Well, we've been in Dhaka for just shy of 10 months now, and we have recently found out that we will likely stay for another 6 months (taking us 4 months past our one year IRT tour) so that B can finish out the school year over here. As I reflect on our lifestyle and start making notes for our next overseas tour (whenever that might be) one thing really stands out. We need to make better use of our consumables allowance. This isn't really something anyone can tell you ahead of time, because it's tough to visualize the sorts of foods you really want to ship (and know what things will be expensive) until after you've lived here for a while. When you live with kids - who have ever-changing tastes - this is also tough. I have three totally unopened large containers of oatmeal because my kids (and my husband) really, REALLY like oatmeal. But strangely, they're not eating it here. Instead, everyone seems to opt for blueberry pop-tarts.
I think the first big adjustment for me was having to buy all name-brand products. I know some people shop this way all the time, but I don't. I buy generic whenever I can and with the exception of Kirkland's macaroni and cheese (which is truly awful), I am generally very pleased by the quality. Please, if you take one thing away from this post, never buy that macaroni and cheese. This is actually one of the main reasons I don't generally shop at the commissary when we're stateside. I just don't see the savings they promise because I don't normally buy name-brand items at the grocery store. So really, if I was stateside and bought only name-brand items, I'm sure our grocery bill would be higher to begin with. But add to that the fact that our overseas commissary (not actually affiliated with DeCA, but generally sourced from DeCA products) adds a significant surcharge on to commissary prices to cover the expense of shipping, and prices for food here can be a bit silly. Take for instance peanut butter which is currently running over $8 for a 40 oz container, or Cheez-Its which run just shy of $4 per box. Do I think I'm getting ripped off? No, I'm sure the commissary is charging me a fair price relative to what they pay for these things, but it doesn't make it much easier to bear.
Cereal generally starts at $5 per box and goes up from there; canned goods (vegetables, beans, etc) start at $1.50 per can. I've honestly mostly stopped paying attention to the prices when I shop since we don't have any alternative. As much as I hate to pay those prices, we have to eat something. Some people ship in food in large quantities (www.amazon.com or buythecase.net), but I've often found that once I add in shipping - if required - the prices aren't that different than what I'm paying at the commissary. So I've just essentially given up trying to save money on food.
And now for the (potentially) helpful portion of this. We as a family need to make much better use of our consumables allowance the next time we go overseas. While we can't make up for the ridiculous prices on things like meat, cheese, and yogurt, we can at least ship cases of cereal, lunch-box treats, crackers, canned goods, and spaghetti sauce. With those items alone, I'd save quite a bit (since we go through them so quickly). One member of our family - who shall remain nameless - made the executive decision that we didn't need to ship these items because "they are available at the commissary", but I really think next time I need to put my foot down. There's a big difference between "available" and "reasonably priced". I could be concerned with pesky things like expiration dates on all this food purchased in advance, but over half the items I purchase here are either expired, or close to it, so really, what's the difference. I have cheddar cheese in my freezer downstairs that has a best buy date of sometime mid-2011. I'm not kidding. While I am thankful most days that these things ARE available, I feel a bit... annoyed that because the military gives us a consumables allowance, they feel no need to give us any sort of COLA that would be commensurate with the actual expenses we incur just shopping for groceries.
Sadly, I feel like this information might only be useful if we come back here to Dhaka, as each country has their own type of commissary. For example, our friends in Sri Lanka do not have any refrigerated or frozen items available. Then again, some other countries in our region tend to have more things available to them on the economy. I feel like we have altered our diet while living here to make best use of the foods that are available, and I'm sure we would do the same in any new location. Here's hoping we can continue to remain flexible and do our best to make use of the opportunities available to us.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
One Year Later
One year ago, we had already started making preparations for our "big trip". We spent the weekend in and around Sacramento (after a quick trip to the ER to remove popcorn kernels from B's ears). It's strange that while that trip seems so familiar to me and I can recall many of the things we did, it was also a long, long time ago. So many new things have happened! We've been here in Dhaka for nine months now. Sadly, I've had relatively few opportunities to travel even though we'd hoped to be able to travel together. We're all very happy that B is in school now, but given his issues getting adjusted to that new schedule, we've been loathe to pull him out. So, Josh has traveled alone most of the time. I look back and I'm a bit jealous of our ability to just make hotel reservations and take off for the weekend. With Josh's school, this is often totally impossible between social events, after-hours work, and "field trips". So my primary job is keeping the kids on a schedule.
