Saturday, February 9, 2008

January 8th: First day Mymensingh Field Office

Tonight is my first try to fall asleep while under the influence of caffeine. Oh, Americanism. No Diet Coke and I am going strong.... four days now! There should be meetings for this, but perhaps the incessant tea drinking here in Bangladesh is going to make up for everything. I'm not exactly weened off my cell phone like I thought either. I bought one today at Grameen phone. It took ALL DAY but I managed to get one on the way from Dhaka to Mymensingh. I left Saleha-apa to come stay with Sheharia-apa, an incredibly funny lady who now thinks I am insand. Surrprrisseeee. I may or may not have been tricked into eating an insanely hot pepper at dinner, and that may or not have actually been a trick, but more my own stupidity. Either way, the situation called for some animated gestures of foolishness. Lucky for me, I'm not the guy from Dumb and Dumber or I could have had some serious medical complications with my pills. I suppose it was a green chile...and it wasn't even too bad. Shaharia is fucking hilarious and responded by laughing like crazy in areally endearing manner.

I am in an inn-like living situation, complete with all the rustic accomodations one could ask for. I'm sleeping on cinder blocks covered in insecticide and placed conveniently under a jimmied mosquito net (malaria free's the way to be!). A rat sat by my feet at dinner and then ran laps around the room for a while. I am trying to keep face about these things so I didn't mention it to anyone. Ain't no thaaang. Watch out though, lizards that line the inside lip of my windows: I just saw a HUGE bat come in to compete with your mosquito eating. Rats or no rats, I ate a lot of great food today for the first time since being here. Too bad I feel like I smell permanently like Indian food.... Marc Jacobs is more my style.

So far, the research here sounds great. We met in the library of the training and research center to discuss the itinerary for our intro week in the field. We are going to the field (meaning leaving the TARC and going to the villages to observe) every day for a week to see all the BRAC operations first-hand. Over the past two years, I have worked to understand and diagnose BRAC pros and cons, and tomorrow I will see all the good BRAC does for the Mymensingh district. This is SO exciting.

On a side note, the drive here was crazy again. Not only is driving in Bangladesh a series of weaving, cutting drivers off, and playing chicken with other passers-by, but we experienced Bangladeshi music and insanity today as well. We stopped to get gas/ repair our van [Later came to find out we were getting compressed natural gas under the hood and thats why we all had to get out of the car] and were waiting for our driver at a little stand when a few guys wanted my picture with their cell phones. Slowly, a crowd formed and before we knew it literally 60-100 people from a little street in Bangladesh were just staring at us. It was crazy. I actually started to get upset inside, but Evan started to play hackey sack to attract attention. He said he loves being the center of attention, so kudos.

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