Clear and Present Danger

A great movie.  A really great movie.  However, not what I'm referring to currently.

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent.  It is a question of proximity and degree.  When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."
                                                                                                                               --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As I'm sitting here watching news reports of the embassies in various countries being stormed, I can't help but contemplate our rights and freedoms.

Please keep all of the affected families in your thoughts and prayers.

Don't you hate it when...

You just have no time?  No time for anything.  B has officially started kindergarten (more on that later), and with Suchona - my helper - here to take care of everything in the house and watch K, you'd think I'd be bored out of my mind.  And strangely, I find myself swamped.  Literally - and yes, rainy season is drawing to a close - thanks for asking :)

With B starting school, I decided it was high time I make use of my Post 9-11 GI Bill and go back to school.  My options are a bit limited by the reality of my life - have you noticed that we move a lot?  So, I decided to do the easiest thing and go for an all-online program.  Since I didn't make the decision to at least get one semester under my belt (hopefully two) before we move again, I had only about a week or two to find a program, register for classes, apply for my GI Bill benefits, and order books so they would be here before classes got underway.  In the end I decided on UMUC.  Not to knock their program, but it was simply the most convenient.  Plenty of programs to choose from, all programs are completely online (no random seminar that must be attended in residence), and best of all, no entry requirements other than an undergraduate degree.  This last one was key since being overseas limits me even more than usual in my ability to take any of these tests.

I have been fairly pleased by my ability to keep up with coursework while not being totally absent from my real life, but having Josh out of town for the past 2 weeks has also helped.  It's given me the opportunity to totally devote myself to classwork every night after the kids go to bed.  Hopefully it won't always be like this (since my husband might eventually notice that I'm not around), but it's been helpful to get me back into the school routine.  Um, and as a side note, I totally hate being back in the school routine.  I think I must be getting too old for this.  Or maybe it's just my impatience with people taking graduate level classes who can't (or can't be bothered to) use proper grammar when posting on the classroom conferences.  <sigh>  For those curious, the program I chose is a Masters of Management with a focus in Emergency Management.  I'm still not exactly sure what I'll do with that, but it seemed like a good combination of my human bio undergrad degree and my logistics work experience.

As I mentioned, B has started school now.  There's a part of me that's super-glad he's finally out of the house - and I'm totally guilt-free about feeling that way.  He's getting too old to be entertained sitting around.  He needs the social interaction with other kids his age, and I just can't give that to him at home - especially not here.  So we had a great start, a minor setback, and now we seem to be back on track.  After being really excited and (strangely for him) eager to go to school and try something new, B suddenly developed a fear of school.  I got a letter from his teacher (naturally while Josh was gone) that he had not even entered the classroom to attend class for several days.  Instead, he was choosing to sit outside his classroom in the hallway.  Several days, he ended up sitting in the office reading books rather than going to class.  Sadly, this was much more the behavior I was expecting when B went off to school the first time.  He is generally very reluctant to try anything new, and definitely does not care for new or unexpected social situations.  So after a brief meeting with the school counselor (who advised putting B on a half-day schedule until he could figure out how to assimilate) and his teacher (who felt this was just a phase and B was going to work through it naturally), we decided to do nothing and wait to see what happened.  Well, I'm happy to report that B was apparently afraid of one of the kids in his class - for a reason that no one really knows - and after they painted together the other day, B has been a totally different kid.  He's happy and has lots to talk about when he comes home now (instead of looking like he's seriously going to break down sobbing during his every waking hour - you think I'm exaggerating - I'm not).

So many things are really working out well for us.  K is thriving with more one-on-one attention, B is now back to thriving at school, I am enjoying (reluctantly) having something intellectual to do again with my time, and Josh...  Well, he's happy for all of us :)  And he's been gallivanting around India for the last 2 weeks, so even if he's not super happy, my sympathy level is very low.

But, as I mentioned before, I feel swamped.  I've been getting involved more with social activities and there are lots of new families with kids that have arrived recently.  It has made life here a bit more enjoyable, but busy as well.

