Oh the Journeys

I've talked about Ramadan quite a bit recently, but I don't recall if I mentioned what comes at the end of Ramadan. If I'm repeating myself, forgive me. At the end of Ramadan is Eid-ul-Fitre (pronounced more like Eed, ool, fit-ur). The two Eids are the some of the largest holidays in the Islamic calendar. Eid-ul-Fitre is when they celebrate and buy lots of new stuff. Eid-ul-Azha is when they sacrifice animals in the streets. Both are times when Bengali people take extended holidays to be with family. In the states, I've often heard the Memorial Day weekend is a big travel weekend in America, it has nothing on Bangladesh. Imagine somewhere around 10 million people trying to leave 1 city to return to various smaller towns throughout the country. Now imagine that combined with a transportation infrastructure that is already pretty bad. What you end up getting is gridlock in pretty much every town in Bangladesh but especially so within about 30 miles of the capital. At the same time, it also speaks volumes about families in Bangladesh. One could either argue that it is an amazing act of love for their family that people are willing to deal with all this trouble to see them or that it is an amazing act of power that their family exerts on them that the consequences of not joining their family is actually worse than the trouble the traffic causes. Either way, amongst the ex-pat crowd it is common sense that the "smart" people avoid the logjam.

I had planned to enjoy a nice peaceful stay out in the village for Eid but that plan changed today. I got a phone call asking me to meet with some people to get a report done. I mentioned that it should probably be finished before Eid. My boss agreed and told me to be in Dhaka tomorrow. Unfortunately as I realized later, that will essentially mean that I'm stuck there until after Eid because all the buses will be full leaving Dhaka in the lead up to Eid. After Eid, I should have no trouble getting back to Bogra though as all the buses will be full returning to Dhaka but not leaving it. So much for having a nice peaceful time in the village.

Speaking of peaceful times in the village, I went out to another village this morning. I'm trying to interview farmers and figure out what influences how much success they have. So far, I'm not sure how good my information is, but I'm getting a great tan.

In other news, I heard that we got the first of the approvals we've been seeking. That was exciting news since we had just been hearing promises of it's eventual occurrence up until now. Please keep praying that the others will come through so that we can get our service workers and other necessary approvals!