Do you ever?

Do you ever sit back and realize that your life has gotten a bit out of control? I find myself dealing with this lately. I got so busy this past month that I wasn't able to function in a way that I think does who I strive to be justice. I notice this in all areas of my life. Imbalance in my experience is rarely limited to one area of our lives. I've been very functional at most things I've done this past month but my heart and soul weren't truly fully there in my actions and thoughts. Without these being present, life becomes nothing more than a pale shadow of what it might be. I become a pale shadow of who I might be. In response to this, I'm trying to slow down and be the real me again. I guess you could call that my New Year's resolution but it is purely coincidence that it falls at this time and I'm actually starting a few days too early for that to be true.

Do you ever get the desire to do something? Every year, I have a very strong desire to play basketball at two points in the year. At the beginning of college basketball season and during March madness. Hearing me talk about this strong desire, one of my friends bought me a basketball for Christmas. I went out and shot hoops today by myself. Yeah it isn't as cool as doing it in a group but I didn't do it entirely alone. There was a group of teenage Bengali boys using the basketball court as a cricket field. We shared and chit chatted during breaks a bit. In other news, I'm really terrible at shooting now. I shot 100 free throws and only made 42 of them. It is a sad day when I'm unable to hit free throws at a rate better than Shaq used to.

Do you ever go to bed at 9 pm? That's what I'm about to do! Goodnight!

Christmas tree

It may not seem like much but it is still better than Charlie Brown's...

Cold Hard Reality

Earlier this week, Esther and I had the privilege of being invited to the house of a friend who has a considerable more cushy job than us. The evening was relaxed, we had grilled cheese, soup, and salad for dinner. We met a few people we had never previously met and ended up playing games until almost 11pm. Given that this friend was on the other side of town and I had to work in the morning I was thinking about my safety in getting back to my side of town and how I was going to feel at work in the morning. Little did I know as I stepped into the brisk chill of the night, I was going to get a reality check that night. I say the brisk chill because we are right in the middle of a cold snap in Bangladesh this week. I have to wear a fleece jacket and scarf at my desk while I work in the morning these days. Well on this particular night it was cold enough that I was even wearing my Carhartt sock cap which comes in handy when you add windchill while riding public transportation. I managed to find a local bus near his house which was a wonderful thing since local busses in my opinion are the safest mode of transport in the city. After getting this to one bus stand and switching to another bus, I finally arrived at the stop near my house. I got off and started walking the last quarter mile or so of my journey. That is when it hit me like a ton of bricks, there was a dozen or so people in dirty, tattered clothes sleeping on the sidewalk. If I was cold in my nice jacket, scarf, and sock cap...I can't imagine what they were under their thin blankets sleeping on cold cement. It flew right in the face of my association of Christmas with joyful times. It got me to think and made me want to do something. Like most people, I'm not sure exactly of what I should do but I know I'm not disappointed to have been reminded of the cold hard reality of life at times. It is something we can all use a good dose of occasionally.

I enjoy challenges...and talking loud.

I've been in my new job for all of 3 work days now and so far, I love it.  It has been really busy and at some points really daunting but I'm being challenged. Out of the challenge arises lots of learning and joy because of accomplishment. Most of my job is just to assist the experts in the planning of their jobs. I also get to help trouble shoot problems. That allows me to be creative. I don't even mind so far that I'm going to have to be incredibly organized for this job (something I have not been so great at in the past). It is a headache that I'm thrilled with so far.

Speaking of headaches, I was reminded this past week of something that I really enjoy about Bangladesh. Loud talking is not considered rude! In the course of a debate between many people, everyone starts talking really loud here and no one takes it as being out of anger. You can say something very forcefully without someone being worried about you being angry. Given that I have about zero control over my voice level, this is a perfect situation for me. That said, if you start yelling here, you are generally presumed to have lost the game as showing anger is generally considered inappropriate.

Common Law

One of the interesting things that came up this last week in Bangladesh was in a discussion on gender issues. In Bangladesh, inheritance laws are based on religion. If you are a Muslim, then your estate gets broken up by the laws for Islamic people. If you are Hindu, your estate gets broken up by the laws that govern Hindus. If you are Christian, your estate gets broken up according to Catholic laws (sorry everyone else, they were the largest sect of Christianity when the laws were written). If you are Buddhist you get your estate broken up according to Buddhist traditions.

The interesting part from what I understand is that there are no provisions for any other religions or lack thereof. Good luck being an atheist here! For the common Bengali, that is not even a concept they comprehend.

Bangladesh is not like the US where there is a common law that governs and this division goes beyond just inheritance laws. For instance, Christians are not permitted to divorce since this goes against official Catholic church traditions.

Feel free to use this information to make yourself appear smart and cool at all your upcoming Christmas functions! I am allowed to mention Christmas now that Thanksgiving is over right?

Last week Dengue, this week a new job...

So the reason I didn't post last week was because I had dengue. Dengue is a viral disease that you get from mosquitoes much in the same way you get malaria. It is nicknamed the "bone breaking" disease. They call it this because it makes your body ache all over. Luckily, my case was a seemingly mild one and I got away without too much pain. I didn't however get away from the energy sapping portions of it. There is no treatment or cure for dengue. You just have to wait it out and even now, 2.5 weeks after it started, I still feeling tired from it. I am slowly regaining energy but physically and mentally I'm drained by about 8 each night which is quite an improvement from a week ago when reading a book would exhaust me within minutes. That my friends is my excuse for not posting last week.

In other news, I have had a job change as well. I have been asked if I would be willing to take on the role of F&SS administrator. F&SS stands for Financial and Support Services. I have accepted this role and will be moving to Dhaka. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this job. On one hand, I hate to leave Bogra but recognize that I would be doing that in 7 months anyway as a result of getting married. It will also be more work and responsibility at the same pay! Lol, I find it amusing that I even think about pay. On the other hand, I recognize that there is a need for someone to do the job and it is a very good opportunity for me to get some management experience. The end result is this, I told the powers that be that to be the F&SS administrator is not my ambition in life and should such a time arise that I'm not needed in that role, they could feel free to ask me to step aside with zero hard feelings. The fact that my timeline should force me to choose a new direction in 1.5 years actually is one of the reasons I work out for this position to begin with. As far as I can tell, it is a match for both sides that has to do with taking advantage of opportune situations. I guess that's all most people really ever hope for in life...

Sacrifice Eid

People aren't very good at following directions in Bangladesh...

The Eid sacrifice makes the lake run with blood. I thought of the biblical story of the Nile turning to blood in this situation. What you can't see clearly here is enormous amount of fish swimming around in the bloody water. They were having a hay day munching on whatever fish munch on in blood.

Trick or treat anyone? This lady was taking her two children around with bags to collect beef scraps from the local wealthy people who were able to sacrifice a cow. The street are filled with poorer people doing this on Eid afternoon. I've heard that rich people may even give out money with the meat.

This weekend was Eid-al-Adha. This is the sacrifice Eid. Everyone leaves to go to their village home and those who stay in Dhaka are either too poor to have a village home or rich enough to have a home in Dhaka. This creates a very empty Dhaka with what supposedly was 400,000 cows to be sacrificed. The cost of cows doubles or triples at this time of year and from my understanding wealthy families are expected to buy and sacrifice one if they are able. They are then to distribute 1/3 to the poor, 1/3 to their neighbors, and 1/3 goes to their extended family. It is kind of a big deal here. 

