Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

Megla, one of my students at the Asian University for Women, took me and my fellow teachers to the small rural village of Bogra, Rajshahi, where her father's family owns a homestead. This pond is on their property.

As we sit on a landing besides Megla’s family pond, a group of local women gather around us to have a peek at the foreigners who have arrived in their remote village. This little girl wobbles up, steps into someone else’s slippers, and watches us as we chat.

You can’t tell from the looks of Megla’s family pond, but there are hundreds of fish flourishing below the reflective surface. Local village men jump in and cast a net to gather fish for dinner. Bangladeshis tend to enjoy their fish deep-fried and fresh.

This is what remains of a cow in Megla's father's village. During the Muslim Eid celebration, wealthier families sacrifice goats and cows and distribute the meat to their neighbors.

Banna, pictured here, invited me and a few fellow teachers to her home in Rajshahi, a bumpy 12-hour bus ride from our school in Chittagong, Bangladesh. On a tour of her home village, we visit her primary school. When the headmaster learns that Banna has won awards for her musicianship, he brings out a harmonium from a nearby closet and asks Banna to serenade us. She pleasantly obliges.

This boy pops right into my camera’s frame as we walk through his village. Check out the little rub-on tattoos on his arm.

On a trip to a village outside Chittagong, my fellow teachers and I attract a small herd of children as we head toward the school. This beautiful Bangladeshi girl trails us the entire time.

A sleeper bus awaits its passengers en route from Rangpur to Chittagong. After a 10-day trip across northern Bangladesh, a 14-hour journey has never felt so rickety. During a break at about 3 a.m., the bus is illumuniated by the flashing lights of a roadside stand selling DVDs of Bangla music videos.

One of my Hindu students prays at an altar during the Durga Puja festival, held annually to honor the Hindu goddess Durga.

During the Hindu Durga Puja festival, I join my Hindu students as they visit local temples to pay their respects to the goddess Durga. At one of the temples, I am able to capture my student Mow lighting a few candles. After she lights the small flame, she waves her hand over the faint smoke and then guides the smoke toward me as a blessing.

I toured a local village outside of Chittagong, one of the first places to put Muhammad Yunus’ Nobel-Prize-winning ideas about microfinancing to the test. This bank issues micro-loans using good old-fashioned paper.

The ubiquitous rickshaw is the preferred mode of transportation around town for most Bangladeshis. But each rickshaw has its own flair. Rickshaw artists create customized awnings and panels from vibrant vinyl cut-outs; others prefer to paint on the shiny metal sidings directly.

Riding a rickshaw is one of the cheapest ways to get around Bangladesh, but just make sure you know where you’re going. A rickshaw puller may nod when you tell him the name of your destination, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he knows where it is. Since there are so many rickshaws on the streets of major cities, sometimes rickshaw pullers in need of a fare will start pedaling even if they don’t know how to get there because they assume the passenger will guide them.

Garment production is one industry that keeps Bangladesh economically afloat. Many clothes sold in Western stores are sewn in Bangladesh. This tailor works in a small textile factory that also produces off-the-rack traditional South Asian clothing.

At a textile factory in the hill tracts of Chittagong, Bangladesh, the walls are stained a vibrant magenta from the dyes used on bundles of thread. The thread will be woven into shawls and fabrics to be worn by Bangladeshi women.

Weaving by hand is a lost art in much of the Western world, but hand-woven tapestries, fabrics, shawls, and saris are common in South Asia. In a textile mill in the hill tracts of Chittagong, I watch artisans at work at their looms.

As my friend photographs this alley, a woman wanders into her shot. My friend puts her camera down, but I fumble for mine, thinking, "This woman is the shot!" I love the way the colors of the buildings complement her sari.

At an all-girls public high school in Chittagong, Bangladesh, about a hundred students fill this oversized classroom. They are all enthusiastic about answering questions in their English class.