Mufajil

On Saturday I worked outside moving some bricks around to make the house look nicer. My neighbor (You guessed it! His name is Mufajil) from across the street come over. I was chatting with him and he had his son with him so I asked what his name was. I would guess that his son is maybe 3? His name is Mitu (pronounced "Me Two"). I found this quit humorous but not as humorous as I thought it was when I saw little Mitu running down the street with his pants around his ankles about 30 minutes later.

Names I've had on Bus Tickets

Mr. Fil (Most common spelling.)

Mr. Feal

Mr. Feel

Mr. Feeel

Mr. Fiel

Mr. Fail

Mr. Phil (They actual ask me how to spell it occasionally.)

Things I saw on my way to work this morning.

The first thing I saw was something like 4 neighbor kids come out on the front porch of their house to yell at me. There is something about me on a motorcycle that they never seem to get tired of.

Then I saw a little girl (maybe 12?) brushing her teeth.

As I got out of my village I saw a fat short guy running at a pace that I'm sure I could walk faster than. He definitely seemed out of place.

I also saw a Muslim guy walking with prayer beads. I haven't seen too many of those either.

Some fields of rice were beginning to be harvested.

I saw a group of nomadic gypsies starting their day.

I also saw a group of about 50 soldiers in shorts and "A" shirts finishing up their morning run.

My final joy of my morning ride into work was seeing an older man with a very nicely trimmed beard and Muslim tupee (prayer hat). That description is only from the head up of course, from the neck down he was wearing a full windbreaker running suit which was complete with many large patches of vibrant colors like purple, yellow, and red. It took me back to my childhood when I small part of the US population thought that such things looked good.

To be truthful with you, I was sad at how few people I did see brushing their teeth this morning. For some reason Bengalis seem to like to stand on the street while they do it and often times I'll see 5 or 6 people brushing their teeth before I'm even out of my own village.

Blargghhhh

Why Blargghhhh, you might ask? Some might have noticed a certain amount of lack of creativity and motivation occurring on my blog the past several weeks. If you didn't notice, just trust me, it did happen (I know, I was there, does that mean I have street cred?). I think the problem is a result of my missing a mundane life. I've been missing the nice life that I had when I spent weeks at a time at home in Bogra. Even when I have been in Bogra, I managed to spice up that life a little bit by moving into a new house. Now I'm attempting to settle into said house without being here for more than maybe 3 days in a row at any point in time. Makes me miss my childhood when I would spend 99% of my time at home on the farm because my parents weren't dumb enough to torture themselves by taking me places when they had someone else at home to watch over me in a controlled environment (I can't blame them). That's one snippet of life. Here are additional random snippets.

I slammed my finger in a window today. It bled.

My big toenails are getting long. I should probably trim them.

I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and decided I should probably work on being a little more diligent in how I approach my faith. I then read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell and decided that some memorization work might be a good start since he talks about how that's where the Jewish children in Jesus' time started. I chose Psalms because it seemed like a good mixture of praises and laments that you could pull out and "chew your cud" on. I then took one last practical step and gave myself 2 years to complete this task. This is an effort to do this as something I enjoy and not ruin the pleasure of enjoying it by pressuring myself into difficult measurables. I'm not on pace to reach my goal currently but I'm hoping I get a snowball effect later on maybe even beat it.

My pants got ripped the other day. I really liked those pants and now they will be out of commission until I have time to take them to be patched. I got those pants for free from a coworker.

I bought new sandals last night. My old ones broke and were getting pretty nasty even before that. I wore my new ones out of the store. I told the salesman that I didn't want the old ones. I thought they might have someone they sell used ones to. I was wrong, he picked them up, walked to the front of the store as I stood there watching (fun fact for you, the comma that would normally go in this location is called an Oxford Comma and is actually totally unnecessary, which is why I will leave it out) and just threw them into the street.

I have a fake Christmas tree sitting on the desk in front of me. I never put it away from last year and it seems that there is no rush now.

We plan on having a real American turkey for thanksgiving this year. Someone is coming to Bangladesh in Mid-November and will be throwing a frozen turkey in their suitcase for us.

Those new sandals I bought, yeah, totally rubbing my feet raw in a spot or two. I'm hoping the problem goes away if they're broken in or even if I just build up calluses I'll be ok.

I haven't been to the dentist in a while. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

I do think I'm going to get new glasses soon. I had talked myself out of them about a month ago but since the dry season has arrived the dust is starting to build and that is reeking havoc with my contacts. This has put the prospect of wearing my current glasses more into focus (laugh, it's a pun) and since they are half broken, that seems like a bad situation.

Oh and I was talking to my boss earlier this week. He was telling me about this thing called appreciative inquiry. Next thing I know he is mentioning how there is a workshop on it going on up in Nepal later this month and that a few people from MCC will be attending. Next thing I know after that he says, "you should go too, I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner." Within a couple of hours I had a plane ticket back to Katmandhu on Biman Airlines for November 15. Part of me wanted to turn it down and just stay put for awhile but frankly, this is a really interesting concept to me and I can see where it might help me directly in the work I do.

