The Piedpiper of Noakhali, Bangladesh

The small town of Noakhali is my area of posting in Bangladesh, about a 4 hour drive south of the capital city. There's nothing but lots of rice fields all around and plenty of bicycle rickshaws everywhere. People are very interested in me, I'm kind of a novelty. They don't see a whole lot of foreigners, and they all love to have their pictures taken since they usually don't have an opportunity to do so. Of course this is just a combustible combination since I usually drag a camera around everywhere.

You see, it usually all starts out like this-
I take a photo of one kid...

Simple enough right? Well, I show the kid his photo, I look up, and all of a sudden there are 4 of them looking up at me with scores more all sprinting to get into the photograph! It's almost like they've spontaneously multiplied!

I've had lots of shots of scenery interrupted by kids and people moving into the picture intentionally. Kinda funny. I've taken to getting sneaky about it by pretending to focus in one direction and suddenly turning around and taking a photo of what I really wanted to take in the first place. I have no other options.

4 rapidly becomes 7 with a Mom (top right corner shoving her kids into the frame) also getting in on the act.

Then an older brother decides to join in...

Then they decide to grab some kid kicking and screaming into the photograph who just happened to be randomly walking naked down the street.

Then they grab a bleating goat who had the misfortune of grazing nearby, since they figured everyone in my "village" wants to see what a Bangladesh goat looks like. I passed on the cow though.


So after about 30 minutes and 100 photographs later (thank god for digital), I'm backpedaling to the confines of my guesthouse after the entire town comes looking for me to take their photos. Yeah, I don't make it too far on my walks around town, people follow me everywhere- into stores, into restaurants, back to my guesthouse, outside my window. I'm the piedpiper with a camera instead of a flute! Bangladesh truly is the ideal place to photograph people though.

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