A good sort of busy.  Naturally, we're on the downhill slide although we still have no idea where we're going, or when, or for how long.  I have to share something from another wife posted a few days ago.  The unwritten beatitude - Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break.

With the end of Ramadan...

... comes the return to a busy social calendar.  While we got off to a bit of a slow start on the social scene here, things with Josh's school have picked up steadily in the months since.  All things considered, Ramadan - while an important religious observance for the local populace - was a welcome break from evening activities.  It was a great time for us to spend time together as a family in the evenings.

While we had the opportunity to share iftar (the fast-breaking meal) with some of our friends on three occasions, this meal happens relatively early in the evening (somewhere between our normal dinner time and their normal dinner time) and is guaranteed to end in a timely manner since everyone heads to the local mosque to be there in time for 8:30 prayer.  So this was a great opportunity for us to get our kids out at dinner-time which we usually avoid because it can lead to very long evenings (and let's face it, kiddo behavior definitely does not improve after bedtime).

This is Josh's first full week back to class after the Eid break - the official end to Ramadan - and here's how yesterday went.  First thing in the morning, I got an SMS (that's text msg for you non-locals) from Josh letting me know that his classmates were scheduling a syndicate dinner either for that night or the next (tonight).  So, we opted for tonight.  Oh, by the way, we also have an AMARDESH country presentation this evening at Mirpur, and I was scheduled to have a rehearsal for my "being a US Army wife" presentation this afternoon.  So, I would leave the house around 1:30 and not return until sometime around 10:00 tonight - assuming of course that we could convince the syndicate to have an "early" dinner.  Then, tomorrow night, I have the actual presentation of my briefing with the Ladies Club at Mirpur - did I mention that just yesterday they called me and asked that I increase the length of my presentation from 15 to 30 minutes?? - so Josh will be home with the kids.  Wednesday night we have off - for now - and then Thursday, we have been invited to dinner with another foreign officer and his family (with kids).  There's a big part of me that really enjoys spending all of this time "experiencing" things locally, but it's obviously a huge change from life at DLI where a "big week" might entail a mom's night out for me - one night.  My social interaction there was generally during the day with other moms and wives.

I think it's easy for me to see that military culture here - with what I'll casually refer to as "mandatory fun" events - is a bit different from back home.  There's a large emphasis on wives being actively involved on a weekly basis - in fact, no event is considered "optional". If wive's choose not to participate, it can have a negative impact on their husband's chances for a successful career.  I can only imagine the drama it might cause state-side if a unit "required" spouses to participate in some sort of after hours event.  It wouldn't matter if spouses were available to attend or not, there would be some who would immediately choose not to attend just because "the Army can't make them do anything" and another group (I'll lump myself in here) who would ask what childcare arrangements had been made by the unit.  Not so here.  And yet there's a part of me that wishes more spouses and families would participate in Army events stateside because there's such great diversity out there, and lots of great opportunities to meet new people, but it seems like the same people attend all of the events.  Being a former FRG leader, I think there's a big part of me that wants to participate in things just because I know you put the same amount of work into setting up an event for 5 people as you do for 35, and I want people to know their efforts are appreciated.  I feel that our family social events might actually be better if we could convince more people to participate.  Less spouses and families would feel like "they don't know anyone".  I know, I know.  Two sides to every coin.  But I think it's important to acknowledge the good with the bad and always be open to see how just because things are different, they're not necessarily better or worse.

Oh, by the way, last night at 11:00, Josh got a text message rescheduling my rehearsal for my presentation.  Now we're meeting after AMARDESH and then still (maybe) going to dinner with the syndicate.  Because I don't need any advance notice to completely change my childcare arrangements, right?  Here, not really.  This would totally not fly in my real life, though ;)

Mysteries Solved

So I've had two totally unrelated things bugging me for a while now.  First, just about every day, at least once a day, I eat something that has a perfumey taste to it.  It's not overwhelming, but it's enough to make me feel a bit strange.  I know when we looked at packing up our consumables, we were warned over and over again not to put laundry detergent, dry sheets, or soap/cleaning products in with our food items as it would make everything smell and taste a bit soapy.  So we absolutely followed this advice.  I was starting to wonder if perhaps the items we bought at the commissary were all shipped in a single large container (with soaps not split up) or something along those lines.  I thought maybe the chemical preservatives in some of the foods we have didn't react well when exposed to heat for prolonged periods.  Regardless of the reason, I had essentially given up on finding an explanation.