Oh and I also got a cold yesterday. It's a fun life

I'm ready to get back to Bangladesh

Our flight from Katmandhu to Dhaka got canceled yesterday after they forced us to wait in what is the most disgusting airport I've ever been in for about 4-5 hours. That really stinks (literally and figuratively). Oh and yesterday was my dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad, here's 7 hours in an airport that smells of BO and urine! I'll write more about the rest of the journey later but they put us up in a hotel for the night and are sending us on a different plane this afternoon.

A Long Anticipated Day

Today was the day Steven and Dad arrived in Bangladesh. Thus begins almost 2 weeks of adventures together. Dad walked out of the Airport terminal this morning and had the exact same reaction I had almost a year ago. "Whoa!" This came out as his glasses quickly fogged up. Up until that point I had thought the morning was actually rather cool and pleasant. I'm going to chalk that up to adjusting. We quickly hopped into the car and started our drive to my place. They spent the next 3.5 hours fighting exhaustion from the flight and fear from the roads. It has been decided that my mother would absolutely hate this place and would not be able to handle the traffic. If she thought my driving in Chicago was bad...

I got a ton of goodies. There was more candy than I should eat in a month or two. (What my mother lacks in courage, she makes up for with love.) I'll definitely share. We all took naps after arriving. We all needed them. After our naps we went around and met the office staff. We probably should have taken a little more time doing this but it's a rough call when you are completely jet lagged. Dad and Steven got their first taste of Bangla food for lunch. They seemed to think that it didn't suit their taste buds all that well but felt better for having ate it. Then we went for a walk around town. We went to the stinky fish market. We took a riverside walk. Dad stopped and took pictures of goats every time he saw them. On our way back from our walk it started raining. We got stuck under an overhang for over half an hour. Finally, we grabbed some rickshaws and headed back to the office. Only when I looked back from my rickshaw, Steven's rickshaw was not behind us like I expected. He doesn't know a single word of Bangla, so I immediately started worrying. I told our driver to stop and pretty soon I saw Steven coming. "whew" I could exhale. I told our guy to go again, but Steven's guy managed to pass us before we got up to speed. Then of course our rickshaw's chain came off and we had to stop to put it back on. This meant that we had now lost Steven ahead of us! Luckily, I realized that the guy would just take him to the bus stand and then neither of them would know what to do or where to go because Steven doesn't have Taka (Bangladesh Currency) or know Bangla. Pretty soon we found them there and finally got back to the office.

All of us Ex-pat workers (non-bengali workers) got together with our boss Mokhles for dinner at a resturant. On the way there we made a side trip to Jodi's flat where Dad and Steven are spending the night in her spare bedroom. That means they get an actual soft bed rather than the boards covered with a hard mat that is available at the office. We road all three of us on one rickshaw to get there. We took this picture to commemorate the event and vowed never to attempt the stunt again. We are all too big to share a rickshaw.


Dad has considerable troubles getting in and out of rickshaws because of the giant first step you must take. I try to help him the best I can but you should probably pray that he doesn't fall and break a hip in his fragile old age. ;-) Ok, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but he is about as graceful getting into a rickshaw as he is doing Wii bowling.

Dinner was good. We went to a chinese place. I almost accidentally ate shrimp. Now it's time for an early trip to bed for all of us. It's been a long day of travel and we need our beauty sleep.

Better late than never?

Life's been a little hectic around Bangladesh lately. That and since my camera was broken I had to get these from my housemate, they're a little late. I might add some more from housemate Nate as well at a later time. All the credit for the following pictures goes to Daniel Thomas.

In the background is probably Kangchenjunga which is the world's third highest mountain at 28,169 feet. If I am correct about this being Kangchenjunga (say that 3 times quickly, I dare you) then we are about 50 miles from it in this picture. The point being is that it's still absolutely huge.

We figure that the spot we were standing on for these views was right around 12,000 feet high. Not bad when you consider that the locals would call it a hill and not a mountain.

Yeah, it's the same mountain in 3 straight pictures, get over it.

I would just like to point out that there are still cows at 10,000 feet.

Sandakphu to Phalut ridge hike is definitely a recommended hike. The entire trip is one scenic view after another. (When you aren't in the clouds that is.) Also, we had several encounters with groups of 2 or 3 local shepherd boys playing soccer near very steep hills. One would have to be very careful not to lose a ball over the edge.

We all got sunburns and we all came up with our own way of trying to protect ourselves on our last day. We all also managed to look pretty silly doing this.

They buried me under about 5 or 6 blankets to help me warm back up when I had hypothermia. The bucket was for just in case I threw up because I was nauseous as well.

I also talked to Grandma B this morning. She's found the strength and steadiness of hand to start quilting again. It gives her something to do to pass the time but she's afraid she'll run out of quilting to do. It also seems like some of the treatments she has received are starting to work. She hasn't had to be given platelets for several days and has stopped having nose bleeds. I guess her doctor was even talking to her about what point things would have to reach for her to return to the nursing home. She's not out of the woods yet but she seems to be heading that direction. Thank you to anyone who might have seen my earlier post and prayed for her.