Be Prepared - Dib Dib

Be Prepared!

Life as a new TS (Trailing Spouse) is a mixture of what the **** and ‘yes Madam’.  Apart from being the dinner party diva (DPD), you have to be Mr Fixit.  Now, this isn’t so much of ‘when are you putting those shelves up darling’ as there are people to do that for you.  It is more of, we don’t have X and your job is to assimilate, plan, source and resolve the X request.  In a lot of cases this is required so the TS can then become the DPD.  Yes, that is another thing you learn when being a diplomatic TS – acronyms! 

Government bureaucracy seem to live by them.  Actually they operate by them.  I would love to ask them, what does the acronym stand for as I bet they can’t remember.  Anyhow, even despite being a good boy scout and being a member of the reserve armed forces, I just didn’t realise that my level of preparedness would have to be applied in Bangladesh and utilised accordingly.

Take for instance a plug.  Yep – the good ole plug for your bath or sink.  Now, in my wash bag for when I am traipsing around with the forces, is a sink plug.  All washrooms have sinks and even have running hot water now.  But they don’t have plugs.  I know why they don’t have plugs, to prevent flooding when some squaddie doesn’t give a monkey etc, but I do wonder what their water bill is like for waste.  Do they know or care?  Anyhow, I digress.  Hence why being prepared is essential – apart from the usual toiletries, first aid kits etc, one carries a plug in the wash bag.

The picture is set.  So arriving as a TS, Madam and I were duly escorted to our accommodation, whereupon entering the kitchen I had to laugh out loud, much to the consternation of Madam.  On further inspection throughout the house and the myriad of bathrooms there were either no plugs or the plugs that did exist, were designed for some sort of plughole which is unknown to any human being and thus is actually a nice ornament dangling from the tap, akin to some furry dice in your car if you are of that persuasion.

This is when I realised I had been transported into the land of government and associated accommodation.  Of course, I had failed to assume that diplomatic houses may run along the same lines of utilitarian forces sleeping and washing blocks and hence carrying a universal plug may be an essential part of ones equipment.  I have now realised that any travelling in this region a plug will need to be packed along with the anti bite cream, insect repellent etc.

Trying to find a suitable plug in Dhaka, is now becoming a major mission and is slowly creeping up to the top of the list.  Yes I could order them from home and get them sent out – that’s cheating.  Yes, I could get Madam to purchase some when she is back at HQ for those essential meetings which require travelling over 5000 miles for them, to then start coming back two days later – but that to me is being defeatist.

Therefore readers, I have chosen to accept this quest and undertake my very own mission impossible – getting the right plug in Dhaka - I will keep you updated.  So if you are coming out to this part of the world – please be plug prepared!

Our Democratic Right

Take for Granted

Different cultures are part of the diplomatic experience  so I am told.  I am open to that and the first big cultural experience a TS encounters in Dhaka, is that the week is different.  I don’t mean by what the days are filled with etc, though that can and will no doubt be an issue in due course.  No, I mean the way the week is structured.  Here a weekend falls on Friday and Saturday.

Friday is very much the prayer day for the Bangladeshis, resulting in little or no traffic on the roads on these days.  You probably find that most expats decide to run the gauntlet of the Dhaka roads on this day, and feel very proud for the very fact  that they have done this.  Wimps!

Anyhow, when you reach Sunday, it is the equivalent of a Monday and can be quite confusing.  One forgets that a Tuesday is actually the middle of the working week and Thursday is our Friday.  Confused?  It is a bit like the clocks going back or forward.  I always remembered as a kid, when the clocks changed the dog would look at his bowl to either say why are you feeding me now, or why aren’t you feeding me now.

Never mind.  When Madam came home and said she would have to work on Saturday (our Sunday) and would I like to come along, I thought oh oh – TSD (Trailing Spouse Duty) kicking in me thinks and not in the working week – not good.  On this occasion, I didn’t mind, as it was to view the recording of Sanglap – a BBC style Question Time programme. 