I've successfully completed my first semester of grad school and I'm happy to report that while my grades aren't officially posted, I'm pretty sure I got an A in both classes. I've registered for my next set of classes and I only hope we're here in Dhaka through the end of the next semester so I can continue to focus on that instead of trying to squeeze class into the middle of an international move.
We celebrated K's third birthday on Friday - she's is such a big girl! Josh took her out to pick out a cake and she was so excited about it that rather than waiting until lunch, we had cake in the middle of the morning followed by presents. That evening, Josh and I attended the 237th birthday day of the United States Marine Corps. At embassies, this is often one of the largest social functions of the year, and if our experience was any indication, I can see why. If you've been to a few military balls before, I'm sure you remember the format: mediocre dinner, so-so guest speaker, 5 minutes of grown-up dancing followed by... Well, to spare my albeit limited audience, I'll just say we usually leave to avoid the embarrassing "dancing" of the younger crowd. Anyway, this is clearly a different sort of group here. I'm not sure I can really guess the average age of the people at our event, but we were definitely not the oldest or youngest. And the dance floor was beyond crowded late into the evening. I even got Josh to dance! So add some free alcohol into the equation and you have a recipe for success. Too bad Josh had to get up early the next morning to go on an all-day boat cruise for school.
And today, Veterans Day, B is at school, K is on a playdate, Josh is at school, and I'm enjoying the Masterchef Australia/How I Met Your Mother marathon and thinking about all of my friends, past and present, who have served this fine country in any capacity.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Have I got a deal for you!
After two repairs, it appears the motherboard on our two year old laptop is completely shot. Maybe it's just me, but I really think they should last longer than that... We thought we were still going to be okay and just have our local trusty repair shop take care of replacing the motherboard, but when I called to get an estimate of when they thought it would be ready, they said it would take 6 weeks to get the new motherboard in. 6 WEEKS!
Since I'm taking online classes and we have our country brief to Josh's classmates coming up, it wasn't terribly realistic to think we could go that long without the laptop working. And so, I made several trips to the ATM to withdraw enough cash to go purchase a new laptop.
My early inquiries about prices were met with the standard party line of a randomly high price (less than the price tag, but still high) followed by several lower offers. But since each store in the mall sells the same products, they know they're competing against eachother essentially and whoever is willing to quote the lowest price gets the sale.
Funny thing about laptops here in Bangladesh. They don't come with software. Like any software. We're talking no operating system here. So while I could purchase a fairly decent computer, if I wanted to actually use it, I was told to purchase pirated software (pirated Windows 7 and Microsoft Office were available for a small fee). Do I have anything against using pirated software? No. Not really. But we went through all that when we built computers while living in Korea where pirated software is also very common. It worked fine for a while, and then we started getting all kids of messages from Microsoft about how they "thought" we "might" be using an unofficial copy and eventually it stopped working altogether. If we just stayed in Korea, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. We just would have stopped by our local computer software store and picked up a new copy of the pirated software and all would have been fine. But since we eventually had to return to the states, we decided it would just be easier in the long run to purchase a real copy of an operating system (at the time, Windows XP) and be done with it. Considering that same computer (built 8 years ago) is still my backup computer and sitting upstairs in my office right now, I consider it a good investment.
Regardless, no one seemed to understand why I would object to having a pirated copy of software. It's apparently just the way it's done here. They sell you essentially a blank computer, and you load whatever you want. And strangely, it you go to the Toshiba-Asia website, they even show that each model of computer can be purchased without software if you so desire. I was starting to be concerned that buying a new laptop would not actually solve any of our problems.