Until last night.  Last night, I happened to be packing B's lunch for his first day of school, and as I pulled the sandwich baggies out of the box, I caught a whiff of the smell.  So, this whole time, it hasn't been the food, it's been the bags.  Josh was less than impressed with my revelation - truth be told, he claims there IS no smell.  But I smell it, and when I eat things that are stored in the bags, I taste it.  Garlic bread with just a hint of Bounce dryer sheet.  So, note to self, when packing the consumables, not only do I need to keep the food items away from the soap items, but everything that might even come in contact with my food needs to be away from the soap.  Lesson learned for next time.

Second mystery involved strange stains that were appearing on our walls.  Dark brown/black stains kept appearing at totally random intervals on our walls in places where we knew the kids could not reach.  I'm not actually sure if we have the real explanation on this, but it's just gross enough and plausible enough to be true.  Remember how I mentioned we have geckos that roam our house?  Yeah.  You see where I'm going with this, right?  So apparently they are being extremely well fed by all the bugs we have hanging around and when you've gotta go, you've gotta go.  Nice.  Please pass the rubber gloves...

Power

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, and I have 2 other unfinished posts that I just couldn't quite find the motivation to complete, so here goes.  First, the easy part.  Power stateside is 110 volts and power here is generally around 220 volts.  The outlets look mostly like the photo below.  Both outlets are actually the same, but I have plugged in a travel adapter to the outlet on the right.

The travel adapter - I think it was a couple dollars - allows me to plug in anything that can take 220V.  You might or might not be surprised to learn that many of the things you use every day can take either 110 or 220 which is nice since we only have one pure 110 outlet in the house.  The outlets here are described as UK/Hong Kong style 3 prong.  I can only assume this is because - and I'm taking a real leap here - these outlets are common in both the UK and Hong Kong.  For most small appliances - lamps, phones, etc - we just plug things directly in to the wall outlet.

For larger, more sensitive (read expensive) items, we use a voltage regulator.  Seen at left, it plugs in to the wall and then has 2 output outlets on the back (in most cases one 220 and one 110).  The item on the right is commonly referred to as a "step down" and changes the power from 220 to 110 but without providing any voltage regulation.  We have common power fluctuations and the voltage regulators help counter these.

Power outages are fairly common here, and we have a large generator out back to assist with this.  On a bad day during the heat of summer, we could have as many as 8 or more outages lasting over an hour each.  Luckily, the generator will kick on after about a minute, so we're rarely truly incapacitated.  Most appliances even turn themselves back on, so really we have very little disruption.  One notable exception is the oven.  We have a gas stove, and the burners on top will continue to burn whether the power is on or not (they just need power to spark), but if the power goes out while I'm baking, the gas supply to the oven shuts off.  Now that cooler weather has arrived with the rainy season, we can actually go several days without experiencing an outage - which is a nice change.  On the advice of other world-weary travelers, we brought with us several battery powered clocks to hang on the walls so at least I don't have to reset all the clocks every time the power goes out!

Surviving a Bangladeshi Buffet - or International Etiquette

Not totally unexpectedly, I spend a lot of time at mixed social functions watching other people.  It's one of the easiest ways to make sure I don't do anything "wrong."  So, please read on for all of the insider hints in social functions in BG (since I'm sure all of you are eager to visit):

It all starts with the preparation - and by that, I'm mainly referring to dress code.  There is one basic rule of women's fashion here (but many sub-rules) - You can never be overdressed.  Ever.  Should you look like someone went crazy with a bedazzler in your general vicinity?  Absolutely.  At all times.  Well, most times.  And that's what makes it tough.  Often, you can figure out what will be most appropriate based on the men's dress code which is much more straight forward.  For social functions here (so far at least), they are either open collar or closed collar (with tie).  Common sense would say that closed collar would correspond to a more formal sari since a tie is more dressy than an open collar shirt.  But that's where you'd be wrong.  All "fancy" events I've been to so far have been open collar.  Less fancy saris are required for shirt and tie events.  Go figure.  So the dinner events - which start no earlier than 8pm and all include children (but not ours) - are open collar and therefore fancy sari events.  