Now thinking it was all to take place in a studio, I thought it is something a bit different – why not.  In fact they had constructed a studio in the middle of an old fort called Lalbagh Fort in Old Town Dhaka – amazing.  The main problem was that the show had to take place in the evening due to it being a public space and that three mosques surrounded the fort, communicating at sunset their various versions of a call to prayer all at the same time creating this loud speaker cacophony.  The noise abatement society would have had kittens.

Now why do you ask was all this taking place to produce a political programme and why was the BBC involved?  But after seeing it, I realised we, … as in Brits, … take our democratic right for granted and the opportunity to question politics and more importantly politicians.  I’ll explain.

In Bangladesh, there are only two major political parties who are at each others throats.  Any initiatives created by one party in government, will be stopped when the opposition gets in power.  The whole country is in a Doctor Whoesque space time continuum, with half finished infrastructure projects, pet political projects and little movement on essential components which the Bangladeshi population actually need to survive.  The opportunity to question the political process and hold to task, if one can here, in a moderated constructive way does not exist –hence Sanglap.

It is being produced by BBC Media Action in association with Bangla BBC World Service and the local TV Channel I.  It looked and felt liked BBC’s Question Time.  In this case the moderator wasn’t David Dimbleby, but the presenter on the Bangla BBC World Service.  The current Bangladeshi Prime Minister allowed her Home Affairs minister to take part, because of the BBC involvement.  Supposedly any type of political talk show here ends up in a punch up and thus no politicians take part!

Although there was BBC staff from the UK for the first few shows, they were training up the local staff to produce future episodes up until the elections and hence their involvement.  A moderated programme entitling people to question their politicians on issues and politics is a revelation.  Hopefully, Bangladeshis watching Sanglap, can become fully informed before they head to the ballot box in 12 months time to exercise their democratic expression.  The last time Sanglap took place in 2010 it drew a weekly audience of over 25 million people and became highly respected by all communities - international development in action some may say!.

Conversely, this has made me realise that in the UK, we take these programmes for granted.  We take for granted we have a culture that allows us to question our political representatives and are able to exercise a democratic right unlike countries and in this case - the people of Bangladesh.

Respect

Its Not Duty. Its Respect

So less than 12 hours in the country, there I am suited and booted in a minibus starting a 3 hour journey on ‘roads’ and I use the word loosely – more like rough tracks which have occasionally seen some asphalt, and that’s just in the fringes of the capital city before we are en route to the rural parts of Bangladesh.  The mission (and it felt like one) was to attend the remembrance service at Comilla where the commonwealth graves reside.  

Now when Madam, a few days prior to this taking place and I was over 5000 miles away, suggested that she thought it would be good to attend, I went not a problem.  Now I realised that being a TS (Trailing Spouse), there will be a number of things I will have to ‘dutifully do’ such as attend events, never mind doing the shopping, keeping the house (what an old fashioned phrase), organising and probably cooking for the endless round of dinner parties and managing the staff – more on that one to come. 

In other words when Madam says, one jumps!  When she asks in the morning before going to work ‘what are you doing today darling’, god help you if you don’t have any answer.  So far saying ‘Stuff’ works – not sure for how long though.

Anyhow, so when Madam said it would be good if we were there, but I fully understand that you have just entered a new country to a new life, in a different time zone with 6 hours of difference and in temperatures of 25C+ as well as all the tiny things that fly and bite – one realised we were already attending.  Now this is where the role of the TS digresses slightly.  I didn’t feel it was my duty to attend - to accompany and support Madam. I wanted to attend!

There is one thing which the British leads the world – remembering those that have given their life to protect others.  The Commonwealth War Graves Commission tends the graves of all those British and importantly, those nations in the commonwealth that helped in whatever action that has taken place.  So on arrival at Comilla located close to the Myanmar border (for those of you whose geography is not up to scratch, in old money - Burma) there was this stunning oasis with neatly ordered white crosses, surrounded by tendered gardens.  In the middle of this serenity was a small hill which stood a simple monument remembering those who had fallen.

