Life in B-Baria

Trainnning is over and I am offically a volunteer, for whatever that is worth. I have gone from having something to do every minute of the day to having nothing to do... I had quite the time in Dhaka, I hope you enjoyed reading about it on my blogg... That is the P.G version.. But, the U.S embassy really does look this a real life Mario Brothers castle...

Now for the meat,the other day I went to work with my host father in Dhaka. He works for Janta bank. He works in the mail office for all of Bangladesh and Janta bank in general. Needless to say he is the man... With that being said, I'm not excatly for sure what he does. When I was there I saw him sign some papers the rest of the time was spent drinking tea with various other bosses of people. I got to meet that man that is in charge of all Overseas banking for the Janta bank, as well as the man who is in charge of all the branches in Italy.... They all love americans and I really had a great time talking with them.(who doesn't love Americans?) One guy who happened to be muslim openly questioned his own faith as how he doesn't really believe he only follows because that is what is expected of him.... So that was a trip... I got some good numbers and business cards of people to call and kick it with whenever I'm in Dhaka or just need to hear a friendly voice. One guy even quoted Walt Whiteman to me. I must say that won me over. They took me out to lunch and said thanks for coming and next time I'm in Dhaka be sure to look them up.... Just for my own personal benefit, the Janta Tower is one of the tallest buildings in Bangladesh.... The only bad thing about the bank office is that it is in Old Dhaka, and I have no idea how to get their or get around... You see a privite car bus picks up my father and some other of the workers in front of their street each day. It's really rather posh. Even though I don't know if you can call a double decker bus posh.. (just like the ones in England)

Jumping right along to the highlights of my site. B-baria. I took the train to get here which is much nicer than the bus... Once at the station all hell borke loose, the locals here have no idea what a line is and each time one would make ones life more simple things turn into a grade school recess... Which is a mess in way you look at it... So I hand my bags through the window and then I myself go through the window to get out and walk to my privite car awaiting to take me to my house.... That's right Travis is Big time in the Desh... After talking to the host family for a while it was time to eat lucnh with Mr. Matin... (I've dropped his name once or twice in my blogg) it turns out lucnh was going to be at a wedding and he just forget to included that detail... Thankfully he speaks really good english and was expainning everything to me... Bangli weddings are weird and it would take me too much time to explain all the oddness... BUt, I will tell you that he asked me if I was married and I said no, he then asked me if I would want to marry a Bangli girl... I was like, ummm I'm still trying to find the girl that is in my head. To this he said, I would like to look for you a wife. I will find you a very lovely bangli girl. They really are super nice and he went on for almost 5 min about how bangli women are better than American women. I had no reply to any of this... I was just shocked at how it was all brought up...

Anyways, after making the short walk back to my host house it was time for some more funny stuff to go down. After having tea, (which I drank 8 cups of yesterday) I saw all my stuff in a room that is attachted to the living room. It was being build durin my site visit, now it just needs one more wall to make it sepeate from the living room... I was told that this will be my room for the time being... So right now I'm living in the living room. It gets better though... Soon after finding this out I find out that my one of my host fathers is getting married on Friday and they will need my bed because so many people are coming over... It ends up that they put a bed outside in this other room that is not attached to the house at all. I'm in this shed type building that is used by one of the host fathers for tutoring physics... It's really not all that bad, I have a table a bed my misquto net, and it really is a place to excape the desh which will be nice... Now for the catch, because like everything in the desh their is a catch... Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the bathroom. Of course the house is locked so I had to pee outside in the bushes of my own house... And taking a shower is an adventure as well.... All of my stuff is still in the added room of the living room, so I have to take all my clothes into the bathroom with me and their is only one bar to hang a towel, along with the sink... So this is going to be an interesting week to put things nicely... But, hey it's Bangladesh and Anyone can live anywhere right?