But then, I remembered that I was still carrying around the hard drive from my old computer (which worked just fine) because I needed to pick up my computer from the repair shop as we were not getting it fixed. Once I produced this hard drive that had an authentic copy of Windows 7 on it, there was much excited discussion after which they told me that "of course" they could just copy the operating system from my old hard drive and put it on my new one.
So, then the guy from the store walked me downstairs to another store (this one appeared to actually be a Toshiba outlet of some sort) and left me there telling me to call him when I was ready to go. The Toshiba people loaded the drivers I needed onto the laptop, but essentially just left my old hard drive in my new laptop rather than copying anything. I guess it's a long and involved process (kind of like buying a computer?) and as I'd already been wandering around the computer mall for over 2 hours, I was ready to just let it go. He told me to come back another day if I wanted them to transfer everything to the new hard drive and then the new laptop would be much faster since my old hard drive is over half full.
As business over here is all about relationships, I have no doubt that I could walk in some time next week and they would remember me and know why I was there. So, after 3 hours, I left the computer market with a brand new laptop with my old hard drive and the promise of maybe having something more. At least we have what we need to make it through the next few weeks.
If I was in the US, I could have a better laptop fully loaded with software (and an operating system...) for less than I paid, but considering where I live, and considering that USPS still has their lithium battery shipping issue, I'll be happy enough with our outcome.
Since I'm taking online classes and we have our country brief to Josh's classmates coming up, it wasn't terribly realistic to think we could go that long without the laptop working. And so, I made several trips to the ATM to withdraw enough cash to go purchase a new laptop.
My early inquiries about prices were met with the standard party line of a randomly high price (less than the price tag, but still high) followed by several lower offers. But since each store in the mall sells the same products, they know they're competing against eachother essentially and whoever is willing to quote the lowest price gets the sale.
Funny thing about laptops here in Bangladesh. They don't come with software. Like any software. We're talking no operating system here. So while I could purchase a fairly decent computer, if I wanted to actually use it, I was told to purchase pirated software (pirated Windows 7 and Microsoft Office were available for a small fee). Do I have anything against using pirated software? No. Not really. But we went through all that when we built computers while living in Korea where pirated software is also very common. It worked fine for a while, and then we started getting all kids of messages from Microsoft about how they "thought" we "might" be using an unofficial copy and eventually it stopped working altogether. If we just stayed in Korea, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. We just would have stopped by our local computer software store and picked up a new copy of the pirated software and all would have been fine. But since we eventually had to return to the states, we decided it would just be easier in the long run to purchase a real copy of an operating system (at the time, Windows XP) and be done with it. Considering that same computer (built 8 years ago) is still my backup computer and sitting upstairs in my office right now, I consider it a good investment.
Regardless, no one seemed to understand why I would object to having a pirated copy of software. It's apparently just the way it's done here. They sell you essentially a blank computer, and you load whatever you want. And strangely, it you go to the Toshiba-Asia website, they even show that each model of computer can be purchased without software if you so desire. I was starting to be concerned that buying a new laptop would not actually solve any of our problems.
But then, I remembered that I was still carrying around the hard drive from my old computer (which worked just fine) because I needed to pick up my computer from the repair shop as we were not getting it fixed. Once I produced this hard drive that had an authentic copy of Windows 7 on it, there was much excited discussion after which they told me that "of course" they could just copy the operating system from my old hard drive and put it on my new one.
So, then the guy from the store walked me downstairs to another store (this one appeared to actually be a Toshiba outlet of some sort) and left me there telling me to call him when I was ready to go. The Toshiba people loaded the drivers I needed onto the laptop, but essentially just left my old hard drive in my new laptop rather than copying anything. I guess it's a long and involved process (kind of like buying a computer?) and as I'd already been wandering around the computer mall for over 2 hours, I was ready to just let it go. He told me to come back another day if I wanted them to transfer everything to the new hard drive and then the new laptop would be much faster since my old hard drive is over half full.