Moments I Could Live in

Do you ever have those little moments that just make you feel at peace? They are glorious things in my life and I never grow tired of them. I probably need to think back to them in the moments when I wish I had a baseball bat to take to someone on the street because they are doing something really annoying to me (seriously a reoccurring desire even if I have never come close to acting on it). I've had a few of these moments in this past week which I will  indulge myself to share with you now.

This week I joined the guys from the office for lunch for the first time all month. After traveling for so long the joy of returning to what is essentially my "home" Bangla cooking is sensational. The smell when you walk in and the taste which is something comfortable and soothing that says to me, welcome home is a very relaxing experience. The company is pretty good too!

A sit down conversation with my boss Mokhles discussing what I need to do in the near future and what priority I should give everything is also a simple pleasure for me. I enjoy the result which is a peace about what my near future holds even if that is a lot of work.

Cooking something for the first time and having it turn out far better than you had anticipated was another wonder of the week. I had a bunch of vegetables in the fridge and decided to try making a cream sauce for them. Remembering that I had a bit of cheese that tasted pretty terrible in the freezer, I threw it in along with some left over ground pepper from the day before. The end result almost floored me with how fantastic it tasted in combination with bread, butter, and a chaser of iced tea!

I tried purchasing my tickets to go to Ireland for my wedding this week only to have the travel company contact me and say the price was going to be $190 more expensive than they quoted me. I cancelled my order only to realize that all the companies had raised their prices $200-300 since the previous day. You can imagine how great it felt when I found out that if I left a day later I could stay in Ireland an extra day longer than I had originally planned for a price that was cheaper than the ticket I originally tried to purchase! I don't know how the difference between Thursday and Friday is suddenly $350 but I'm not complaining one iota.

Prayer with a group of expats here in Bogra had to be by far the greatest moment of peace in my week. Saturday marked the first time since May that I was present for a gathering with a large portion of them all at once and just taking time to pray earnestly with them was such a blessing.

This has been a week of peace and blessings for me. What kinds of things have made you feel peace this past week?

Change happens all the time

It isn't just over 3 years that change happens. This morning I woke up and was thinking about badminton since the staff asked me about it yesterday. In the Bogra office we have a tradition of playing badminton each year starting about this time. They were asking me if I had a racket since we are starting to gear up for it. I do have a racket. I bought it one year ago at about this time of the year. At the time, I figured I would be using it for just 2 months and then giving it away since I would leave before it was time to use it again. Extending wasn't a thought in my mind. Neither was Esther. Little did I know that I would have at least 2 more seasons to look forward to at that time.

When you think about it, this type of change happens all the time. I doubt that my dad would have thought that he would be using a cane to walk one year ago. My mother probably would have called my bluff if I had told her she would have a passport. One thing that is different though is that when you put yourself in a job like mine, change happens far more often and rapidly than if you were "settled" somewhere. As I mentioned in my previous post, 15 people have left MCC since I started working here. That isn't including the friends from other organizations that have done so as well. In fact, I have watched our expat friend group in Bogra go from 7 to 14 back to 6 in just 3 years. Changing life and friendships are just the name of the game here and you have to be able to adjust.

15

Since I came to Bangladesh 3 years ago. 15 MCC expats have finished their time here. At the ripe old age of 26, I am now the expat who has spent the most time with MCC in Bangladesh. To be fair though, 4 of my current 5 expat coworkers have spent more time overall in Bangladesh than me.

I just find that interesting.

Food: A fascination

Whew, it is nice to finally have a slight respite from the craziness of life. Today I spent most of the day going through old emails that I hadn't had the time to pay much attention to since coming back in August. It is hard to believe that I left to come back almost 3 months ago already. Looking back it is even crazier to think that I was going through orientation at Akron at this time 3 years ago. Much of life has changed and so have I since that time. In light of that, I'm going to spend this week posting comparisons between then and now as I have time and thoughts to share.

First off today, I'm going to start off with an easy one. The availability of western foods in grocery stores in Bangladesh. It is weird to think this is a big deal but over time this has actually turned into a form of tourism for me. Every time I come to Dhaka I drop by the western grocery stores (there are 3 main ones in Dhaka) to see what is new or changed. I often times won't even spend any money, I just enjoy looking and make a point to know what I could get. This is important for a couple of reasons. The first being that you know when something rare hits the markets. I once found a 500g package of walnuts in the grocery store. I immediately realized how incredibly rare any kind of nuts other than cashews and peanuts are available here and snatched it up. It was a bit pricey but this was right before Thanksgiving and it made for a wonderful touch in several dishes when a group of 12 of us gathered together for a meal. Another reason for knowing this information is similar to the first. I want to know what I could make and serve people. I love baking and sharing food from home with friends and living on an MCC food budget allows me a few small purchases here and there for this purpose. For instance, this month I purchased pizza sauce and invited everyone in our office over for pizza. Normally I would just make the sauce myself from scratch but tomato is not really in season right now and pizza sauce goes a long way. It was a good treat and everyone had a good time. My final reason for watching these things is just my own personal fascination with how this has changed. Three years ago there was Mozzarella cheese, a few biscuits, a couple of sodas, lays potato chips, a few candy bars, instant coffee, and black tea available in a tiny crowded store. Today there are 20-30 different cheeses from a half dozen countries, 100's of biscuits, 20ish different sodas, a wide assortment of potato chips from a few countries, 30+ different candy bars (along with gummies and dark chocolate which was a newcomer in the last 6 months!), 15+ different varieties of coffee (including a reasonably priced local roaster of coffee), and 100's of herbal teas from all over the world in shops that have torn down walls and expanded numerous times to accommodate their bulging stock. One store has even added a western standard butchery where you can get everything from sausages to steaks (all halal of course).

As I alluded to earlier though, all of this stuff is expensive. It is also imported and therefore someone spent a lot of fuel taking it a long distance. For instance, some of the tea is picked in India, packaged in the UK, shipped for sale in Australia, and then imported to Bangladesh. It seems rather silly to purchase something that is produced a few hundred miles away when it has traveled thousands of miles to get here. It is a big waste of fuel and money. Sometimes I have to remind myself that these are luxury items and not really things I need. As the popular sesame street character cookie monster has taken to saying, “cookie is sometimes food!” Sometimes the simple lessons we teach children are the lessons we have need to remember ourselves.

Crazy Busy

Umm...I'm a bit swamped as I have Esther with me in Bogra and am co-leading some trainings at work so please check back later in the week for a blog update. I'm pretty sure it will be worth the wait people, so seriously, come back later.

Surprise Blog!

That's right everyone, 2 days in a row! Bet you didn't see that coming.

I tried out a new bus route yesterday. Turns out that was a mistake for going but not so much for returning. I did however make a new friend. His name was Abdula. He is a military guy from Barisal though for some reason he didn't want to tell me he was working in the military at first. He was on his way to buy 4 plane tickets to Khulna which he informed me he could get for 1/2 price due to being in the military. Don't ask me how that works. He also mentioned something about being allowed to com-endear road transport if he wanted... Anyway, Abdula thought it was good of me to be marrying an Irish Teacher. He and the other passengers who took an active interest in our conversation were definitely looking out for me. They refused to give the bus conductor their fares until he gave me the 5 taka change that I was owed. People are very friendly here.

