Sunday, December 7, 2008

Old Dhaka historic buildings

Here are some shots of the actual homes we saw. In many of them, the occupants invited the group in and we toured the houses while they went about their daily routines. The top shot is of a courtyard in the interior of a building. I walked from the street down a long, dark skinny hallway to get to this courtyard. The hand pump was in this courtyard. The exterior shot was a house from the Mongol (sp?) period which was even BEFORE the colonial period. So between 200-400 years ago. I asked our guide what was different about the living conditions from 200 years ago and now and she said "200 years ago they had an open well and now they have a hand pump". All i could think about was New York, London and Boston 200 years ago and those cities TODAY. crazy.













2 comments:

Cold Spaghetti said...

How interesting -- and what an apt comparison to the conditions of 19th century New York! Did they say anything about where the water comes from and it's quality? Or about how the construction of buildings may (or may not?) contribute to incidence of diarrheal disease? I was curious since the tour sounds like an advocacy event to celebrate the historical architecture of such an old urban area -- and if they were advocating for renovating these areas for public health improvements?

The Martz family said...

good questions, Holly. I think we will got again sans enfants and i will ask those very questions...