As business over here is all about relationships, I have no doubt that I could walk in some time next week and they would remember me and know why I was there. So, after 3 hours, I left the computer market with a brand new laptop with my old hard drive and the promise of maybe having something more. At least we have what we need to make it through the next few weeks.
If I was in the US, I could have a better laptop fully loaded with software (and an operating system...) for less than I paid, but considering where I live, and considering that USPS still has their lithium battery shipping issue, I'll be happy enough with our outcome.
Monday, October 1, 2012
A Schedule Emerges
Now that school has been in full swing for over a month, we have developed a definite pattern to our life - in a good way. B has made some friends and enjoys a fairly active social life. K has been out with Suchona quite a bit recently delving into the ayah-run play group world. I've gotten out a bit myself and find that I now have people I can hang out with as well. It's only taken... well... 7 1/2 months. Every place I go, I learn something new. Here, I have learned that I just need to jump in and get involved. It's funny, because I thought I learned that lesson when we lived in California, but apparently it didn't stick and I needed to learn it all over again here.
But all of this is good. I'm feeling very happy with our lifestyle here. My classes are going relatively well - halfway through the semester already and only 4 more big homework projects to go. Josh has been super-busy since his return from India. We haven't really seen all that much of him at all. Many nights, he makes it home just in time to go to sleep and then heads back to school first thing in the morning. The current exercise will end soon though (this week!) and then I think he'll actually be on a normal schedule for a whole week :) It would be really nice if he didn't actually have to work this weekend, but we'll see.
I purchased tickets for the upcoming Marine Corps Ball yesterday, and I have to admit to being really excited to get all dressed up (western style) for a fun evening. Josh will actually get a chance to wear his mess dress for the first time (making the cost per wear still fairly high...) and I've got a dress on its way from eBay as we speak. Online shopping really takes on a whole new life over here. Everything has to be planned out weeks in advance to deal with shipping delays. I've already started our Christmas shopping just because I know it will take forever for the packages to get here, and I need to have time to figure out what I've got and what I still need to get. Good thing Josh and I have generally favored a "less is more" approach for Christmas so the kids won't be expecting to find a room full of presents...
Well, that's about it from here. The protests have almost completely died down (thankfully) and the weather is really starting to be beautiful outside. It's funny because we spent over a year in Monterey - which is admittedly a beautiful place - and got used to cloudy, cool weather year round. Now, here we are wearing pants in 90 degree heat every day. But there's really something beautiful about this place. And can I even begin to mention how nice it is to live near the Equator and not have to worry about daylights savings time??? It's so refreshing that when I get out of bed, the sun is up. Year round. I could absolutely get used to that.
But all of this is good. I'm feeling very happy with our lifestyle here. My classes are going relatively well - halfway through the semester already and only 4 more big homework projects to go. Josh has been super-busy since his return from India. We haven't really seen all that much of him at all. Many nights, he makes it home just in time to go to sleep and then heads back to school first thing in the morning. The current exercise will end soon though (this week!) and then I think he'll actually be on a normal schedule for a whole week :) It would be really nice if he didn't actually have to work this weekend, but we'll see.
I purchased tickets for the upcoming Marine Corps Ball yesterday, and I have to admit to being really excited to get all dressed up (western style) for a fun evening. Josh will actually get a chance to wear his mess dress for the first time (making the cost per wear still fairly high...) and I've got a dress on its way from eBay as we speak. Online shopping really takes on a whole new life over here. Everything has to be planned out weeks in advance to deal with shipping delays. I've already started our Christmas shopping just because I know it will take forever for the packages to get here, and I need to have time to figure out what I've got and what I still need to get. Good thing Josh and I have generally favored a "less is more" approach for Christmas so the kids won't be expecting to find a room full of presents...