Now why Comilla you ask to locate the memorial – I asked.  It was the location of the field hospital during the Burma campaign, due to the proximity to the border and thus the most appropriate place for the memorial and graves to lie.  A simple service, led by the British High Commissioner took place with representatives from a number of Commonwealth High Commissions and other Missions standing in silence, followed by the laying of a wreath representing their nation.  Simple, beautiful and moving.

The journey back to Dhaka, took longer and even was more harrowing, as by that time, the Bangladeshi population had conducted their prayers and were on the roads.  If you are a budding stock car racer – this is the place to learn.  Want to learn evasive driving – this is the place to learn.  However, in some ways this was all insignificant to what took place earlier.  I wanted to be there and remember and believed very much I was not there for duty.  It was for respect.

The Start of Something New

Baptism of Fire

Quick recap – the other half has been posted to Dhaka (the one in Bangladesh, formerly part of India and Pakistan, for all those who failed their geography exam and having a big war in 1971 becoming an indepenent country on 15^th December 1971, for those who failed their history exam) on behalf of a G8 Govt saving the worlds poor and stuff like that, and now only responds to being called ‘Madam’ on all levels of communication.  So, with this in mind and accepting my fate as a true Scot, I have decided to join her and have now been given the affectionate title of ‘Trailing Spouse’ (TS) as they are all known out here and everywhere else in the global diplomatic community.  Thankfully the male TS community have come up with their own acronym STUD (Spouse Trailing Under Duress) – I leave it up to you which is more appropriate depending on the situation.

So Madam left about 6 weeks before I was due to join her, leaving basically everything for me to do – first role of a TS me thinks.  This not only involved the sorting out of the house for the packers to arrive and deploy their own philosophy, packing one’s life up and placing in storage, but also trying to deal with the unintuitive bureaucracy and lack of information, now titled the MIS (missing information service).  If they could do qualifications in deciphering information that does exist but isn’t present or vice versa, then I reckon I should be on my way to my second degree. 

Another way to describe it is, and he may have written the manual, Donald Rumsfeld's view – ‘There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.’  After the second degree, within a year I could have a lecturing job in it.  No doubt this subject will be revisited time and time again. 

In addition to the hullabaloo of packing up the flat; having a wisdom tooth out so I was ‘dentally cleared’ before joining Madam – an excellent example of MIS, where these requirements had to be fulfilled before joining the post, but isn’t actually written down anywhere with no paperwork to be authorised or supporting information to be digested; there was pandering to my brother’s whims of what was needing done in my property before he could move in, which hinged on the balance of the stressful situation on whether he could get cable TV or not and if it was in HD – I wish my needs were that simple; and generally walking around in a daze muttering OMG in between popping pain killers.

Running in parallel was trying to facilitate clients needs.  Being an ‘entrepreneurial’ sort of chappie, I had set-up my own business and was one of the few small pillars of the community contributing to the rebuilding of the country, within reason of course as duly advised by my accountant.  So there was this crazy situation of me sorting out the final things for a conference whilst being ensconced in the kitchen, about the size of a wardrobe, with the laptop perched precariously on the gas hob, mobile phone permanently in my hand and using a redundant packing box as the seat / desk etc whilst the packers were wrapping and packing for air freight around me into 72 boxes.  That is Madam and I’s life now 72 boxes – a bit odd when it is viewed like that – more later.

The final hours before departure was the stressful part of trying to stay within one’s weight limit for baggage, but ensuring I had enough clothes and stuff to live with, working on the basis that the 72 boxes may not arrive for some weeks.  This again was not as straightforward as it should be, because all eventualities had to be considered – business attire, formal, smart but ‘cas’, sports, lounging etc.  Add to that some patisserie essentials and the ‘office’.  The thought of that first gin and tonic on the plane never felt more appealing, knowing that the initial TS baptism had started and paused for it only to begin full on over 5000 miles away in temperatures of 25C+ - hellish ain’t it!