Monday, January 9, 2012

Musings on Soup and Life.

I'm finally coming down from the high that was Christmas and I'm finding that my patience is shorter than I would like at this point. It always saddens me a bit to realize that. Last night it was potato soup that threw me over the edge. Yes, that is right, potato soup. I love potato soup and was making a batch last night. I blend a portion of it to make the soup creamy and thick. I blended up the soup and when I picked up the container to pour it back in it all come pouring out the bottom. It went all over the blender, all over the counter, and all over the floor. It wasted a ton of my precious soup! Bear in mind that this stuff is thick and a pain to clean up. I was immediately very angry and did a bit of yelling at the soup while figuring out what I should do. I was angry at the house help (why would you not reattach the bottom to the blender after cleaning!) and myself (why would you be yelling at potato soup it was just an accident!). I took some time to cool down by eating what turned out to be some very mediocre potato soup. I went back and cleaned up which made me angry again but at something new. This time it was at old school engineers. You know the ones back in the day that made kitchen appliances really durable but did it without talking to their wives about what you actually need in a blender. There was a ton of vent holes on the blender that all of the soup had run down into (who doesn't plan on stuff falling down on the base of a blender!!!).

Ordinarily, I would blame this all on stress from my new role at work but I realized something that made me change my mind as I was reflecting afterwards. I've been in Bangladesh for 6 straight months now. If you recall, I have figured out that I start losing patience after about 5 months in Bangladesh. There is nothing in particular about Bangladesh that does this too me. After 3 years of acclimation to the environment, I am pretty used to most things and quite capable of handling them. Regardless, I've reached that point and the result is that I have to focus very hard on being me until I get a that needed break. It is coming up in February when I will be going to Nepal.

In the mean time, I saw something promising today. I was walking on the street and I saw a little boy that gave me hope for the future of Bangladesh. Instead of peeing on the wall like all the older men you see, he was peeing in a sewage drain! That is change that I can believe in!

1 comment:

Donny said...

I know that feeling Phil, when Bangladesh subtly builds on you until you're yelling at soup.

Hope the trip to Nepal allows relaxation to seep back in!