Amy Adoyzie

The Bangladeshi New Year was celebrated on April 14th, based on an Islamic lunar calendar, and I’m nearly two months late with posting about it. Since I’d only been here for about a month and a half at that time, didn’t know (still don’t) much about the city and how to get around, and this whole deal with how it’s unsafe for a woman to be exploring by herself made it so that I didn’t really do much of anything during the day for the New Year. I was really just stoked on it because it was a day off of work.
I justified my laziness by thinking, “I’ll be here for the next New Year. I’ll get my culture on then.”
That night, New Year’s Eve, the students threw a dance party in the small dining hall. Imagine about a hundred students crammed into the space of a 900 square foot one-bedroom apartment dancing to Shakira and popular Indian songs that I don’t know, with no ventilation and fans swirling above shoving around humid air. We shook our butts and sweated to “Hips Don’t Lie,” jigged our way through festive beats.

After the clock struck midnight, balloons popped, flower petals were tossed and cake was cut. Bangladeshi students ran around with handfuls of cake shoving it into our mouths. I suppose it’s a show of friendship like, “I shall feed you, honorable teacher, in this grand new year.” But as I swallowed a chunk of chocolate cake, all I could think was, “Cooties?!”

I guess having cake shoved in my face is one of those things I shan’t complain about, so I’ll cherish those cooties.
More: Bangladesh photo set.