Back in Dhaka

I had a wonderful time with Lima -- she's fantastic!  I was sorry to leave her company.  In Mymensingh, I was the only light skinned person, and was the walking parade everywhere I went.  So far in my experience, it hasn't bothered me too much, but having everyone stare at me all the time was a little overwhelming.  I'm glad to be back in Dhaka for a few days where foreigners are not as new and strange.

I finally posted my pictures from SUPOTH, as well as some travel pictures.  I took the train back to Dhaka and it was great.  I had a gorgeous day that I enjoyed from a window seat.  It took about three hours, and most of that was through the beautiful rich countryside of Bangladesh.

The past two weeks have been exhausting, filled with lots of field visits, culture, stares, insights and confusing thoughts.  I tried to sort it all out, to sift through and find my thoughts and write about them, but t's all too much, too overwhelming.  So I've going to pick up today [and don't be surprised if this post and the next couple are a little sporadic].

After church this morning, Kohima and I had a conversation that really shone some light on some of the issues between culture and justice that I have been thinking about.  Specifically, this paragraph from an earlier post:

I strongly believe that God created men and women, that women and men should have the same rights and privileges.  But I also believe that it is important to respect other peoples’ culture; I don’t want to force my culture on other people.  There is a lot of fuzzy gray area here and it is difficult to walk the line between social justice and cultural respect sometimes.  In this case, I would choose justice over culture, but I think it is important to consider the culture perspective of a situation and not get carried away trying to make everyone live the way we believe they should.

We were talking about how it is important to respect others cultures.  In the end though, you have to consider who you are trying to please.  Are you trying to live by God's standards or pleasing other people?  So justice trumps culture in my book.  It doesn't mean that situations with culture and justice in conflict are less complicated, but it gives me direction.  It's not about forcing my culture on someone else, it is about living in a way to please God and not humanity.  That being the case, it is still not our place to judge, and we are still called to live life in Christian love.