Shalwar kameses

We apologize for the lag between our last blog post and this one. We experienced some technical difficulties this week with computer space and pictures. Dane has taken so many pictures that his computer no longer has enough free space to run Picasa, the program we use to edit the pictures and then post them to the blog. I didn't realize that we should have brought an external hard drive with us to store all of these images!

I have realized that we still haven't posted about some of the basic things we experience here from day to day. For example, the picture above shows me modeling the female scrubs that I and the other women wear in the OR and the delivery room. Lovely, aren't they? In Bangladesh, pants on women are considered underwear, and so it is inappropriate to show the crotch or the waist of pants. Thus, all outfits come with long tunics or dresses to go over the pants - including the scrubs. I am quite grateful that I will not be wearing this get-up during the next four years of residency!

This picture shows me in a shalwar kamese. This is the typical outfit I wear when not in scrubs. The top is called a kamese, the pants are called a shalwar, and the scarf-like drape is called the orna. The one in this picture is rather fashionable because I borrowed it from Monica. She found this outfit in Chittagong - one of the big cities in Bangladesh. It is harder to find quality shalwar kameses in our part of the country, which is more like small town USA. There are small bazaars in each town, but they do not offer the variety or the quality of the bigger cities. Fortunately, Monica and I are similar sizes, and so I have been able to peruse her wardrobe.

It is challenging to dress appropriately in Bangladesh. Women always cover their chests with an orna, and so it is not acceptable to go without one (scrubs being the one exception). The orna really gets in the way because it hangs off your shoulders. I spend a good part of the day adjusting my orna to keep it from falling off. Shannon, one of the other short termers, already destroyed one orna during a bike ride when the bike gears grabbed the orna and chewed it up! It was quite entertaining to help her extract the orna. By the time we finally pulled it free, it was ripped to shreds and covered in grease. The moral of the story is that clothing can be hazardous to your health in Bangladesh!

God is teaching me so much as I learn to live among the Bengali. Though I struggle with the rules of attire and often wish that I could just put on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, I know that this is a small price to pay to relate to the Bengali people.