Mood swings

Another example of the inability to get settled into one mood here:

This afternoon, my supervisor told me that there was a letter for me on his desk. I went in to get it and noticed that the envelope wasn't (and hadn't ever been) sealed. Slightly miffed, I picked it up and then noticed that my name and address weren't in the see-through plastic window on the envelope. In other words, someone had clearly taken the letter out of the envelope, looked at it and put it back in again (the wrong way around). This really gave me the shits - it's one thing for people to pull my groceries out of my shopping bag and look at the price labels (seriously, this is what happens) but opening my mail takes privacy invasion to the next level.

I stormed out and found my supervisor, demanding to know who had opened my mail and why. Infuriatingly, he didn't understand why I had a problem. He just patiently pointed out that the fault lay with the phone company for not sealing their envelopes properly. I agreed that, yes, this was an issue but I still wanted to know why this was perceived to be an open invitation to read my mail. This time, he said the finger of blame should be pointed to the postal workers since they must have removed it. I tried to explain that this couldn't be the case, because the way the letter had been put back in the envelope meant that the name and address couldn't be seen - so this must have happened after delivery, otherwise they wouldn't have known where or who to deliver it to.

I have no doubt that it was someone at my work who opened the letter, and I'm pretty sure which person it would have been. It really really really gets on my nerves how little respect for privacy there seems to be here - which I don't know is widespread or if people feel somehow entitled to go through my things because they are "looking after" me.

So feeling like my head was going to explode with fury, I headed into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. The cook, Moriam, had rearranged lots of the furniture in one corner and gone through all the cupboards to clean and tidy everything. I asked her why she'd done this, wondering if there was a specific reason or just a spring clean.

Her response? She wanted to rearrange everything so there was more room for me to prepare my meals at the table because she knows I struggle a bit with doing it on the floor. (She'd laughed at me taking "knee stretch" breaks the night before when using a floor grinding stone to make some home-made peanut butter.) Also, a vegetable peeler that I'd bought (for about 40 cents) had gone missing which was giving her considerable stress since she's the one who washes the dishes and felt personally responsible. Which I guess she may have been, but it really didn't worry me and I'd already gone and bought a new one.

See what I mean? With one person being fucking annoying one minute and then someone else being so delightful and thoughtful the next, it's impossible to stay in a bad mood for too long. (Conversely, it also means that good moods are often nipped in the bud!)

Now THAT's a beach

A couple of friends in Australia just got married and went to Fiji for their honeymoon.  They were very amused when they visited the self-proclaimed "world's 7th best beach".

Bangladesh's honeymoon capital (complete with advertising billboards for a particular brand of oral contraceptive pill using the slogan "Welcome to happy couple city, Cox's Bazar") is a beachside town on the Bay of Bengal which claims to have the longest unbroken sea beach in the world.  Now according to a reliable source, the longest (by another 100km or so) is actually in Brazil.  But, according to everybody here, Cox's Bazar is the most beautiful sea beach in the world.  No question about it.

My opinion - okay, but nothing special.  On another trip to Cox's Bazar recently with a fairly large group of other expat volunteers, one of the girls who'd organised our "programme" for the weekend had included a visit to a special, secret destination to chill out one afternoon between swimming at the beach and going out for dinner.  When we were trying to weasel out of her what and where this place was, all she would give away was that it was "really good... for Bangladesh."  This is a bit of a common theme - any other visitor here would possibly be a bit disappointed by many of the things that we get so excited about after 8 months of being here (and used to lowering our expectations).

It is nice to have a sea change, especially for people for whom it is so culturally entrenched to live close to the beach.  But - after taking Bren & Karen there when they visited - I don't think I'd take any other visitors there especially, cos it is pretty disappointing.  There are many wonderful things in Bangladesh, but if you want great beaches, go to Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia (or stay at home in Oz).

There's been a campaign recently to come up with a list of the New 7 Wonders of the World, including a category for New 7 Wonders of Nature.  Being so proud of their beach - and generally not terribly widely travelled to have seen other beaches to compare it to - the enthusiastic Bangladeshis nominated Cox's Bazar beach for one of the natural wonders.

Now, I know I wasn't there at the best time of year (it was pissing down with rain the whole time) but this is my picture of this "wonder":

Compared to the world's 7th best beach in Fiji:

Not much comparison, eh?

The funniest part of the story though?  There had been some dodgy websites set up or something, that were somehow rigging the voting system and so Bangladesh's entries got disqualified from the competition!  I think this is bloody hilarious, given the political history and current situation in Bangladesh (a national election due to be held on 18 December) where true democracy is looking like a bit of wishful thinking.  Happily for the Bangladeshis, they've been reinstated in the competition (I bet they tried to bribe someone to do it though!) and Cox's Bazar is currently #3 on the list... that's what happens when you've got a country with 150 million people voting.