I find it interesting to ride the bus. I find that unlike when I'm walking on the street, most people will not talk to me unless I talk to them first. Even teenagers who are notorious for not caring about social norms and privacy seem to abide by this rule. Once I break through that barrier though I find that I have to be prepared for the normal barrage of questions and friendliness. Sometimes I just like to sit in silence and be just another passenger lost in my own thoughts starring idly at the world crawling by (crawling is a great descriptive word for Bangladesh as the bus goes very slow and the environment around it covered with swarms of people). Yesterday evening on the way home my thoughts turned towards running again. I wondered at the real possibility of running all the way to the office from Esther's side of town. It is 6 miles which is a decent distance but I have run 5 miles at a 10 minute mile pace before many times. With some effort I could get myself in really good shape and probably easily get myself down to a point where I could run a 6 mile distance in 45 minutes. For some insane reason I really want to do that now. Over the last couple of years I've often thought that I would love to run a half-marathon someday. 6 mile runs would be excellent for that. The office has showers in it so I could wash up on arrival. If I got too tired on the way I could just hop on a bus. At first I thought I was crazy for even thinking of it but the more I think the better I like the idea. Thoughts?

TIB

I'm getting flaky with my posting again. I know this is late but I'll squeeze out a few musings for those who do check this occasionally.

This past week I saw a Bengali man wearing what was obviously a women's tank top. If that wasn't amusing enough, he had a big rice gut hanging out the underside of that tank top and was walking 20 small goats down the street in a residential highrise area. TIB (This Is Bangladesh)

I've been in Dhaka the last week or so. I've been working at using buses to move around the city. The last couple of nights, I've hung out with Esther until around 9pm over on her side of the city and then taken the bus back to where I stay. Unfortunately, taking the bus is a time consuming process. If you go at the wrong time (as happened to me several times this week) it takes 1-1.5 hours to cover just under 6 miles. I can literally run that distance in that time. TIB

Last night I took a CNG (basically like a 3 wheeled taxi based off a motorcycle sized engine) home. I often like to talk to the drivers of CNGs while we make the trip across town. I asked him if the national elections scheduled for two years from now will take place? He said, "no." I asked him if the Awami League who is the party currently in power would continue to rule at that time? He said, "no." I asked him if a caretaker government would take over for awhile like happened last time elections were supposed to occur? He said, "no." I asked him if the military would take over for awhile? He said, "yes." TIB

This article: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=190564
Seriously, read the whole thing, I promise you it is worth it for the laughs that appear throughout. TIB

Bangladesh Toilet Paper...use liberally.

Recently we celebrated world peace day in Bangladesh. I spent half of my day in a local officials' office as they had a number of activities planned for the event. At one point in time I used the restroom and laughed at this unique use of the toilet paper holder as a soap box. To be fair, it is the bengali equivalent since you use your left hand before washing that with soap. Think of all the trees we could save by switching to this system in the USA! ;-)

Reality vs. Perception

Had an interesting conversation with a Bengali coworker this week. They were telling me that when a certain former coworker of ours left they told my Bengali coworker a lie which they believed and it made them despise MCC. Eventually my Bengali coworker over time came to realize that the former coworker had manipulated them and that MCC really is a good organization that wouldn't do the kind of thing they were accused of. They also told me that some of our other workers have perceptions of MCC that are probably wrong because of their limited knowledge of the same situation. For those of you who know me well, you know that I hate miscommunication of this nature. Unfortunately for my tastes, I was also raised by my father to bear in mind when privacy matters due to my position as an employee. It is hard sometimes but you've got to let perceptions be perceptions and hope that reality changes those over time. I mean, one thing I have learned and appreciate about MCC from my time spent with them thus far is how kind they are. I see the organization quietly live out that reality even if you can't always see that on the surface. It takes some time to notice sometimes but it is there if you stick around long enough.

Sorry, this blog post was all about relieving some stress. This has been a week of a lot of thinking and challenges for me. That hasn't stopped it from being a good week, just a week of a lot of thinking...

Our Moments

Have you ever had moments that you will forever remember? Of course you do. It happens to all of us. Mostly it comes around times of tragedy (where were you when JFK was shot or on 9/11). Sometimes it comes at good times (like the memory of getting a new bike for Christmas!). This week I've had two "moments" to remember. One or both might be classified as tragedy or good times.

The first happened while I was getting a haircut on Saturday. I was sitting there as usual. The barber was working his way from the left side of my head where he always starts to the right side. Suddenly he stopped and began poking at the side of my head while staring quite intently at it. I asked him what was up? He responded, "paca." I thought he might have meant, "poca" which means bug. I thought, "oh great! now I have head lice!" He managed to catch it on his scissors and show it to me after a bit more poking. It was a white hair! It was only then that I understood he meant "paca" as in "spoiled" or "not good." Bengali people don't normally like white hair and will do anything to avoid it. This was my first gray hair.

The second happened on Sunday night. Again, I was at home doing my usual thing. Just whipping up a batch of frosting for some cake that I had made. All of the sudden my fridge starts shaking and I'm thinking to myself, "that stupid compressor motor is vibrating awfully hard." Then it gets worse and I notice that everything is shaking! Then I finally realize that this is an earthquake. You better believe I got my butt out of that house pretty quickly when I realized that. Buildings in Bangladesh aren't known for being well built and there is something about several tons of brick and concrete that I don't particularly care to be smashed under. I vividly remember walking pretty fast down the hallway leading to my front door while everything around my seemed to look like Jello. Those few moments as my landlord, neighbor, and I scrambled outside got my heart to pumping pretty good.

Those are a few moments I'll probably never forget. Have any you want to share with me?

Balance

I just realized that I didn't post last week. Chalk that one up to having gone to Dhaka and back. I've come back to Bogra and have no intentions to leave again until October. I've done far too much traveling thus far since returning. To be fair, much of that was out of a desire to see Esther which is always there. Unfortunately for her, I really do need to stay in Bogra and rest sometimes. I'm a homebody. I find traveling enjoyable, but I also find it tiring. That may seem odd considering I now live abroad but it is true none-the-less. Some people get antsy after they have been in a place for awhile. They want to move on and do something else. The longer I'm in a place the more comfortable I get there. That also means that I have to be careful of a few things in life. I have to be mindful that settling down isn't always good for you and that change isn't something to fear. Growing comfortable often leads to a softness in oh so many ways. At the same time, change for the sake of change can be foolishness. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Maybe that is the ultimate challenge in life; telling the difference between when something is appropriately balanced and when something in our lives is broke. Sometimes, however, it is easy to tell. I was exhausted, so I'm resting in Bogra for the next couple of weeks. Praise the Lord for the easy to tell ones!

Poetic

Sometimes I feel very poetic about Bangladesh. One instance in which this constantly happens for me is in crossing over the Jamuna bridge. Whenever I pass over the huge Jamuna river I am always in awe of how big and powerful it is. Yet despite all this might, there is a tiny village on an island in the middle right in sight of the bridge. Most islands are torn away and moved constantly by the violent and aggressive flow that comes with each rainy season but this island survives with its tiny village intact. To give you more scope and scale, in Bangladesh the cost of building a bridge across the big rivers is mostly in "taming" the rivers rather than in the bridges themselves. A monumental effort must be made to barricade the banks for miles just to keep the river from destroying the banks between which the river flows. If these barricades fail like one did in floods that happened in 2007, a half-mile square section of river bank can disappear in the matter of a few hours or days. What a mighty thing this earth that God created is. Unfortunately, the machines of man are no where near so powerful and that would be why my bus broke down when we got to the far side of the river. This did a pretty good job of killing my poetic mood. The hour long wait by the edge of the road for the next bus owned by the company I was traveling with finished it off.

