Dear London…

I moved into a dorm a few days ago. The lighting here is dim, the kitchen is crowded – but still, it's my own space. At Helen Graham House for students, the lighting was good and the kitchen was empty but the water was unrationed. What does rationed water mean? It means, at the student hall, the tap water in the bathroom will stop automatically after 5 seconds. So will the shower. You have to keep on pushing the button if you want a continuous flow of water. Same story for the kitchen tap.

I am sharing the kitchen with 5/6 other girls. Although it is a mixed accommodation, there are no boys in my kitchen space. 5/6 rooms have one kitchen allotted to them. I am a late mover into the dorm, so my allotted space has been taken away by other people but I am accommodated. The kitchen has got all crockery and utensils.
My room has got a bed, a wardrobe, a bedside table, a shelf, a chest of drawers, a table lamp and a study desk.

Two fluorescent light bulbs with shades are attached to the wall and not the ceiling. I have to use my room card to get inside my room and also, at the main entrance at 9 after the reception has been shut down. My classes run in the evening twice a week and the library is open until 11 at night. My hall is 5 minutes away from the university.

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Yesterday, I cooked vegetables with turmeric and coriander powder brought from Dhaka. I don't bother to use cumin. There was black pepper and chilly powder in the kitchen which I pour in. A South Korean girl became very interested in my cooking and wanted to video-record it lateron. I give her permission. She is doing MA in Museum and Gallery Studies at a nearby college. Many other kitchenmates are doing a Post-Graduate Certificate courses. They are teachers in secondary institutions. There is this other girl from Greece doing her PhD and living in the dorm for two years now. In the morning, she works with teachers in a nursery school. Anyway, seeing the South Korean girl's enthusiasm, I offer her the vegetable. She eats it and offers a South Korean red sauce to me. It doesn't taste particularly well but I still eat it for politeness's sake. We chat and afterwards, she offers me South Korean green tea which we drink together. I tell her about Bangladesh, why I don't drink alcohol or eat pork. She asks me if I will fly to Bangladesh for Christmas. I explain to her that my main religious festival Eid took place after I arrived in the UK. She tells me she hopes to have a boyfriend by Christmas.

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The Greek girl shows me how to do the laundry. The laundry costs 2 pounds for washing and another pound for drying. I don't dry as I can use my room heater. Iron is available at the reception. I go to the Waitrose grocery that many other girls use but its prices are too high. Also, I have noticed that most major supermarkets are filled with pork. There is no chicken sausage in Waitrose but only pork sausage. There is however, kosher food ( Jewish halal food) and my colleague advised me to buy this if there was no halal food. I decide not to buy the kosher beef meat either but go to the Tesco in Hackney Central. At Brunswick Square, I discover Motijheel Tandoori House in which I decide not to go in. There is a Hason Raja Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine at my place too. The unmistakable nature of the names reveals their owners to be from Dhaka and Sylhet.

At the Farmer's Market which sits every Thursday farmers bring in fresh vegetables which are also cheaper. But interestingly, they sell ready-made food too. They cook and serve the food directly from the pan they are doing the cooking in. Its everything from Spanish paella to pork items to vegetable items to Indian Tandoori. Every item is 5 pound, no more or less. The hot food is popular with the students because the same food in restaurants would cost 10-15 pounds. Eating out in London, is expensive. I do some grocery from the Farmer's Market as well, including eggs as I don't see any other source of animal protein since there is only pork available in the nearest supermarkets.

This is one bizarre thing in the UK. Supermarkets don't have chicken sausages but only pork ones or pork and chicken sausages mixed. You will find beef meat balls also. Anyway, I discovered not only smoked chicken sausage (smoked means ready-to-eat) but also my spices in a category called 'deshi foods' in Tesco. Then I discovered kochur mukhi on the shelf.

The kochur mukhi was frozen and had both Bangla and English on it. It was from Bangladesh. There were frozen Pangash and Boal fish and kechki as well from Bangladesh. But in was on this foreign territory under very unusual circumstances, that the Kechki, Pangash, Boal and kochur mukhi took on a different meaning for me. It brought home to my mind but tears came to my eyes. So, when the saleswoman at the counter asked me if I was ok, I had to pretend that I was. The spree was for 35 pounds only but I had shopped enough to get me through for over a month now, at least. I could do the vegetables each week from Farmers Market.