Well, that's about it from here. The protests have almost completely died down (thankfully) and the weather is really starting to be beautiful outside. It's funny because we spent over a year in Monterey - which is admittedly a beautiful place - and got used to cloudy, cool weather year round. Now, here we are wearing pants in 90 degree heat every day. But there's really something beautiful about this place. And can I even begin to mention how nice it is to live near the Equator and not have to worry about daylights savings time??? It's so refreshing that when I get out of bed, the sun is up. Year round. I could absolutely get used to that.
Friday, September 14, 2012
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.
"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.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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 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.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
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 ;)
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 ;)
Saturday, August 11, 2012
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...
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...
Saturday, July 28, 2012
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!
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!
Friday, July 13, 2012
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!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The Joys of Travel
Well, we're back. And as usual, things could have gone smoothly, you know, if the stars were aligned. Somehow they never are where I'm concerned. I was lucky enough to be bringing my dad home with me for the return flight, so at least I had a one-to-one ratio with the kids. With a departure after 11 pm, I figured we'd have a short-ish wait at security. I suppose we "might" have if they'd had more than one line open. Thank you, Dulles, for continuing to NOT live up to my expectations. And I would like to take a moment to mention that all of the people working there were wearing what appeared to be tuxedos. It was a cross between movie theater attire, and ... I don't really know what. It was just strange. Anyone else seen this recently?
Okay, so more on the trip. We waited for almost 30 minutes at security, and naturally when we were about halfway through the line, not one, but both of my children decided they really needed to use the restroom. Too bad we couldn't go back, and we couldn't go forward. In the one moment we really need to breeze through security, I get pulled aside for a pat-down. And strangely enough, they did just about everything they could to talk me out of it. Would I like to take down my hair and put all of my hair clips through the X-ray machine? Would I like to take off my waist pack (that contains no metal) and put that through the X-ray machine? Would I like to just come back another day and try again? Surely I would like a privacy screen. No, no, no. Just get on with it already. And, oh by the way, they also needed to do an additional security screen on my purse (because of all those forbidden items I was trying to sneak through). And since I couldn't leave, neither could my children to use the restroom. Amazingly, neither had an accident and we were on our way. Did I mention they found nothing remotely dangerous on me or in my purse? Yeah, figures.
So we're sitting on the plane, getting ready to take off, and lo and behold we had a passenger who refused to board the aircraft. First time for me with this one, but they had to have each and every passenger on the plane locate and identify all of their items in the overhead bins. Nothing like a little last minute drama. Oh yeah, and I'm not really a skittish flyer, but please tell me I'm not the only one who rethinks their travel plans (at least a little bit) when someone else doesn't want to fly on their plane?
The flight was great - 10 hours nonstop into Istanbul. The kids slept for almost the entire flight and didn't even get up to eat. Our gate-checked stroller failed to make an appearance however, so that required waiting in line at the transfer desk and having the stroller forwarded to Dhaka. I was fairly confident the stroller would appear several days later (if at all). I have to admit to being happily surprised to see it come out with our luggage upon arrival in Dhaka. Naturally that flight was slightly delayed, late getting in, and baggage took just shy of an hour to appear. But how nice did it feel to come home and take a nap in MY bed with MY pillow? It's the little things.
The kids took Grandpa to the club this morning and a good time was had by all. Looking forward to overcoming jet lag and getting back into the swing of things.
Okay, so more on the trip. We waited for almost 30 minutes at security, and naturally when we were about halfway through the line, not one, but both of my children decided they really needed to use the restroom. Too bad we couldn't go back, and we couldn't go forward. In the one moment we really need to breeze through security, I get pulled aside for a pat-down. And strangely enough, they did just about everything they could to talk me out of it. Would I like to take down my hair and put all of my hair clips through the X-ray machine? Would I like to take off my waist pack (that contains no metal) and put that through the X-ray machine? Would I like to just come back another day and try again? Surely I would like a privacy screen. No, no, no. Just get on with it already. And, oh by the way, they also needed to do an additional security screen on my purse (because of all those forbidden items I was trying to sneak through). And since I couldn't leave, neither could my children to use the restroom. Amazingly, neither had an accident and we were on our way. Did I mention they found nothing remotely dangerous on me or in my purse? Yeah, figures.