Engaged!

Just in case you hadn't heard. Esther and I got engaged this past weekend. In light of this fact, I'll spend this week's post relaying the story of how that went down since people always seem interested in such things and I don't have anything better to rant about given the heavy nature of the last two posts.

So last Friday was the 6 month anniversary of our first date. I've been thinking that would be a good day to propose for awhile now. To start off the day, I got up early and bought Esther flowers which I gave to her with a card which worked exactly as I planned. :-) I figured if I didn't get her anything other than a card she would be thinking that either I'm in idiot or I'm up to something. She loved the flowers and quickly devoured the card (as in read it, she didn't actually eat it). We then went to church as we usually do on Friday, spent the afternoon lounging around resting, went up to a worship time on the roof with friends, and finally went to dinner together. We went out to a nice Indian restaurant that we both like and just enjoyed dinner together. While at dinner we realized that in 6 months this was only our third dinner date by ourselves (though I just realized that it was actually our fourth since the picture above is of a dinner date which was not included in our count). I guess that is what happens when you have two extroverts. Anyways, I didn't do it there either. We went home to find that Esther's roommate had some friends over so we sat and chatted with them for a bit. Eventually they left and Esther went to turn the A/C on and get on her computer in her bedroom. I took this time to prepare by putting the ring in my pocket and getting out my second card that I had hid away. I went in to her and told her that I had another card for her. She thought that was sweet and as she went to open it I told her that she couldn't yet. I told her that I had one more small present to give her first. I then got down on one knee and proposed. In retrospect, her reaction was hilarious, at the time it was a bit scary. Every one of the thoughts she went through for the next 5-7 seconds was shown on her face. It started off with the "are you serious" thought which she actually muttered the words to as I got down on one knee and proceeded through a large amount of emotions before the ending, happy, yes came. My diversion worked, she had no clue I was even thinking about it all day. You could tell the whole thing had her pretty shocked which leads me to my pro tip of the day for all future proposing men: 11pm is a dumb time to propose, she is going to be incredibly wired right after the proposal and if she can't sleep, you can't either. I was dragging pretty bad come 3:30 am when we finally got all the people called that we absolutely had to call immediately so that she could announce it publicly. That was probably a good thing though as she probably would have had a hard time keeping it a secret as evidenced by the fact that she was in a daze for the next two days and kept muttering "were getting married" randomly throughout the day.

So yeah, I'm marrying a truly wonderful woman...eventually. No date set yet. Setting a date is a tricky balance of needing to save money to have a wedding and navigating MCC's policy on getting married on top of the usual challenges of doing this normally challenging enough activity. Prayers would be appreciated.

Our World

One of the things that I really enjoy about living outside of the U.S. is the experience in general. I'm not talking about the oppressive things that I often joke about on here. I'm talking about the things that you would likely never realize if you don't travel. Last week I was sitting in a meeting and events put words to the thing I had been feeling for months. I realized that one of the difficulties and beauties of living in Bangladesh is that we understand things in different ways. I think we sometimes take the foundations of our understanding for granted. Actually, we probably almost always take the foundations of our understanding for granted. The environment in which you grow up drastically affects how you perceive the world around you. If you grow up in a hut on the edge of the desert in Botswana, the spiders in your house are no big deal but rain is a huge deal. If you grow up in the rigid school structure and hierarchical system of Bangladesh, patiently waiting for things to occur is not a big deal but abstract processing is a challenge. If you grow up in the wealth and prosperity of the U.S., giving is not a challenge but sacrificing is.

That last one is something I'm learning from a situation with some Bengali Christians I am currently dealing with. The wife is working as a cook/househelper, the husband is a blind guy who has a dream of running a center for the disabled. They have a faith that says that they can trust that the Lord will provide. I have a faith that says the Lord will provide but we also need to be good stewards of what God provides. They keep asking me for money. I keep telling them to be good stewards and telling them that I'm poor too. When I really think about it though, I'm not really poor. I'm just bad at sacrificing my ingrained american desires so that I might share. I rejoice though because I wouldn't be challenging myself like this if I didn't take a step away from home. I don't think we see ourselves as clearly in a mirror as we do in the eyes of someone different than us. If you look closely enough, that reflection in their eyes just may shake your foundations and from this, stronger ones may arrive.

Back in Bangladesh

Now I'm truly back in Bangladesh. 7 hour bus rides, cockroaches, staring, rain, heat, crazy prices just because I'm white, and my first bout of sickness are the stories of the past week and part of the reason why I'm late in blogging this week. I am happy though that I haven't had too much trouble with mosquitoes just yet.

Ramadan is an interesting time of year. It is a month long lead up to the first Eid. The two Eids are essentially the equivalent of Christmas and Easter (in scale only) for the Muslim calendar. Ramadan is the month of fasting. My understanding is that this is meant to be a time of remembering the poor and hungry around them and a call to be generous. It is also a time to purify yourself of bad habits in the lead up to Eid. During this month, no one eats or drinks from sunrise to sunset. For me as a Christian westerner it has its ups and downs. One upside is that our office hours shorten by an hour each day. I much prefer this shortened day to long days that drag on even if you aren't overly busy. The downside is that all restaurants are closed and so you spend pretty much all month staying at home rather than meeting friends places. Another downside is that as a Christian, I may not be fasting, but I still need to respect that others around me are. This means no eating or drinking publicly for me. That makes long bus rides a drag.

In keeping with the thinking about poor people though, someone showed me an interesting video this past week and I would invite you to watch it if you have time. It's called The Story of Stuff and while I don't endorse everything it says (I think they badly over-dramatize), I do endorse the general concept. You can watch it here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8).

The Return!

