Failure, Mutiny, and Foreigners...

Sorry this is late, but I’ve had an interesting weekend so far and that has delayed my writing of this. This week I hit a wall in my research. I finished reading all the massive reports that my boss sent me, so I have a fairly decent idea of what our situation is now. I then started reading the available books in the library here at the office only to find out that they are all either outdated themselves or largely use outdated information in their research. I even found a book published in 2006 that was using data mostly from the 80’s or farther back in time. A lot has changed in the past 25-30 years and that is why even at an undergraduate level we were trained to try to keep our references within the past 10 years if at all possible. Faced with this dilemma I decided to take a different approach to my work. Instead of doing a ton of research that in the end could prove to be totally useless, I’m going to work through the information from the top to the bottom. This should give me a clue as to what I should be looking for as well as make the things we aren’t doing well stand out.

This week there was also a mutiny in Dhaka. Apparently (as far as I can understand the situation), the border protection part of the military here revolted against their superiors. Essentially what they were saying is that they do almost all the same things as the regular army but they don’t get paid as well and they don’t command themselves. It seems that they tried to get their army officers to address these issues and when the officers refused they revolted. It ended in two days of fighting and wasn’t finished until the Prime Minister brought in tanks and threatened to use them after a more peaceful resolution failed. Bear in mind that this information is not meant to influence your thoughts for either side. I am trying to withhold any opinions on the matter because this is an issue that I have no part in. I have found in this past week that if you mix reports from the BBC, Aljazeera, and CNN together you get a pretty accurate picture of what is going on. Nothing interesting happened in Bogra, (where I am) as a result of any of this. Life here went on like it normally does other than people talking about what was going on.

I read a book this past week. The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective was the book. It was quite interesting and I learned a lot about myself. It turns out that I’m a 5. You can find a general description of what that supposedly means at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fives_(Enneagram_of_Personality). This description is moderately different from Richard Rohr’s description in the book but this is understandable because he is describing the experiences from a Christian perspective (hence the title). The title of 5 doesn’t fit all aspects of my life but when I look at my basic reactions and how I deal with life, it rings exactly true. When I’m at my best I’m decisive and able to give some moderately wise consol. When I’m at my worst I distance myself and retreat into a crazy fantasy world that exists in my head where I play out all sorts of scenarios all the time (usually negatives). I can’t tell that I have a relatively stronger 4 or 6 wing to my personality. I dip into each of them a little but not really strongly that I can tell. I would also advise that you not base your opinions of your type off of the internet descriptions that you read. Read the book, it will most likely click with you what you are in a way that amazes you. The reason is that the same reactions could come from several different types of people but be motivated by completely different reasons. You could even be really great at hiding those motivations from yourself which is why I advise you not to take the tests online.

This weekend has been pretty much the Bideshi weekend for me. After months of wondering when I might finally meet some Ex-pats that weren’t part of MCC I ran into almost all of them this weekend. First, we ran into some Koreans living here in Bogra. We exchanged numbers and as it turns out, at least one of them is a Christian and he is probably going to start joining us for our weekly worship times. Then we ran into those we refer to as “the English girls.” They invited us over to their place for supper and we ended up hanging out with them for the evening. There were two British girls in their 20’s who live in Bogra but also joining us was another French girl who was in town on business and a French guy who works for the local Dannon yogurt factory. They usually spend their weekends in Dhaka so we probably won’t hang out too often but we might get together for some weeknights every once in awhile. So yeah, I now know some Bideshis in Bogra.

I have more to write but this is long enough so I’ll take the time to write the rest in another post in the middle of this week. Stay Tuned!