Lamentations

The past several days there have been plenty of frustrating things going on in my life. I'm going to tell you about them because I have nothing better to say this week and someone out there might find them interesting or amusing. Just for the record though, I'm not attempting to copy or imitate the book of Lamentations in the Bible. I just needed a good title and it seems to fit.

It all started with a bad headache a couple of nights ago. I was at the office and wanted to play some badminton with the staff but my headache was killing me so I decided to go home. I suspected I was coming down with something. Being that this is Bangladesh I had to go through all the formalities of explaining to the office staff why I wasn't sticking around to play badminton and where I was going. This was followed by the formality of them telling me how I should treat the headache and their speculations as to why I had it. Being that there are times when I'm a very impatient person, this was one of those moments where I wished I could just grab my bicycle and go. I couldn't do that though because that would be rude in Bangladesh and I get the idea that most of the time when I'm coming or going from a place, even my attempts at carrying out a moderately short yet polite conversation are still too rushed for their liking.

Then on the way home my front tire or tyre (if any of you are British or have a hankering for British spellings) got a leak and went flat fast. It was after dark and all the bicycle shops that are common on the sides of the street were closed, so I ended up walking my bike the last mile or so of my trip. The worst part was when I had to walk the dirt road. I was wearing sandals and because it was dark I was unable to see what was solid ground versus what was thick dust. As a result, I was constantly getting big wads of dust/dirt in between my feet and my sandals. This is the point where I tell you that I am one of those people who get sweaty feet. So then I had slippery, dirty, sandals on which is a pet peeve of mine. It drives me nuts when my sandals are wet and slippery. If they are dirty to boot, that just compounds the problem.

I eventually made it home and thought to prepare myself a quick healthy meal because I thought maybe I was getting sick. I put some tomato soup on the stove because that is what we had in the fridge and I thought it would be best to use it up. Then I threw some toast in the toaster because I figured I needed something to go with soup. Once I got the soup warmed up I realized that it wasn't soup but spaghetti sauce. At this point even that was enough to annoy me somewhat but being resourceful I just used toast as a substitution of pasta and ate enough to hold me over.

I ended up sleeping well that night and my headache went away. The next morning I still had to solve the problem of the flat tire (I speak American English not British English). I walked the distance to the nearest bicycle shop, which was thankfully open. I was even able to avoid the dust/dirt problem of the night before because it was light out and I could see where I was stepping with certainty. I had a good feeling about where the morning was going. That was before I went to the bicycle shop. To make a long story short, I got ripped off at the bicycle shop very badly. I somehow even let him trade out my tire with decent tread with one that was completely bald because the sides were cracked on mine (I had rode a little ways on the wheel rim before I realized that it really was flat which if you didn't know already, tears up the sidewalls of your tire something fierce). I rode away from the shop very angry and late for work. Luckily I was still a very long way from work and I'm still me. Over the course of my ride I convinced myself that it was silly to be mad because I had helped out a poor person who was just trying to make a living. I even rationalized that since I had been running late for work, that he had provided "emergency services" that would justify paying extra due to my dire need. I've even realized since then that the bald tire I now have actually helps me go through the sand in the thick dust better (sand and thick dust act like slush in that they whip your tire around but since my tire is bald it rides over the top of them rather than sinking down into them like my old tire did).

I've only got two woes left to go. The first is mosquitoes and the second is something that is at least remotely linked to them. Lately, farmers have been flooding their rice paddies for their next crop of rice which is welcome because it makes the countryside green and beautiful but unwelcome because it brings mosquitoes by the droves. Those stupid things make every situation annoying. They come at you when you are sitting at your desk, cooking, washing dishes, eating, and the worst of all, trying to sleep. I must have gotten woken up by mosquitoes about 4-5 times last night. I can think of nothing I hate more in this country than mosquitoes. The last thing is the situation with electricity here. I say it is related to mosquitoes because when the power goes out, all the mosquitoes seem to find me at a much more rapid rate than when it is on. Currently, the power has been going off several times a day. This is particularly scary because it hasn't even gotten hot to the point where I'm even running a fan yet. Last summer it would go off a couple of times a day during the hottest part of the summer. The problem is that many of the electricity plants in Bangladesh are run on CNG. Unfortunately, the countries' production of CNG is not able to keep up with the rising demand of CNG, so the government is starting to ration when this CNG out to power stations. With no solution in sight, my guess that this is going to be one very long summer in which electricity shortages are greater than ever.

End of my rant.

Have a nice day!