Some of you may have noticed that I have been gone for the last two months. Your eyes did not deceive you, I really was gone. I gallivanted around the USA, UK, and surprisingly the UAE. Actually to tell you the truth, didn't do that much gallivanting in any of those countries. In the USA I took exactly two trips farther than a couple of hours from my parents house. I mostly just relaxed. In the UK I traveled a bit but it was mostly just going to 4-5 places to see people. Then there was my unexpected day in the UAE. On my return to Bangladesh I got to have some fun. I boarded my flight an hour early because that is when they were boarding us but then the two Malaysian pilots managed to screw up our paperwork so we had to wait until an hour after we were supposed to leave to get clearance to leave. We taxied out to the tarmac and then a nasty storm delayed us for another 1.5 hours. Of course when the storm finished we had to wait another half hour while all the planes that were circling landed. Eventually we got going though and by that time I knew the Catholic couple next to me and our stewardess pretty well. Unfortunately, all the time on the tarmac sitting with the engines running meant that we had to stop and refuel in Kuwait which eventually meant that we landed 2 hours after my plane to Dhaka left. Given the lack of a time machine in Abu Dhabi to transport me back and get me on the plane I missed; I had no alternative but to wait in line like everyone else who missed a flight to get rearranged. Unfortunately again, I had to wait 2.5 hours to get to the front of the line. Luckily, by the time I reached the front of the line I knew the Bengali American Professor standing next to me decently well. Since we both had American passports we could get free visas on arrival so they offered to put us up in a hotel and send us out on an Emirates flight later in the day. We said sure to that and they told us to go have a seat while they arranged the details. 30 minutes later they finally had it figured out and asked if we would mind sharing a room. Neither of us minded so they set us up with a room with two single beds. It then took us 2 more hours to get through customs, baggage, and getting a car to the hotel. By the time we reached the hotel we had 5 hours before the vehicle they had arranged for us take to Dubai for our Emirates flight came to pick us up. We decided that sleep would be silly so we both called our families, took showers, and perused the internet for a few hours. Then we went downstairs for our free breakfast at about 6:30 in the morning. We ate large amounts of food at the buffet since there were no arrangements for lunch and our flight left at 1pm. We had a great conversation over a long breakfast and by the time we got back up to our rooms and packed up, it was time to go. As my older brother predicted, there wasn't much other than sand in between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Coming into Dubai was pretty cool, there are a ton of sky scrapers in that city and the Burj Khalifa is ridiculously tall. We got the airport 3 hours before our flight which was a good thing since we spent the next hour walking from counter to counter trying to figure out why no one could figure out our ticketing. The Dubai airport is insanely big. To give you an idea of scale, we walked in the front doors and the nearest desk area was over 100 yards away. The entrance and check in area alone had to have been 6 acres or more. Eventually one of the check in people figured out our problem and explained to us that Etihad had screwed up the paperwork. Once they realized this they were extremely helpful and nice to us. The flight went smoothly and I arrived in Dhaka about 16 hours later than originally planned.

I have now been back for a weekend and am getting back to regularly scheduled life. I've been surprised so far by how natural slipping right back into my life here has been thus far. My Bangla doesn't seem to have slipped too horribly and my patience is sky high right now. I slept great my first night back but have tossed and turned the last two nights. I would guess that is jet lag getting to me but it hasn't caused me too much trouble during the day. I went to church on Friday and got to see everyone I haven't seen for two months and meet a few new people. Then Esther made it back safely on Saturday morning so I went to pick her up from the airport and help her get home. We both took a nap in the afternoon for a short bit and then we got invited over to dinner by a friend which was a blessing because it created the kind of exciting atmosphere you need to keep you awake when you need to fight sleep like Esther was. On the way over we got our first good drenching as the rain poured out on us with a vengeful fury. Luckily our host had a bunch of dry clothes for people to change into!

So far, so good. Tomorrow morning I will head back to Bogra and settle into home. For the next month I'll be dealing with Ramadan and the shortened office hours and strange times that come with that (more details will be shared in next weeks blog). I'm excited to get back to work and feeling really good about how refreshed and energized I am to be productive.

Until next week,

Phil

Elephants

This past weekend I was riding a motorcycle through town and got stuck behind a van. I had resigned myself to being stuck behind this van for a good distance because of the way traffic was at the time when as we rounded a slight bend in the road...an elephant appeared. You may wonder what this has to do with the van? Well in Bangladesh it isn't that uncommon for people with elephants to just wander around taking money from cars in exchange for not tearing up their car. It is just one more form of corruption. Fortunately for me, an elephant cannot hold up a motorcycle and I was able to pass the van just fine. I was in a truck once that was held up by an elephant but our driver saw it coming and managed to squeeze around the elephant quickly because the truck is more agile and quick than most vehicles in Bangladesh.

In other news, I'll be back in the US next week for a two month home leave. Maybe I'll see you there?

Desire to Rage

One of the biggest challenges for me in being in Bangladesh is anger management. You are constantly bombarded by things that are just incredibly frustrating. In the last week alone I can think of 6 things that have made me very angry. When I was a child, I used to go into rages. I'd yell and do things like throw objects at the ground (sometimes breaking them). As I've gotten older I've realized the wisdom there is in controlling your anger through that initial storm of feeling but that isn't to say I'm perfect. I try to forgive when I calm down. I know I need to. Without further ado, the 6 things and my reactions.

1: One of my coworkers tells me about the trouble they are having getting government approval on something because the officials in various places want them to pay bribes. This annoys me so much and it happens everywhere here but I have no face to put on it so it just simmers with resentment inside of me. I take a deep breath and let it go as just something I can't control here.

2: Riding on rickshaw with one of my friends in Dhaka. Our peddler swerves at a young woman for absolutely no reason. He comes with a fraction of an inch of hitting her with a rickshaw axle (which hurts pretty darn bad). Before I know it, I've jabbed the rickshaw driver in the back with my umbrella (briefly forgot I was a pacifist). He turns to look at me and in the moment I realize how stupid I've just been. I apologize to him. Here in my anger I jabbed a poor oppressed guy for nearly hitting a poor oppressed woman. I felt like a real idiot for doing that.

3: Several CNG (local small 3 wheeled taxi) drivers asked for ridiculous prices just because I'm a foreigner at various times this past weekend. I tried to haggle them down or if the price was just way too crazy, I just walked away. I need to remember to not show my frustration with them when haggling. If you act cheerful, they are much more likely to continue bartering with you. If you show your anger in any way, they've won and it is impossible to barter a good price out of them.

4: I got home after a week and a half away to find a huge cockroach staring at me from the top of my bedpost. I grabbed the broom and went ballistic on him. I yelled all sorts of mean things as I repeatedly crushed him with that broom. I then grabbed a can of bug spray and killed a bunch of his family in the kitchen. It was not a good day to be a cockroach in my house. In this situation I was tired from a long week of traveling and realization that I have a lot of house cleaning to do. I still would have killed them regardless because I have guests coming this weekend who have made it very clear that they do not appreciate cockroaches. There was no need for me to do it with the anger with which I did that.

5: Yesterday morning a plan that we had to go to a partner fell apart at last second because one of the guys had to go to a meeting which they were supposed to have finished the previous evening. I got strait up out of my desk chair and went to his boss who had made the decision and we had a discussion about the merits of both decisions. I accepted that he really did need to go to the meeting but voiced my feelings about how I really need him to come on the partner trip. His boss suggested that we postpone our trip by a few hours if we could. After a few minutes of discussion about whether this was possible we arranged for this change. It all worked out fine in the end. I was still annoyed that it had happened but glad a solution could be found.

6: This morning I got up early to come into the office and use Skype to call my family. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had much of a chance to talk to any of them. I have a couple of issues I really need to talk to several people about. Unfortunately, the internet was down at the office and I ended up getting up early for nothing. I tried everything I could to get the internet going again. I was so angry, I slammed my fist down on my desk. This has happened to me several times now in the last couple of months since we switched internet providers. It is so frustrating when I have so little time to squeeze in these calls and just can't manage it. Then I get to thinking about the other things I could be getting done instead during the time that I wasted coming into the office early and that only makes me more upset. It makes me want to yell at my boss for making the decision to switch providers (even though I know and respect why he did that). It makes me want to break down into a fit of throwing things and has me on the verge of tears it is so frustrating. But eventually, I take some time to cool down and realize that stuff happens in life. This is beyond my control. Getting angry does nothing but make me feel terrible. So I calm down and try to forgive myself.

