Thoughts are an odd thing...

I thought I had posted once about 9 days ago. It turns out I was wrong, it was more than 9 days ago, and so I got some healthy reminders from multiple sources telling me that I need to blog. Being an appeaser, I'll fill you in on the strange and unusual life I've lived in the past couple of weeks.

I've been reading a prayer book that a friend sent me. It's been wonderful having a short but poignant something to look forward to reading every day. It has also been a wonderful thing for giving me fodder to think about on my 25-30 minute bike rides to work. Ben (the Canadian SALT'er) and I were just having a conversation about how much time we have to think about odd things on that bike ride. We had both ended up writing poems. I didn't write mine down and I'm not going to as it wasn't very good unless you have the acting that goes along with selling like one of those beat poets (by the way, I just realized that I've never actually seen a beat poet unless you count Jeff Gundy at faculty follies or some similar event). My poem was about the lorry (sp?) trucks that you see all painted up and carrying ridiculous loads here. It came about because was riding past one as it parked on the side of the road and I could hear it creaking as it settled in under it's heavy load. As is often the case, the truck in my poem crashes and the driver flees/dies (depending on the version) but, because this is Bangladesh (and therefore nothing can go to waste) the owner fixes the truck up. It goes back on the road and the whole process starts again. In retrospect, my poem is mostly depressing and makes me feel bad for the trucks. That said, I've also pondered what would happen if you tried firing a shotgun while riding a bicycle as well as how accepting diminishing marginal utility would affect how we view indifference curves. All this is to say that what I ponder on that bicycle is a strange spectrum.

Speaking of that bicycle, I've had requests that I share a story of something that happened to me this past week while I was on it.

The moon wasn't out a couple of nights this past week and as a result I couldn't see to well on those nights. On this night in particular I was riding down a dark alley with brick houses on one side and a brick wall on the other (it was really a pretty creepy setting to begin with). I saw a group of adults on the right side and another group on the left side. There was about 6 of them and the gap between them was about 4-6ft. I decided to ride between them like normal but at last second my worst nightmares were realized. No, they didn't mug me if that is what you think I was about to say, no in my opinion mugging would have been less heart rendering and unbearable because at last second a toddler came bursting out of the group on the right running towards the group on the left right in front of me. I didn't have much reaction time and the best I was able to manage was to slam on the brakes. Unfortunately, my steel bike, my laden book bag, and myself all carry a lot of momentum on a bike (especially one with poor brakes to begin with). So I hit the kid. Not just tap mind you, I've done the rough math in my head, with all that gear I was probably 6-10 times as heavy as that kid so even a small amount of speed carries a significant transfer of energy as my momentum is slammed into his. I walloped that poor child pretty solid. I don't think I actually ran him over but somehow he ended up between my tires. That was about the moment when the "banshee" yells started. By "banshee" yells I'm of course talking about the child's mother or female relative that was supposed to be watching this kid. She was soon joined in by a chorus of about 30 people who materialized out of nowhere all of whom were screaming and shouting. I have never seen so many people appear out of no where so fast in my life. It took them about 20-30 seconds to assemble. The men grabbed me to keep me from fleeing the scene (this grabbing is a customary reaction as is the customary reaction of fleeing when you do hit someone). If you kill someone and the mob manages to grab you before you get away then they basically beat you immediately on the spot which is probably why the tradition of fleeing started. Luckily, I didn't kill this child but he was crying and they didn't know the extent of the injuries because we were in a dark alley with no lights on, so they took him to a house with a light. The mob moved along with them and I with the mob. I'm lucky that I am someone that is calm under pressure. I never freaked out during all of this. While they were looking at the kid I was explaining (with my poor but adequate Bangla) to those interviewing me what happened. Once they realized that it was an accident, I wasn't lying, I was concerned about the child, and that I was foreigner they began to get a lot less hostile. They told me to wait and once they had sufficiently checked out the child and ascertained that I apparently didn't do too much damage they let me go. I wanted to see if I'd done much damage but I figured I shouldn't push my luck with an angry mother whose child was still crying around. It has been my past learning that angry mothers don't always think about everything clearly when their child is crying so I did what they said and started riding.

Not more than 100 yards down the road I was overwhelmed with a surreal experience. I had just hit a small child in a dark alley, an angry mob had formed, and here I was less than 5 minutes later and no farther than 100 yards away in a well lit intersection with a bunch of people going about normal life with no clue what had just happened or more specifically what I had done. I could extrapolate on how this same thing happens to us all the time but it is not my intention to be philosophical with this so I won't.

I haven't been back to check on the child yet. I want to go but figure it is best to give the incident some time to mend itself before returning. My boss told me that they will likely try to extort money out of me if I do go back and he advised against it. I personally feel terrible about hitting the child and think going back would help my own mental stability while helping to foster a better understanding of western mindsets for the local people. I could be wrong though, maybe I'll go back and my boss will be right. Maybe they will just see this as a chance to try to pry some money out of me. I'm resolute about the fact that I'm not giving them money but I imagine that could be a situation in which dealing with their demands is mentally tasking. This is Bangladesh though and I would suspect that everyone here has their fair share of mental burdens to deal with.

Also in relevance to this situation, I've had several people tell me that I shouldn't be allowed around small children anymore. That would be terrible thing for me to deal with. I love small children. I'm terribly mean to them (usually I stick to torturing their minds) and they usually love it (with a few exceptions such as the one above). I guess what I'm trying to say is, please give me a little grace on this one. Your child and I want to torment each other with glee. ;-)

With that, I'll leave you to deal with your own odd thoughts.