So we're sitting on the plane, getting ready to take off, and lo and behold we had a passenger who refused to board the aircraft. First time for me with this one, but they had to have each and every passenger on the plane locate and identify all of their items in the overhead bins. Nothing like a little last minute drama. Oh yeah, and I'm not really a skittish flyer, but please tell me I'm not the only one who rethinks their travel plans (at least a little bit) when someone else doesn't want to fly on their plane?
The flight was great - 10 hours nonstop into Istanbul. The kids slept for almost the entire flight and didn't even get up to eat. Our gate-checked stroller failed to make an appearance however, so that required waiting in line at the transfer desk and having the stroller forwarded to Dhaka. I was fairly confident the stroller would appear several days later (if at all). I have to admit to being happily surprised to see it come out with our luggage upon arrival in Dhaka. Naturally that flight was slightly delayed, late getting in, and baggage took just shy of an hour to appear. But how nice did it feel to come home and take a nap in MY bed with MY pillow? It's the little things.
The kids took Grandpa to the club this morning and a good time was had by all. Looking forward to overcoming jet lag and getting back into the swing of things.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Whirlwind "Vacation"
Time with family? Check. Lots of unnecessary/necessary shopping? Check. Visit to the beach? Check. Our "vacation" is drawing to a close, but we've certainly packed quite a bit in. Why the quotation marks, you ask? Well... and this might sound silly to some of you hard core military types who have spent years (literally) away from your spouses, but this is the longest I've been away from my other half in a while. We've been extremely fortunate in our assignments, and with all of the school time required for this job, we've had quite a bit of time together recently. So while it's nice to be stateside hanging out getting a tan, I can't relax completely knowing that one member of our family is missing. Granted, he's spent some of this time hanging out with guy friends in Nepal (taxing, right?), but it's been a bit lonely without him.
Enough on that, though. My sister's wedding was really wonderful and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to come home and celebrate with her and her new husband. Best wishes to both of them as they head out to the great state of Texas to begin their new life together. Finally, some of my knowledge about moving has come to good use!
We followed that up with a quick drive to Florida to hang out with the in-laws and managed to sneak in an absolutely idyllic stay in Rosemary Beach. The Destin outlets were conveniently close (and really, why vacation anywhere unless there are good outlets nearby?) and I even managed to pick up a few things I think I'll be able to wear in Dhaka - assuming of course it hasn't gotten even hotter since I left. B spent a bit of time in the pool and is quickly becoming proficient in swimming, though I think we're going to leave his vest on for a bit longer. K had an "adventurous" time coming home with 2 chipped front teeth, plenty of mosquito bites, a black eye (from unknown causes), 2 scraped knees, and 1 scraped elbow. She's really not that clumsy, but she does everything big.
I meanwhile have been completely spoiled with plenty of adults to mind my children (like having 3 full-time employees in my house in Dhaka hasn't been good enough) and enough free time to get out and enjoy myself. I find I have an increased appreciation for home-cooked food, though I'm always up for some Costco cheese pizza. Yum!
Just a few days left to pack in all the fun we can handle before we head back to the 'Desh. Catch you guys on the other side of the world!
Enough on that, though. My sister's wedding was really wonderful and I was so pleased to have the opportunity to come home and celebrate with her and her new husband. Best wishes to both of them as they head out to the great state of Texas to begin their new life together. Finally, some of my knowledge about moving has come to good use!
