Clarion native Lauren Walters jumped at the chance to visit Bangladesh when her friend and ex-handball teammate, Jennifer Farrell, invited her to visit while she worked to improve emergency services in the country.
Walters visited twice in two years. But recent events in the country along with the increasing presence of the Islamic State have left her hesitant to go back anytime soon.
“I like to travel and when she said to come visit, it was an opportunity to see a country that I probably couldn’t have seen without her being there,” said Walters, who now lives in Hawaii.
Walters graduated from Clarion High School in 2001 before moving on to Slippery Rock University, where she received a degree in physical education and health education. She later went to South Korea to teach English before moving to Hawaii, where she currently works as a server at a Disney resort.
Walters also spent time in the mid-2000s competing on the USA National Handball Team with Farrell.
In both 2014 and 2015, she was invited to visit Farrell in Bangladesh. Farrell was busy developing an application to notify residents of local emergencies.
The application, dubbed CriticaLink, would help set up services that Americans might take for granted after an emergency.
Walters said the emergency system in Bangladesh was poorly maintained and abused by the rich as personal transport before the application was implemented. The lower class did not have reasonable access to emergency transport and timely response to accidents, injuries and killings was minimal.
CriticaLink could help bring people to the scene of an accident or shooting to assist as well as let downloaders know where they could go to donate blood.
“She’s making a huge difference,” she said.
In 2015, The Guardian called CriticaLink a “blueprint for helping millions.”
Farrell, who was in the country on a full scholarship while she worked to develop the application, warmed her up to the area by showing her the local culture as well as introducing friends both national and foreign.
Her time spent there as a tourist visiting national landmarks and watching locals live allowed her a glimpse at the upper-class lifestyle in Bangladesh.
“It was amazing to see how that culture lives, the lower class and the upper class, the middle class doesn’t seem to exist,” Walters said.
She also got to partake in the massive end-of-Ramadan celebration, Eid al-Fitr otherwise known as “feast of the breaking of the fast.”
Walters said the streets were crowded and packed with traffic at a virtual stand-still. Rickshaws, cars and motorcycles flooded the streets with millions of commuters walking to and fro.
“It’s a lot of hustle and bustle, it was very chaotic.”
After her time there, Walters emphasized the importance of respecting moral, cultural and religious norms as a tourist in a foreign country.
Since Bangladesh is primarily Islamic and Walters is a Western woman, that meant dressing in clothing that covered her arms and legs during her stay.
However, she said her time spent at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka was freeing. The Holey Artisan Bakery is a trendy stop for bread-related dining that opened in June 2014 with the goal of letting locals get away from the hectic city lifestyle.
“You can take off your jacket or shawl and just relax a little bit,” she said. “Nobody was judging you or making you feel like you needed to be covered up while you were in there.”
Walters described the bakery as very open and “garden-like” with “some of the best bread in Asia.”
“It was very peaceful.”
On Friday, the bakery was attacked.
Seven attackers ransacked the artisanal bakery with guns, bombs and a sword, killing 21 civilians, two police officers and a chef in the siege. Employees hid in bathrooms and fled from the building.
Police eventually killed all but one of the attackers.
Walters’ friends in the city contacted her to let her know they were safe before mainstream media had even picked up on the attack.
She said they were just a few blocks from the attack and were close enough to feel the explosions.
ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack.
While Walters admitted she never felt the presence of extremism when she visited, she said her friends now fear for their lives and her teammate has lost her scholarship and now takes public transportation everywhere. Walters said her teammate’s fair skin color and new-found tendency to use public transportation makes her a possible target thanks to heightened racial and religious tensions after the attack.
“When I talk to my friends, it’s just a melancholy feel,” she said. “The streets are closed and people are fearing for their lives.”
The attack has sparked fear in Bangladesh’s citizens and Walters said she doesn’t plan on visiting anytime soon in light of the extremist presence.
“I was lucky that none of my friends were there at the bakery. That’s a shop they visit on a weekly, if not daily, basis.”
In the wake of the attack, shopping centers are shut down and streets are empty. The friends she made both in the country and before she visited are scrambling to get out as they fear for their safety.
As Ramadan draws to a close, the run-up to the Eid al-Fitr celebration looks grim.
“It’s coming up in a few days and its sad that nobody is in the mood to celebrate it because of the incidents happening. Nobody is going out, everybody is staying inside,” Walters said.
The Holey Artisan Bakery Facebook page posted an update Sunday saying, “We will not let (H)oley be defined by terror but by the love and passion of its beginning. We will return.”