I own an electrified tennis racquet for swinging at/electrifying bugs.

I made a new friend today. An absolute sliver of a little girl. She is the daughter of one of our drivers and and while he and Dr. Bubul did business I played so hard with this six year old. We ate cookies. Then ran up to the roof and spied on people with my binoculars. We danced for a bit to no music. And then she schooled me at drawing flowers. (All this keep in mind with no comprehension of what the other was saying). When she left I gave her a bag of hair styling products. I want to keep her.

So I'm just chilling here in Rangpur for the weekend. Shit kind of hit the fan at work and I've been working overtime. So I'm relishing this break.

I had a dream the other night that I was back in the US and my trip here was cut short. I was desperate to get back here, to finish my work, to continue to push myself in this strange country and to see it through. Then someone handed me a big steak and a milk shake. And I accepted America back.

Motorcycle!

The only thing harder than learning to drive a motorcycle is learning to drive from someone who doesn't speak English. Even so, I learned in 10 minutes. I road around the compound and next week I'll be able to take it out into the streets!

For Fun

The internet here is dodgy. So what do I do for fun in Rural Bangladesh? Well let me tell you.

-Read (I am averaging a book a week), sketch, do crosswords
-Work out by running up and down the stairs
-Jump Rope
-Playing brick on my Bangladeshi cell phone
-Writing this blog
-Yesterday Ian and I watched 10 ants pick up our noodle and shove it into their ant hole
-Buy biscuits from the market
-Watching every B rated movie under the sun
-Brian and I have started to watch alllll the episodes of Friends since someone left them here
-Learn to play harmonica
-Learn to play guitar
-Play with my turtle bracelets and increase the distance between the bracelet and the base station to see if it still alarms. Made it all the way to the market today!
-Spy on people in the street below my window with my binoculars
-Learn Bengali

Annnd that’s about it. And I’m so happy.


My office and the view from it's porch:

Free at Last

Bed rest is over! And I finally took the car back to Gaibandha. Ian, a PhD from Johns Hopkins, got into Bangladesh tonight and we shared a drink from the bottle of gin he brought. Even Dr. Bulbul drank some! My first drink in three weeks. It tasted almost as good as 7-Up.

Some pictures of my room in Gaibandha:

I bought 7-Up at the market

Oh 7-Up. I love you from the top of your spritzing neck to the bottom of your dewy, curvy, bottom. Your angelic bubbles surface when I pour you into my tall glass. You are cold on my fingertips. And when I drink, you warm my soul.

At the Zoo

I woke up this morning at 3 am to loud Arabic prayers and dogs howling and barking. Seriously one of the most frightening combinations of noises. The prayers echoed so loud it sounded like I was in a cave. They got louder and louder, circling up through the trees sounding almost like ghosts that were strangling dogs. I didn’t go to sleep back to sleep for a few hours.

So I know I’m supposed to be on bed rest, but I decided to go to the Zoo. (Mom if you protest I won’t let you read my blog anymore.) I went with Bulbul and Brian. The walk was long and filled with men, young and old, shouting out to Brian. “Hello! What country?”

The zoo itself was heartbreaking. Lions that barely had enough room to turn around. Hippo that was in a filthy pond and monkeys sitting on concrete with nothing to play with.

As we soon realized, we were more of a spectacle than the animals. A large crowd started following us and asking to take our picture. We should have carried a species sign: “Human species of white distinction dragged from their natural habitat of Natty Bos and Netflix in the distant country Baltimore.”

We found an amazing playground with a ferris wheel. We all got on it and made a larger scene. The very nice men who offered to help us on the ride asked us for money for their service on the way out.

Reza, one of the men working in IT with Brian, took us all out to dinner. We ate at a dark Thai and Chinese Restaurant. When we ordered sweet and sour chicken the waiter asked us “sweet or sour?”

Work is going slow but that’s to be expected in this molasses country. I'm learning a lot from just being.

Blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh

Anger is quick in this office. People get so mad and furious, red and shaking.

Sadness is deep on the streets. Like the woman I heard wailing outside the market and the untold sadness in the orphan’s eye.

I often try to blink and swallow all this away. But it feels good to shudder and let it pass through.