Desires

It's funny how quickly things change, just yesterday I was talking about how I was looking forward to going to my home in Bogra. Now I find myself wishing to go to my home back in Indiana more. Life is like that sometimes, you wake up and find yourself with a different perception of reality that was created in some situation (usually these situations are earth rattling, small amounts of time) that you in your narrow focus in life didn't properly see before. To be fair though, I'm sure the rattle my earth felt was nothing compared to the rattle my older brother felt when his first daughter Emma was born yesterday on valentine's day.

Success, frustration, and a desire to go home...

I should start off with the success, everyone likes those. This past week I've been in a flat with a freezer full of Marita Miller's cookies and I managed to not touch them. This was quite the feat for me but I figure it's better for my health (and wallet) if I avoid them. Maybe on future trips I will allow myself to have an occasional cookie but I really need to limit myself.

The frustration stems from why I was in that flat all week long. I'm in Dhaka for what is now the beginning of a third week doing database entry before MCC annual report deadline of February 15th. I've lost count of how many times I have been frustrated or angry at various aspects of this process in the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping we will be done with it all by our deadline but not exactly sure since a lot of my work revolves around when other people get me the information (I'm actually writing this because I'm waiting on people to get me more information)I need to enter and whether they actually get me the information that I need. I'm looking forward to Tuesday at this point because that will mean I can take a break from this task.

Which leads me to the third topic. I want to go home. Some of you may think I'm referring to Indiana with that statement but you are mistaken. I'm ok with being in Bangladesh. I look forward to my pending trip back to America in a couple of months but it's not like I'm counting down the days like my future sister-in-law is counting down the days to her wedding. In all reality, that trip to my Indiana home will require a fair amount of planning in the next couple of months. In the mean time, I'm looking forward to returning to my Bogra home. I've got a basketball rim to put up and friends to visit. It even looks like the Miller family will be coming for a visit this next weekend and I'm super excited for them to come. Like I said though, this all relies on getting done with the task at hand.

Realization of the day

Today I realized something.

When I work at a computer all day long I drink lots of water.

I think it's because I get bored.

Regardless, it makes me have to go to the bathroom frequently.

Sometimes I wonder if people think I have a bladder control problem.

No one has ever commented about it to me.

So I just keep on working and drinking.

The birth of determination

Thank you all for being patient with me in my blogging absence the past couple of weeks. As some of you know, I’ve been really busy with work and on top of that, my Grandmother died. For those of you who know me, you probably know that my grandmother meant a lot to me. I suppose that is putting it modestly since I consider her my greatest hero. In light of that, I figured I should make this post about my reflections on her in the last week or two.

Two songs have been stuck in my head since I learned of her death. The first, a hymn, is “My Hope is Built.” The chorus of this song goes, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Grandma stood on a rock and she was also constantly encouraging us to stand on one as well. I don’t know how many times I trusted her of all people with a prayer because I knew she had a faith that could move mountains. To be honest with you, during my toughest times here in Bangladesh I have taken a lot of solace in the fact that I knew grandma was praying for me and God would hear her prayers. The other song that has stood out to me was “Shine” by the Newsboys. The chorus of this song goes, “Shine, make them wonder what you’ve got, make them wish that they were not on the outside looking bored. Shine, let it shine before all men, let them see good works and then let them glorify the Lord.” Anyone that knew grandma, knows that she had great love and she shared it with everyone. She never knew a stranger. Above and beyond all that though, she always put God in front of everything she did. She truly shined. The thing about these songs that has stood out to me the most though is that this person is gone from this world and they are things about her that will truly be missed unless something is done about that. In light of this I’ve decided that I can’t help but view her death as a challenge to step up and bear whatever small part of that burden I am able.

The other thing that really hit me was something I got when I arrived in the Dhaka office this past week. I got a couple of letters in the mail and one of them was from my grandma. That was like a punch to the gut in how shocking it was. I debated for about 15 minutes what to do with it. Do I open it right away? Do I wait until later on when I have more privacy to open? What can I expect when I open it? Eventually I just decided to open it right there since I was at a desk in a room by myself. What was inside was something beyond even what I could have imagined was inside. The card said, "Let us be glad and rejoice. Revelations 19:7" and she wrote, "Merry Christmas, I love you,
Grandma Birkey." I’ll tell you what I told my dad in light of that situation, “I wish I could describe the myriad of different emotions and thoughts those simple words have caused me but I'll have to settle for telling you two things: I'm hanging in there and the extent that God worked through that woman just blows my mind.” I imagine that’s how I’m going to feel for a long time yet to come and I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s how a hero deserves to be remembered.