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!