So thanks to Dan for permission to use these photos here (well, I'm sure he'd give me permission if I ever get around to asking him).

Puzzling

It was with mixed feelings of horror and amazement that I watched one of my 11-year-old patients do a jigsaw puzzle today, helped by the therapy assistant I work with.  It was a very simple puzzle of Winnie the Pooh and friends containing about 20 pieces, each one about 5cm square.  A 5- or 6-year-old could easily have done it.  But it was fascinating watching this kid and my colleague attempting to put two "outie" bits together (as opposed to an "innie" and an "outie").  Or a middle piece into the border.  Or two pieces that clearly had different pictures and did not belong together.

I know the kid may not have had too many opportunities to do jigsaw puzzles in his life, but it was unbelievable seeing how he was totally incapable of applying any kind of logic to it.  (You know - does the picture line up?  Do the shapes match?  Etc.)  Even more scary was that my colleague had no idea either.

This incident might help to explain how some of my frustrations come about.  Trying to teach in an interactive way is nigh on impossible - people aren't able to come up with their own answers.  They don't know how.  They expect to be told everything.  Their whole life, they've rote learnt information and regurgitated this in exams that don't require any application of the knowledge.  They ask "what?" but never "why?" and don't wonder "how?".  Things are black and white - there's no grey.  They have all these separate bits of knowledge but are not able to work out how to make all the bits fit together into the big picture.  Or how to make the bits fit into different situations.

I was just watching this kid thinking, "No wonder they struggle to find solutions to the many problems in this country when people can't even solve a jigsaw puzzle!"  You know - not taking into account all the complicating factors of poverty, corruption, gender inequality, environmental problems...

Yet another time when, after thinking about it all for ages, I just shook my head and said, "It's all fucked."

No tension, no mention

On a sunset walk around the lake (where Gandhi's ashes were sprinkled) in the Hindu pilgrimage town of Pushkar, we met a Hindu holy man who was preparing himself for some kind of performance or something.

He stopped us and we got the usual questions (what is your name / country / marital status?) before this guy told us that he had, "No wife, no children, no money, no job - no tension, no mention!"

And thus "no tension, no mention" became something of a motto for the three of us, especially as we could relate to the bits about no wife/husband, no children, no money and no job!

No tension, no mention.  It even rhymes.  I love it.

Unexplained absence

I've been in India for 3 weeks.  Sorry to everyone who thought I was dead (Berna).

A little snap to keep you happy til I get around to writing something about it all...

You know you've been Banglafied when...

... you see your freshly baked garlic and herb bread crawling with opportunistic ants (who pounced while you took a quick wee and left the bread uncovered for a minute) before thinking, "Extra protein!" and brushing / blowing the majority off... then eating the remaining ones with the bread.

And I wonder why I'm sick all the time!

Eid false start

Eid-ul-Fitr is the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.  The Islamic calendar is based on the moon, so it was uncertain until the night before whether Eid would be today or tomorrow.  If they saw the first sliver of the new moon last night, Eid would be today.  If they were unlucky, the moon wouldn't be seen until tonight and Eid would be tomorrow.  There is a "Moon-Sighting Committee" who would officially announce whether the moon had been seen or not - and phone numbers had been published in the newspapers for people to call if they saw the moon.  I think they were a bit ambitious to expect it to be today - they knew it was going to be today in Saudi Arabia but there they'd seen the new moon at the start of Ramadan a day before Bangladesh.  Someone else told me that it's always the day after Saudi and they didn't know why there was this "will it or won't it be the same day" every year.

The lead-up to Eid is like the lead-up to Christmas.  The shops are open all hours, with everyone buying new clothes for themselves and as gifts for their family and friends.  The traffic in Chittagong was insane, with jams at the major intersection near Tania and Bri's house (it feels so weird not to say "Carly and Tania's house"!) at 10pm and later, when normally it's pretty quiet well before that time.  Last night, the cook's kids were at the office for Iftar (the meal when they break the day's fast) and were excitedly showing me their new clothes and shoes, before packing them up to take to their house for Eid day.  It really felt like Christmas Eve - and was so nice to be with a family who were going to be involved in it all, not just hanging out on my own.

So I woke up early this morning, rushed down to the kitchen to ask Moriam if it was Eid day.  No... no moon last night, so it's tomorrow.  After all the excitement of the night before, it was a bit of an anti-climax to see everyone fasting still!  The weather today has been beautiful - sunny but not too hot.  The forecast for tomorrow is for a 100% chance of precipitation... not really compatible with all the walking from one house to another that is planned!

To top it off, my horoscope for tomorrow predicts:

You may have to be careful with your physical appearance or well-being today as you are vulnerable to accidents.

Bugger...  Hope that's not referring to my sari-wearing and walking in the mud.  I don't want any incidents of slipping in the mud in my new sari!