Missionary Midnight

How many of you have ever heard of missionary midnight? It is a joke based on the idea that 10pm is a missionary's equivalent to midnight and therefore you are almost always in bed by then. Last night a group of my friends (a wonderful group of people) threw me an early birthday party. During the later stages of this party a new idea sprung forth. MISSIONARY TWISTER! Larry wanted to play twister but we didn't have a board. So we got some dry erase markers and labeled the tiles on the floor with Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green. Unfortunately, we didn't have colored markers, just black, so we just labeled them with letters. This lead to Dave's now famous comment, "Missionary Twister, we're so poor we can't even afford color!" We then skipped out on the spinner (because we didn't have one) and used four dutch blitz cards (just happen to be red, yellow, blue, and green!). Our designated caller, Gill, would pick a limb based off her random whim then draw a card for color. At times, it was very questionable whether these choices were random at all (they most definitely were not) but it was a good challenge and lots of fun. There are lots of pictures from this event that I hope never find their way to the internet! Esther threatened to send them directly to my mother but I assured her that no pictures of me doing anything silly would be surprising to my mother at this point.

Moral of the Story: Just like my childhood, in Bangladesh sometimes creating your own fun beats commercialized fun.

Vision and Values

This past week I had the opportunity to sit in on a vision and values training that we have been giving to all our staff in Bangladesh. The training is an adaptation of a training that FH (Food for the Hungry) had developed. As I may have mentioned before, MCC Bangladesh has staff from many backgrounds. I work with people from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Animist, and Christian backgrounds. Beyond that, the people are also from many different cultures. The Bengali people are the dominant culture of Bangladesh but we also have many other indigenous cultures represented in MCC here. The vision and values training brought all of those people together to share MCC's identity with them and to encourage them to reflect on how they relate to that. For many, portions of this were very challenging. My biggest challenge was that it was almost entirely in Bangla! With the help of a handy English outline of the events, I was able to follow the events but must lament that I didn't understand many of the nuances that happened in the many small group discussions. These were also very long days. A typical day would run from prayer at 8:30 in the morning until a Bangla film finished at 8pm. The first day, I had a horrible migraine by 4:30 in the afternoon as my brain overloaded on trying to process too much bangla. It was worth it in the end. I really enjoyed the conversations that were shared and look forward to going back over the bangla and adding it to my vocabulary permanently. I even got to hit a co-worker with a pot! (Meaning I accidentally hit her lightly on the shoulder during a skit about reconciliation which everyone found to be hilarious!) It was a long week but certainly a fun one.

Safety

So I've had a few people wondering about our safety here in regards to the recent news about Osama Bin Laden.

I'd first like to take a moment to ask American Christians why they are celebrating his death so wildly? I'm no biblical scholar but I'm pretty sure that when Jesus says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." he doesn't mean that you should be celebrating wildly at their death. Might I suggest solemn reflection on the fact that we live in a world that has gotten so violent and what we do that perpetuates this? It might also be worth reflecting on the fact that those celebrations often times end up leading to more violence which is why I'm getting questions about safety.

I've never felt threatened by people in Bangladesh. There have been times that I have felt threatened and unsafe on the roads but that was from buses and trucks not people. Despite warnings from various people before I left the States about not trusting Muslims, I have found the primarily Muslim Bengali people to way more hospitable and friendly than even American people are. It is part of their culture which has existed since before Islam came to the area. That said, I've heard rumors that there are conservative Islamic elements in Bengali society. The rumors are that they are sent money from elements in the middle east for fundamentalist schools. I guess it is possible that these groups could eventually do something to me but I doubt they will. These groups are being carefully scrutinized by the current government here and I would guess they are much more likely to be angry with the government of Bangladesh than me. I was just told the other day that someone heard that the people in my neighborhood really like MCC and its employees.

That said, no one here has talked much with me about what happened. Even the Muslim staff used to joke about Al Qaeda and the menace they are. Bengali people are a typically very open and direct about things involving politics so I'm kind of surprised by this. I'm not sure what to make of it. I have a couple of theories though. One theory is that I just haven't been talking to people enough that the subject has come up. Another is that they are talking about it but not around me because they aren't sure what is appropriate to say. They seem to be treating the news fairly calmly and solemnly. Maybe that means that they have mixed feelings? I imagine his death as a Muslim at the hands of a tactical strike team leaves Muslim Bengalis with all sorts of things to debate. No one here seemed to like Osama Bin Laden before this went down but I don't get the impression that they are happy this went down.

I've received the warnings about higher levels of danger for Americans from the US Embassy here in Bangladesh but their emails typically read as if you'll die if you step out your front door in Bangladesh. That makes it hard to read if there is any real threat out there. I doubt it, but I certainly feel a small bit less safe than I did a few days ago.

Phil vs. the Cockroach Horde!

As some of you may know, in general, I harbor no ill will to cockroaches. When I first came to Bangladesh I would even let them live as long as they didn't run at me. Having your own place and meeting others' sensibilities has changed that for me. In my house I now kill on sight and yell out catchphrases like "BoOYeah!!!" or "How do you like me now!!!" every time. I've done a lot of cleaning in the last two days and that has led to killing of cockroaches. No case was as unique as me versus the cockroach horde.

It all started when I wanted to make a cake. I found a mixer in my cabinet that I hadn't been using up to this point and figured this would be a good time to see if it worked. When I picked it up it rattled a bunch and junk dropped out of it. I figured maybe a bunch of ants (very very common in my house) had made a nest in it at one time so I decided to open it up and clean it out. I got out my trusty screwdriver and dusted off my love for tearing things apart (this is legit, ask my parents). I got to work figuring out how my mixer was assembled and curious to see what was inside. It took about 5 minutes but I managed to peel the two halves of the mixer apart and inside was a bunch of gunk and a family of 5 cockroaches!!! One child scrambled out immediately which is what made me aware they were in there and I quickly grabbed a shoe to vanquish it. I thought it might have been the only one but when I looked down inside I could seen antenna poking out from under the motor. Over the next 20 minutes I tried various methods to get the cockroaches out from under that motor. I shook the thing, I poked the screwdriver down in after them, and I tried grabbing their exposed antennas with a clothes pin. Over time I was able to coax 3 out of 5 of them out. Of those 3 I single-handedly defeated 2 of them. The third one was taken out by a lizard living behind a piece of furniture in my house who chomped down on the thing before I could even react. He then proceeded to swallow the thing whole while I watched. It gave me a whole new love for those lizards! The 4th cockroach fell to my jabbing screwdriver. As I impaled him and pulled him out I was reminded of a time I had a raccoon up against a wall with a pitchfork. The raccoon escaped my grasp, the cockroach was not so lucky. The 5th cockroach was older and wiser than the rest. This was the boss cockroach!

All of my afore mentioned efforts to slay this beast failed miserably. He was safely tucked in under the motor and seemed to know I couldn't get to him there because of the tightness of the space. After about 5 minutes of toying with him, I finally decided I needed to pull the motor out. I giggled as I unscrewed the attachments and told him (literally) that this was going to be the most amazing/last thing he ever saw. I was right on both accounts. when I pulled the motor out he was so stunned that he just sat there. I flipped him with the screw driver over onto the floor which woke him from his stupor but it wasn't fast enough for him to escape the wrath of my size 9 shoes. The official final score of Phil vs. the Cockroach Horde! was:
Cockroaches 0
Lizard 1
Phil 4 (plus a clean working mixer!)

