shouts of joy in chittagong

Live from Chittagong: BANGLADESH JUST BEAT ENGLAND IN A CRICKET WORLD CUP GAME!

I'll take this brief writing break from weeks of non-stop teaching, grading, working, travelling to fill you in on the current joyous happenings in Chittagong....

Midnight now, I'm at my desk in my room on the 9th floor of an apartment building on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway, and the shouts, honks, chants, drums below me are those of utter jubilation. It's reminding me of being in Paris in 2000 when the city hosted the final match of the Euro Cup and France beat Italy. Tonight's game (not a final) took place here in Chittagong and lasted about 7 hours.

Apparently these games can last for days. When I went out with some friends for afternoon coffee, the little restaurant had a huge screen set up with a projector and all customers and workers alike were a rapt audience of the game that I admittedly don't understand at all.

Although the festive screaming outside my window is in part a rather disheartening promise that shouldn't expect a solid night's sleep (on this weekend when I desperately need it), the excitement is still catching. It's nice to see this city full of energy. Chittagong sometimes feels to me like the bland and ugly little stepsister of Dhaka. Even with the ridiculous traffic and congestion of Dhaka, most Chittagonians would prefer to get their entertainment, shopping, and haircuts up there.

So having a couple of the ICC World Cup games here has been a source of great pride for Chittagong, not to mention for Bangladesh as a whole. The streets are cleaner, there are new fountains at every traffic circle, the telephone poles are all painted brightly in the national colors of red and green, and blinking lights adorn every tree and traffic median. It looks like Christmas actually.

Again, I can't say the heightened volume and quantity of car horns on the street right now is my cup of tea... but do appreciate how this game is unifying Bangladeshis across the world. A recent BBC article stated that,

"Co-hosting the Cricket World Cup is being seen here as one of the biggest events in the country's history since independence in 1971... 'In Bangladesh cricket is not simply a game, it is a symbol of national unity.' "

Comparing a few cricket games to a bloody liberation war seems pretty overstated to me, but like I said, I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to cricket. So I'm sure I'm missing something. Not the victory shouts out my window though. Those are unmissable.

By the way, Bangladesh won by 2 wickets with 6 balls remaining.....?