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).