I'm back

I'm back from my one week hiatus. I didn't mean to take it really, I just didn't have anything to write and was so busy I couldn't be bothered to make something up for you all. Sorry. I heard plenty about it from my mother but other than that you all seemed pretty relaxed about it (a good indication that she is the only one who reads these).

I just got back to Bogra from a 3 day weekend in Dhaka for Easter. Spent some time with Esther which was wonderful as always and led to a new experience. We got on a rickshaw to go back to Esther's from a friend's place and didn't think much of the fact that the rickshaw driver seemed to know Esther since she has red hair which stands out here. We quickly realized though once we got going that all was not normal. This guy was slow. Horribly horribly slow! It turns out he only had one leg!!! He would pedal a down stroke with his remaining left leg and then pull the pedal up so he could take another. Being the patient person I am, I eventually slid down and started pedaling the right one for him. We made a pretty good team once we got our rhythm down. Eventually though he stopped and said he was tired. Unfortunately we were not home yet. We paid the man and decided to walk the rest of the way on a nice lazy Easter afternoon.

Later that night we were recounting the story and our friends informed us that he is actually a bit of a scammer. He does work for money unlike most handicapped people in Bangladesh but he purposely picks up expats in that part of town and says he'll take them places despite knowing that he won't be able to go all the way. He goes really slow so you get there really late and often people give him big tips for even trying. I've got to hand it to him though. It's ingenious for a 1 legged man in Bangladesh.

Random info:

Also, just in case you were curious. If you happen to be traveling to Dhaka and forget your toiletries and you just happen to prefer Crest toothpaste to the local stuff... It will cost you about $7 to buy a toothbrush, Crest toothpaste from Germany, and a stick of deodorant. Just for the record, in true German fashion, I am really impressed with that toothpaste. My mouth feels so fresh and clean after using it!

Motivation

I have a confession to make. I struggle to get motivated to do certain things quite frequently. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one but this is my confession and I can't speak for everyone. If you hadn't guessed by now, this is on my mind because I've been doing a lot of tasks lately that I'm just not all that motivated to do. Currently that task is editing a 36 page project proposal. As my mother and father well know, give me a pitchfork or a fence post driver and I could be outside working all day long but hit me with paperwork and my joy dwindles rather rapidly. I look for any small task I can possibly come up with to distract me from the paperwork for a short time and then try to work on it in bursts. I should probably police myself more carefully.

I have noticed a few additional habits I have when I'm avoiding work that I'm not motivated to do. I find myself more inclined to play games like hearts on the computer (I love playing hearts but must admit that it makes me feel like yelling at the computer when I lose). I also have a habit of playing around with numbers. This morning I read the HMMC church bulletin like I always do but decided to calculate what the average salary of an attendee should be based off attendance and an assumption that offering is a 10% tithe. I didn't do that to announce numbers or try to shame anyone; I was just curious what number I would come up with.

Oddly enough, the same thing that makes me interested in doing random math can lead people to have the wrong impression of me. I have had a coworker who wasn't around me too often think that I was a very organized and detail oriented person. I love knowing all the details, I dislike managing them. The fact that I know them and am interested in the details themselves because they help me to understand the bigger picture doesn't translate into me wanting to work with them beyond just toying with them. Fortunately, I was raised to understand that sometimes you've got to do things you just don't like doing. That doesn't mean it is easy, but somehow I'll find the motivation to tackle this monster, somewhere...somehow...

Being Busy

I really really like being busy sometimes. This past weekend a friend of Jon and Lindsay who has been in Bangladesh studying Bangla for the last several months took me up on an offer to come visit Bogra. She had been stuck in Dhaka the entire time she stayed here and this was an excuse to see some other parts of Bangladesh. I spent the weekend taking her around the area and just hanging out. Since it was entirely inappropriate for her to stay with me, I made arrangements for her to stay with some Brazilian friends of mine. I ended up having them and Nate over for 2 meals which I prepared. It was generally a great time but I started off the weekend with only 3 hours of sleep since I got in the mood to do housework the night before said friend arrived. I then spent the weekend going strong from roughly 6am to 12pm each day. I shouldn't complain though as what I did during those days was pleasant. I took her out for a couple of motorcycle rides around the countryside and we went on a walk through a few villages only to get ourselves invited into a home. They fed us snacks and she lied to them by telling them I was her older brother which was a good idea since we were out in the middle of nowhere which in general means it would be more scandalous for us to be walking together if we weren't married. In addition to that, when the neighbor lady had her arm and was dragging her towards the next house I could legitimately say that we were going to get us out of the situation (as the older brother she has to listen to me!). ;-) I do feel a bit bad about insulting that little old lady though by not going to her house. I knew if we did though that we were going to get pulled along to every house and I certainly didn't want to do that.

We also spent a fair amount of time hanging out with the Brazilians/Nate. I just like being busy sometimes even if I was mind numbingly tired by 10pm last night. I slept great and long. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to watch the Butler game in a couple of days...

Luster

Yet another week has passed and I'm remembering something. Details are fine in spurts for me but lose their luster over time. Therefore, I'm starting to notice that cleaning my house is becoming more difficult to convince myself to do. The fun part now is figuring out how to convince myself otherwise. One mistake I made this weekend was taking my computer home. I spent my entire Saturday watching movies when I should have been doing some cleaning. I am way too easily distracted. If I don't have a computer at home I still often get distracted by reading a book but that is a bit more productive than watching a movie in my opinion.

I'm also starting to wonder if I'm not starting to get near my burnout point again. I've noticed myself getting more pessimistic about certain things lately and I just realized I've been 3 straight months in Bangladesh. Usually the 4th or 5th month is when I really start to notice it. It makes me wonder how much we control these feelings and how much they control us. I mean, I'm normally a go with the flow kind of guy but I always find myself getting worn down after so many months in this country. If I had a lot of control over that, you would think I could just apply a positive attitude and do better for longer. By all means, things have gone really well in my life lately but that doesn't seem to be stopping this, if this is indeed the start of burnout. If I do accept that it is somewhat beyond my control; how does one come to grips with that? How do I deal with the fact that I know I'm going to slowly get more grumpy over the next two months until I leave for America? Right now I'm not doing so bad at all, I just suspect this is coming. Then again, maybe this is just another situation in which details lose their luster for me. Maybe the solution for my house cleaning is the same solution I need to figure out for my life in general. I'll try to let you know if I figure anything interesting out.

A Girlfriend?

Some of you may be aware of recent events in my life and others may not be so I figure I'll tell this story once and get it all out of the way.

I now have a girlfriend. She is real and not a cat as my brother has suggested. Her name is Esther Clarke and she's a teacher at Grace International School in Dhaka. She is Irish with a lovely accent and a beautiful smile. We originally met at a party some friends were having and I assisted her to win a game of Settlers (meaning I lost badly). That didn't lead to anything other than an invite to the next party with that group of mutual friends which happened to be her birthday party. We didn't really talk much their either but I brought some cookies and cake that I had baked which led to us talking on facebook.

She seemed pretty cool on facebook so I asked if she wanted to get coffee the next time I was in Dhaka for a weekend. She obviously said yes. We met for what I thought would be 1-2 hours and a cup of coffee on a Saturday afternoon before I headed back to Bogra. It was 4.5 hours later when either of us bothered looking at a clock. She was late to make dinner for some friends and I was late to catch a bus to Bogra. I think both of us were pleasantly caught off guard.

