… at 4:30am these days? Not just chanting, but chanting broadcast through tinny, distorted loudspeakers. It’s happening more and more frequently these days. I can’t figure out why, nor can I figure out a pattern. I could ask someone, but we all know how that conversation will end. In more confusion.
After the 4:30am chanting session, there is the 5:15am wake up gong for the students. And gong lives outside my house. Needless to say I’ve become quite the morning person here in Rangamati. So I do now actually get up at 5:15am, and potter around (read: spend time online drinking tea) until I either go to work or leave the house at 7am for photos (this 7am photo thing is for this week only). So 5:15am is fine. I’m used to it, and happy with it. But 4:30am? I’m not so much a fan. That said, I don’t hear the Muslim call to prayer from my house, so I’m at least saved from that. To be honest, I’ll take Buddhist chanting at 4:30am over the 5 times a day call to prayer any day. I like my little Buddhist bubble here.
In other news: The national airport and 49 other key establishments are being renamed (http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=22230). So Zia airport is to being renamed Hazrat Shahjalal (R) International Airport No idea what the (R) stands for. And today there are protests by the opposition party about the airport’s name change. You see, they (the BNP) named it Zia, after their founder. And the Awami League are changing it following a High Court verdict, that any key establishments of the country will not remain after the name of a dictator (i.e. Zia). And then, when the BNP gets back into power, all the names will be changed back again. And then again in the following change of government. And so on, and so forth. It’s like kindergarten out there in the land of Bangladeshi politics. One might be led to believe that there aren’t more important things to be dealt with here…
[...] 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment An expat blogger on the politics of name change in Bangladesh: Zia airport is to being renamed Hazrat Shahjalal (R) [...]