Since I have been sick for the better part of this week, it seems an ideal time to mention a fairly well-kept secret haven for foreigners in Dhaka. As you might have heard me mention before, this is not the easiest place to live. What with the restrictive dress code, lack of green spaces, and all around absence of any sort of “resort” atmosphere to escape to when times get tough and homesickness is at its worst, Dhaka needs a refuge.
And it’s called the American Club. Now, don’t get me wrong – the British have one too. And so do the Germans, and the “Nordics” (okay, so there weren’t enough members at the Finnish Club and they had to expand their reach). And I think the Canadians have one too. But that’s beyond the scope of this exploration: I’ll just stick with the American Club.
When I first arrived here, I thought it was a bit pretentious and oh-so-racist, even, to have a private gathering place for rich white people in which the Bengalis served as the “lower class.” I had never belonged to a private club before in my life, and could just imagine the lavish golf courses with dark brown caddies toting around golf clubs for the affluent white folk. I despised it immediately. And my impression didn’t immediately change when I stepped inside as a guest of the boss and saw the rows upon rows of blooming flowers and mostly-green grass in the otherwise brown and dry climate, stretching over a city of dust and rubble. My boss’s wife casually slipped off her orna, the gold-standard for female modesty, mandatorily worn like a shawl-and-headscarf over any other piece of clothing a woman wears: if she doesn’t have her orna, she’s fresh meat on the street – even in the raging-hot summer temperatures.
So this intrigued me, and started to win me over. The American Club: a place where an American can be an American. At first glance, yes, it did have tennis courts, a gym, and a pool. But the pool wasn’t heated. And, more importantly, their menu included hamburgers and fries, macaroni and cheese, a weekly barbecue, and seasonal pumpkin pie. Not to mention brands of ketchup only found at the commissary and generally only available to government employees. This was the casual stuff of American life, not the fine, snobbish pickings of an elite upper class. And the drink – oh, the alcohol! In a country where alcohol was not permitted, they served two-for-one margaritas during Happy Hour, for the grand old price of $2.20! And that’s right – all prices were in dollars, so you knew just how little money you were spending.
For my friends, the American Club was a sort of refuge in times of deepest, darkest depression – and rightly so. It was the only place to feel normal – sort of (because the mosquitoes and bad air, sadly, did not park themselves outside the Club’s door). And, over this past week, it has been the only place to serve the kind of bland foods one is desirous of when one has been puking and feeling weak: tonic water and popcorn. You might not imagine they would be so hard to come by on the mean streets of Dhaka, but of course you would be wrong.
Sitting, with my “exposed” legs dangled in the pool on a Friday afternoon, orna cast aside and book in my hands, I remember why it’s good to be at home for Mom’s chicken noodle soup when you’re sick.