Things have progressed from there smoothly even though I'm still not sure what she sees in me. ;-) As far as what I see in her...well I guess that is for another post but I will say one thing to calm any fears my family might have, she can take being the butt of a joke and that is really all it takes to fit in with us right? I look forward to seeing where God might lead Esther and I.

Almost forgot...

I almost completely forgot to post this week!

I moved this past week. I now live in town in Jodi's old flat. It is about a 5 minute walk from the office. It is a two bedroom apartment. Unfortunately, it was filthy dirty when I moved in on Thursday so I spent my weekend cleaning it from top to bottom. I've never loved cleaning but I think I realized something this past weekend; I don't hate cleaning like I thought I did. I think I just dislike being told to do it. I treated it like a strategy game and it isn't so bad. I first concentrated on one room which became my "clean room" which nothing could go in unless it was cleaned first. I've now got it down to just my bedroom and the kitchen that need a good cleaning. Unfortunately, I'm heading to Dhaka tomorrow before I'm able to get it done.

Having your own place is a bit of work but I kind of like it. I get to set my own schedule and it is all my responsibility so I don't have anyone else to blame if it doesn't get done. I like a sense of ownership.

This month is also Cricket World Cup! I'm understanding the game more and more with each day and I must say, I think it is way more interesting than baseball. Mainly because every ball is live as compared to baseball in which pitchers spend so much time feeling around the plate trying to tempt the batter to swing. In cricket the batter must defend the wicket from the ball every single time and the catcher will for sure cost his team runs if he misses the ball. The pitcher is also free to throw the ball at the batter whenever he likes. I still agree with Jodi though, the silly hats that the referees wear look stupid. :-)

Bangladesh in the Fall?

I've had an interesting experience a couple of times in the last week. I've walked out the front door of my house and just been struck by how much Bangladesh seems like fall back at home right now. I know this is a small window in time before it gets ridiculously hot but these experiences are wonderful. The first time it happened in the morning as I walked out into some cool crisp air. I could just close my eyes and see the combines running in the corn and bean fields in that moment. The funny thing is that the rice patty helps the illusion right now. The recently planted rice adds a smell and feel to the air that makes it feel so much more like home. The other time I experienced this feeling was this afternoon when I left my house at 5. It was the warmth of the sun which you knew would fade with it and the brownish faded green of the grass that did it this time. It reminded me of the slow death of foliage back at home. All this is to say, enjoy the simple pleasures in life everyone. They come and go; you only have them for a moment.

Joy springs forth

This past 2 weeks were quite busy even by my standards. We had two different visitors at the same time doing two different things and I was supposed to be heavily involved in both. This type of thing is very exhausting since I was also responsible for entertaining them for dinner in the evening and breakfast in the morning. For a couple of days I was getting up at 4 in the morning to get some work done and going strong until 11 at night. The only problem I had with this is that it didn't actually exhaust me. It was energizing and refreshing. I had forgotten how these types of situations do that to me. The important thing was that I was excited to be doing what I was doing. If I'm excited about something, I can and will push my body to its limits and take great joy in doing it.

Day go by and Seasons Change

This past week I have been in Dhaka doing some work and I took the opportunity to invite some friends over and make a full dinner for 8 by myself. Not something I would advise everyone doing but I really did enjoy it. I ended up making honey-mustard chicken, baked potatoes, coleslaw, rolls, deviled eggs, and cookies for dessert. I had hoped to do some of the things a few days ahead of time but ended up watching after some MCC A Common Place writers instead (not punishment by any means). So I ended up doing it all in two days. It worked out fine even if I lost out on some sleep and it was lovely having wonderful people over for the evening. I had an invitation to a birthday party the next night and someone at dinner suggested I take some of the cookies I had made the next evening. I didn't think I had enough of those, so I made some chocolate cupcakes to go with them. The cookies turned out to be quite popular, though I must say that they are my mother's recipe so I can't take any credit for them.

In other news, I had a great time at the birthday party and met some cool new people. I even met one person whom I found drawing a positive view of Bangladesh out of me. I don't think I've ever had anyone start with the positives of Bangladesh without at least joking about some of the negatives first. I thought that was pretty cool and it reminded me of how much my view of this place changes over time. Now it would help if I could just remember their name so I could add them as a friend on facebook.

The next day I went to the Dhaka office picnic. Highlights of the day included: getting to talk to Alison D'Silva on the phone after she called her dad whom I happened to be watching birds with, playing football (soccer) barefoot with the kids (even if I did manage to kick the ball into the river), a walk around the grounds of the picnic area that included the sights and smells of a cow barn, and good conversations with the staff. The only complaints of the day were that it was a bit hot and gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes on the way home (pretty average and anticipated terrible occurrences when you live in Bangladesh).

Life has really been pretty good this week.

Windows

You may have noticed by now that I'm someone who likes to ponder. Sometimes they are worth sharing and sometimes they aren't. Recently I did some pondering in a conversation that I thought I might share here.

I'm not sure I'm ever going to understand why people worry about hurting my feelings or ruining a friendship with me. Do I seem like the type of person to blow up on people or harbor a grudge? My family knows that I have a temper but I would guess that they also know that if I am given a minute to think, I will cool off and apologize. As much time as I spend reflecting on life, being angry with someone is the worst feeling and always leads to the reminder that I am just as often guilty of causing that hurt in others. If I can't forgive others, I can't forgive myself (and can't hold out hope that they will forgive me) and if I can't forgive myself, I can't like who I am which is a really dark path that I've been down before and don't ever want to go down again. I recognize that this is a bit of a selfish rationalization but suspect that on some level we all have to be selfish and think this is probably a pretty healthy form of selfishness.

At the same time, people really do baffle me sometimes. They leave me wondering if how I act gives them the wrong impression about who I am and if maybe I am lying to the world, or myself for that matter, about who I am. I wonder how much of my inner dialogue and convictions really come out in people's interpretations of my actions. It isn't something I can ignore because I am convinced that who we are as people is shaped by both us and our environment. I am me but I think there is some real truth to the fact that who "me" is, is influenced by who you believe "me" is to some extent. I guess what I'm saying is that when things in the communication loop that is my communications with others don't match up, I begin to wonder if I'm bending the mirror that I view myself through.

...and that my friends, was window into my mind.

Motorcyle

You ever have those moments where almost everything goes terribly wrong and yet you get invigorated when things end up all right? One of those occurred to me last night. I was driving the motorcycle home rather than the usual bicycle ride because I wanted to come into the office early this morning. Unfortunately, another motorcycle (I didn't see it because it was black and not in throttle so his lights were dimmed) tried crossing the road and cut me off. I couldn't go right because that is the direction he was coming from and I would have clipped him. I couldn't go left because there was a CNG (think steel cage on wheels) that he was corralling me towards. So I slammed on the brakes and started yelling to catch his attention. I had the back of the motorcycle sliding sideways but never locked up the front tire and never laid it down. By the time I reached him, he had stopped, I popped down a couple of gears, and slowly drove through the 3 foot gap he had left between him and the CNG while giving him a dirty look. That was when I realized that there were 15 or so people standing alongside the road mimicking my alarmed yell in what I think was an attempt to chide him (or maybe me?). I laughed at this and drove on without looking back at the guy again but feeling pretty darn good about my evasive maneuvering skills. That said, for my sake and my mother's sanity, I need to drive even more defensively than I already do here.