Gimme an H! Gimme an A! ...

That's right, we've got hartals again.  The up side is that traffic is totally great, but that's because bus services are cancelled and businesses are closed down.  So while I might not really have had anyplace I wanted to go, the fact that I "can't" go anywhere just makes me a little stir crazy.

Here's the "Liz" version of the current crisis (and keep in mind that I was not in any way a political science major in college):
Bangladesh has 2 main political parties - the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).  Currently the AL is in power, so when the BNP is angry about something or wants to draw general attention to ... anything - they call for a hartal and there is a country-wide strike.  Sometimes these are totally peaceful, other times there's rioting and people are arrested and sometimes even killed.  To keep us safe, anytime a hartal is called, we are restricted from traveling outside the diplomatic enclave (which is actually fairly large, but does not include my tailor or my new favorite store).  Generally, the hartals are fairly peaceful, and they operate during business hours (7:30ish to 5:30ish), so Josh has to leave early to get to school before everything starts and then has to stay at school until after they're done for the day.
Anyway, back to the current situation.  Recently (maybe 2 weeks ago now), there was a bribery scandal involving the railroad where a minivan full of cash driven by railroad employees drove up to a police station and claimed all the money inside the van was from bribes paid for ... random reasons.  I don't think the reason behind the bribes was nearly as important in the news story I read as the fact that it was bribe money in general.  Regardless, this story was in the news for a few days.  Shortly after, a key member of the BNP went missing.  The BNP is claiming that the AL had him kidnapped (or otherwise disposed of) in order to get the bribery scandal out of the papers.  The AL claims that the BNP is hiding the man just to get attention.  And so, the BNP is calling for hartals until he is returned.  We had 3 days of hartals last week, and the news report I saw yesterday called for hartals today and tomorrow at least.

The down side for us is that several of Josh's instructors were unable to drive to his school due to the hartal, so even on the days when they were not striking, he had to stay late to receive the instruction that they missed during the hartal.  It was a long week for him, and long for us as well since he didn't come home until after dinnertime most nights.

On a happier note, we were visited by the Intrigue Family last week as they conducted their regional travel in Bangladesh.  You might recall that we visited with them briefly during our travel to Sri Lanka just over a month ago.  B and K were happy to play with their friends again, and Josh and I both appreciated the opportunity to catch up with them in person.  Since we're not in our house yet (maybe later this week???), they stayed at a local hotel, but we were still able to share a few meals.  It was our first opportunity to host someone traveling here, and I hope their lessons learned will be able to help out anyone else who comes to visit.

Oh, and in other news - totally unrelated - I'm happy to announce that K is using the potty!  As all of our stuff is still in storage, I had kind of decided to put off potty training until we got into the new house and I had  all of my training pants and other assorted items, but with the donation of a Princess Potty, we are up and running!