Bangladesh Festival in Hamtramck on Conant this weekend!

[RickBeall]

1:15 pm
Voices. I look out and there is a gaggle of oldsters and some baby carriages on the steps of the Catholic church. Church must have just let out.

1:16 pm
Hey, I'm good. Got my eye out.
I see a lone vendor walking with a table under one arm and a cell phone in his other hand pressed to his ear. The vendors are rather interesting. They are mostly young guys who look 18 - 25 age range. All are extremely polite. Crisp you might say. I am not used to service and formality like this in the city. I'm used to surely employees at Mc Donalds, who, if I'm good, take my order.

1:23 pm
I am at my desk again. Sound of unloading eminating from the window across the room. I should probably go out and find my car. I had to park it on a surface street several days ago. Have not seen it since.

[RickBeall]

Hi Taheel,
The best time to attend the festival today is from 6 pm - 9 pm. I talked to some people.

2:30 pm
I retrieved my car and moved it closer to the house.

Venders are filing back in. Some funky rap / R&B hybrid music is playing outside. .... actually I think I'm hearing music from a couple sources filtering in through the windows.

[MickeyMac]

When I hear Bangladesh I always think of George Harrison.

[RickBeall]

3:42 pm
Heavy rain! Excited babble coming through window.

4:19 pm
Bright sunshine!

4:25 pm
Guys in the tent in front of the house ask if they can run their "Slushy" machine off the electricity of our house. They say we can eat all we want and have all the Slushy's we want. We say ok. Slushies!

[RickBeall]

5:00 pm
Crowds are very light ... 3 or 4 people. No music coming from the bandshell, but the boys out front are playing Bangladeshi pop music from a stereo. Wife walks in the room and tells me her theory that Michael Jackson committed suicide. Hmmm. Back to work on the computer.

[RickBeall]

5:20 pm
Sheets of rain. Very intense. And wind! Water sloughs off the top of the tent in sheets. Heard some screams from the ladies in the booth to the right. The wind pushes a rack out of their tent. Our boys valiently continue to play Bangladeshi pop music. Some stuff blows out of their booth too.

5:23 pm
Agitated voices from below.

5:26 pm
Sun is back out.

5:28 pm
Bangladeshi pop music is gone. Hope the Slushi machine survived.

[Jimg]

Hi Rick, JimG here, we are heading down to Banglatown for some food, perhaps we will see you at the Magic Mushroom?

[RickBeall]

Hi Jimg,
Ha ha. Yes maybe. My wife is working on her hair, we can't come out until that magic is done. Not sure when exactly that is. I will be wearing a red Grandee Ballroom T-shirt.

[RickBeall]

5:36 pm
Bangladeshi pop music is back
I'm trying to put up some junk on ebay ... keep getting distracted.

5:43: pm
Bangladeshi have survived. Tents have been fortified with blue tarps. More voices and more people walking about. Festival starting to wake up.

Bangladeshi pop music is inside my brain.

[Jimg]

I have on a "BeBop" t-shirt

[RickBeall]

6:08 pm
Life returns to normal. Music, barbecues blazing, clothes on racks being ruffled by the wind. Sound of basketball occurring somewhere. Bangladeshi pop music.

But wife looks out back window of house and says more drama is approaching from the west.

Meanwhile, a post-middle age white woman set up a tiny grill in the Church/school drive way and is grilling away. Her kid rides her bike around and around. A Party is a party.

Have to keep my eye pealed for the "BeBop" t-shirt.

Back to ebay.

6:47 pm
Looks like a party. Come on down!

Back to ebay.

[rjk]

If someone wanted to try bangladeshi food which restaurant would he go to and what would he order? I'm open to suggestions. Maybe the next time we're in Hamtramck we'll give it a try. It's gotta be good enough to overpower by pull towards pierogies and kielbasa at PVC.

[Bearinabox]

It's gotta be good enough to overpower by pull towards pierogies and kielbasa at PVC.