Arrival at the dinner event is a carefully coordinated activity.  Everyone should arrive before the instructor and his family, but everyone should also be standing when they arrive, and at least one person and his spouse should be ready to greet them at the door and "escort" them to the table.  The reason no one can really sit until the instructor arrives is because he and his wife (who never sit at the same table - men at the men's table, women at the women's) are always the first to select seats and sit down.  So far, each of our large dinners has been a buffet-style meal, and this seems to be fairly common.  The women get their food first - the instructor's spouse is always first, generally I'm somewhere at the front of the line as well even when I try to let others go first.  I would not find it unusual for another spouse to accompany me through the line and fill my plate for me - always piled high with meat.  Last night, I was able to get all of my own food (Thai and Chinese) and was fairly pleased with the food selection.  There is no point in trying to put everything on your plate the first time through  as you are expected to return to the buffet table at least twice.  Anything less and you must not truly be enjoying the food.  

You can never fully empty your plate either or it will be assumed that you're still hungry.  A truly full person - little known fact - is actually so full that they just can't manage to eat that last bite of food.  So you leave it on your plate along with your fork and knife/spoon slightly crossed in the middle of your plate.

Then you proceed to the dessert table, but again, only in the prescribed order.  After dessert, the men will adjourn outside the restaurant (generally to a balcony or outdoor seating area of some sort) while the women either join them or not depending on what the instructor's wife prefers.  We all go as a group though.  After this (which can be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes) there is generally some sort of photograph to commemorate the event - women only - and then the instructor and his family leave followed by everyone else.  Dinner usually concludes around 10:30.  

As a side note, generally the spouses do not speak in English - though many of them can - during the meal.  So while every now and then, someone will make conversation or explain to me the general topic that everyone else is discussing, it is not unusual to understand little to nothing of what is being discussed.  The men are required to speak English (it's part of the officer culture), so even at events outside the classroom, they tend to speak English - at least when their instructor is around.  This was probably the most difficult part of social functions at first, but I have found that everyone has been extremely friendly.  And really, even if they don't speak much English, their English is always invariably better than my Bangla, and I'm the visitor in their country.  So I try to keep things in perspective!  

Goodbye, Grandpa!

After a fun, relaxing week, I made a 0345 drive to the airport to drop off my dad Frida morning.  The kids had a blast hanging out with Grandpa all week, and it was nice to have an extra set of hands around while we all got settled into the house again.  We only managed to spend one day sight-seeing downtown because of Josh's school schedule, but even one day sitting in Dhaka traffic is more than enough ;)

We rounded out that day with a lunch at Captain's World near the old airport.  If you live here and haven't been yet, you really should go.  The food is ridiculously good, especially the garlic naan.  Yummy!

We also had a 4th of July celebration - Dhaka style.  There was a dinner buffet at the American club complete with arts and crafts, cotton candy, and monsoon rains.  Dinner was pulled pork, hot dogs, hamburgers, cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans, and fruit salad.  Great food, and "almost" like you'd get at home.  Almost.

--Break--

I wrote that first piece almost a week ago, but we've been having some technical difficulties on this end, so it has been sitting in my draft box gathering cyberdust.  It's been a bit of a long week here.  Josh has been involved in a week-long exercise here requiring additional time at work.  With Ramadan rapidly approaching, his classmates are trying to squeeze in all the social events they can, so we have Ladies Club, Social Night, and a Syndicate dinner all coming up this week.  Now, at the last minute, they've changed the schedule, and since I'd already finalized child care arrangements for all of the events, I'll end up missing out on 2 of them.  Is planning ahead really such a foreign (or domestic) concept?

I've wasted no time reacquainting myself with my friendly, neighborhood tailor.  They were pleased to show me all the new fabric they've gotten in since I last visited and were happy to hear that my relatives wanted to sample some of their work as well.  And so we have settled back in to some semblance of a routine.