Well before the sun rises in Chapra, a small village in the northwest of Bangladesh, Mohammad Abdur Rouf is on his feet.
He travels six miles to a neighboring village, where he joins hundreds of other people in line to play a carnival-style game. But instead of throwing darts at a wall of balloons or tossing rings at beer bottles, Abdur, 35, hits a small yellow ball repeatedly with a plastic putter.
Try as he might, he can’t manage to whack the ball with enough precision for it to travel upside down along a track and emerge perfectly between two goal posts. But instead of leaving a sullen loser, the rice farmer beams as he hoists a consolation prize: a modest 8-ounce bottle of vegetable oil.
“Any day, I’d play again! Any day!” he says cheerfully when the game wraps up for the day.