I'm not sure there's food on earth, Bangladeshi or otherwise, that meets that qualification.

[RickBeall]

7:43 pm
Sounds like a real bazaar out there.

[RickBeall]

10:45 pm
People are streaming by the window. I think they ended the event down by the main stage and people are walking back to their cars or homes.

We really enjoyed the unlimited food and Slushi's. I definately like the red Slushi best. I think I had 4. The guys were really nice and kept asking us if we wanted another, or more food.

There is something very sweet about an entire festival being thrown and there is no alcohol. This was a very kid friendly event. The women wore beautiful, glittering, floating robes. There were a couple young woman who stood on the steps of the graceful Queen of Apostles Church as the sun was going down and the scene just looked timeless.

Right now the cops are swinging by, honking their fog horns in short bursts, ending the festival in the graceful way Hamtramck always ends it's festivals.

Nothing makes an event more fun than running into folks you know. We had a nice talk with jimg and his wife, another friend with the name of Jim, and Shahob and Lisa.

11:15 pm
Wife said we are really going to miss that tent in front of our house.

12:15 am
The friendly guys with the Slushi's are gone.

1:15 am
The tent is gone.

2:00 am
The garbage has been swept up. The street is clean. Only a few garbage bags remain.

8:00 am
I look out the window. Just the street with the occasional car whizzing by. It is Monday, I am looking for a tie, and I am too sleepy to be getting up at this hour. Was it a dream? A fevered dream of a far east bazaar with woman gliding by in glittering robes and venders hawking fabric and flour, food, and children's toys at my very door? Maybe I spent the weekend in a drug induced coma, laying on the basement floor overcome by paint fumes? Darn basement.

[Detroitnerd]

Rick, you must be right there. I was a block and a half away and didn't hear much. But, I must say, I was miffed that nobody let us know it was going to happen. And they explain that they didn't get the permit until a week before? Well, my response is that if the Bangladeshi community would just freakin' get it together instead of having two groups battle it out for supremacy in that community, they'd have had their ducks in a row a month ago. It's just all this silly infighting that keeps them from having the voice and the organization they deserve.

[RickBeall]

Hi Detroitnerd,
Yes, what you say is true: you are filling in a little of the back story. I know the Bangladeshi have been talking about having this festival in the street for years. And it has been a huge power struggle within their community. [[In the past they actually did hold the festival, but they held it somewhere near the Davidson. I don't know if anyone outside their community even knew about it. )

There was a huge fight over the placing of the Bangladeshi Ave signs as an honorary name for Conant. Councilmember Shahab had the signs in his basement for a year. [[I don't know the details, I got that tidbit from the Citizen.) Eventually, I think, new signs were made. [[Don't fill in the dots in any particular way here.) But I do know there was a huge struggle over when the signs would go up and who would be present. The rivalies in their community are fierce and personal.

At the start of this festival, there were two police cars parked in prominent and very visible positions. My wife saw one of the main organisers arrested "on the spot" right before the festival started. She overheard one of the cops talking into his radio that "he had the authoritiy to shut this festival down in an instant." My guess is that the police were worried about the two Bangladeshi factions fighting each other. After that initial tenseness, the festival continued in a very smooth and sunny way.

Some reporter I am, filling in this stuff after everything is all over.

[tahleel]

What two groups are fighting for power in Hamtramck?

By the way, did anyone else see the house fire yesterday at around 5? It was the street off Jos. Campau where the McDonalds is. Police were blocking people from walking on the sidewalk for "public safety." Yes the police-woman directed us to go behind the alley spitting you right infront of the burning house which was even closer! Made no sense to me or my GF.

Anyways, me and my GF went to the festival. It was pretty cool, I saw a few Bangladeshi people I knew. We got some food which was pretty good, but some of the prices were pretty high, by my standards anyways. We got some ICEEs from the BP on Jos. Campau, which was pretty disappointed since it wasn't even cold!

Either way, I had a good time. I'll keep my ears open for next years and try to attend!

-Tahleel