Day Three: 'Bang' (15 June)
on From Banglatown to Bangladesh (Bangladesh), 15/Jun/2010 16:05, 34 days ago
It’s finally stopped raining here. After about 36 hours of non-stop downpour, flooding the streets and the buckets strategically placed under my leaky roof, today was dry. The skies are still grey, the air is still damp, but it is dry. Or drier, anyway.There is one thing about the rain here that never fails to amuse me. Amongst the thunder, the winds rustling the trees and shaking their branches, and the combination of falling fruit and raindrops clattering down on my tin roof so hard that I have to almost shout to be heard, there is one noise that stands out.And that’s the frogs, or ‘bang’ as they are called here. Appearing after each big rain, and carrying on for what seems like hours at a time, their strange foghorn-like trumpeting is like no ‘ribbit’ I’ve encountered before. And while not as loud as raindrops on metal, they definitely make themselves heard.They make themselves seen too. Frogs have recently been added to the list of‘wildlife’ found in my house, and – judging by the numbers on sale in the market today – they are not very good at camouflaging themselves from would-be hunters.They are hunted because, so I’m told, they are ‘very tasty’. The groups of frogs awaiting their fate in my local market today are likely to be deep-fried or boiled with chilli, and enjoyed as one of the special summertime dishes of these green hills.Before you start questioning my commitment to vegetarianism, I should point out that I’m not choosing frog-eating as my positive of today. But there is something about their distinctive noises, their forays into my house, and even their appearance bunched together in baskets in the market, that makes these now-quite-familiar environments feel ‘exotic’ once again.It may have been raining, but I am worlds away from English drizzle and Sainsbury’s pre-packaged chicken breasts. And sometimes it’s good to have that reminder. Even from as odd a source as ‘bang’.