We followed that up with a quick drive to Florida to hang out with the in-laws and managed to sneak in an absolutely idyllic stay in Rosemary Beach. The Destin outlets were conveniently close (and really, why vacation anywhere unless there are good outlets nearby?) and I even managed to pick up a few things I think I'll be able to wear in Dhaka - assuming of course it hasn't gotten even hotter since I left. B spent a bit of time in the pool and is quickly becoming proficient in swimming, though I think we're going to leave his vest on for a bit longer. K had an "adventurous" time coming home with 2 chipped front teeth, plenty of mosquito bites, a black eye (from unknown causes), 2 scraped knees, and 1 scraped elbow. She's really not that clumsy, but she does everything big.
I meanwhile have been completely spoiled with plenty of adults to mind my children (like having 3 full-time employees in my house in Dhaka hasn't been good enough) and enough free time to get out and enjoy myself. I find I have an increased appreciation for home-cooked food, though I'm always up for some Costco cheese pizza. Yum!
Just a few days left to pack in all the fun we can handle before we head back to the 'Desh. Catch you guys on the other side of the world!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Journey to the Center of the Earth!
Forget that - how about Journey halfway around the world with 2 kids and no husband! Yeah, you're right. It just doesn't have the same ring to it... But it's no less adventurous, I assure you. And for those out there who have done this before, all I have to say is how much I love video on demand. To a certain extent, international flights are much easier to bear than domestic ones. At least you're pretty much assured to have some sort of entertainment and food which work well as distractions. You're also guaranteed to have a pillow and blanket - which for us just means that we'll be sure to have plenty of stuff stacked up on the floor where I'd love to put my feet, but can't quite seem to manage.
Last Friday in the wee hours of the morning, we left Dhaka without Josh to head back stateside to attend my older sister's wedding. Anticipating significant jet lag after the experience we had flying to Dhaka, I planned to arrive a week before the wedding - hopefully we'll be able to avoid significant melt-downs. I think at this point (after 4 days of recovery) we're pretty close to normal. The flight itself was fairly manageable. The kids both behaved as well as can be expected in a close confined space for 20 hours. Our layover in Istanbul was extremely short - just long enough to walk from our arriving flight upstairs to the departure terminal and then walk quickly to our gate. Part of me really would have liked to stop in the food court and pick up some really yummy looking stuff, but I have a slightly longer layover on the way home, so maybe I'll take advantage of it then. We were in the middle row of 4 seats on both of our flights and happened to have particularly accomodating grandfatherly types occupying our spare seat on both flights - totally lucked out. In fact, the man who sat next to K on our first flight was also on our second flight. During his first bathroom break on the second flight, he saw K, reached for her, and took her back to his seat to play for a while. I suppose in another culture, I'd be concerned about this, but Bangladeshis really seem to love kids. B made a fast friend on the second flight convincing his seat-mate to play some of the on-board video games with him. Really, I couldn't have asked for more. It was perhaps even better than having the seat empty. Perhaps.
K is recently potty trained, so I was convinced we would have issues on the plane, but I'm pleased to say that things went fairly smoothly. Of course, they never had to pee at the same time, so I probably had to get up about 6 times per flight, but I have to say I was pretty pleased nonetheless that they both did so well. I got to watch plenty of movies - the second Sherlock Holmes movie, Moneyball, Eragon, and one other that clearly didn't make a huge impact plus about 6 episodes of Big Bang Theory. Very pleasant ride. The food was fairly decent as well. It might not have been quite as tasty as the food on Qatar Airways, but they definitely made every effort to produce healthy meals - grilled vegetables, fresh salads, fish... I was very pleased by the food presented and look forward to the return trip. The only real downside was that the provided headphones didn't really fit into the headphone jack on the armrest - it was shaped strangely and just wouldn't sit securely. Time number 12 million that I'm pleased that we bought airplane headphone adapters for $1 a piece off the internet. I was able to just use my adapters with the kids own mini headphones and everyone was happy. But really, what's up with an airline that provides headphones that don't even work??? That was kind of weird. I might bring some tape on the return trip just to hold the jack into the outlet.
We arrived apparently just after a string of tornadoes happened through the area, so there was no circling the airport endlessly waiting for our turn to land - we just made a straight approach and were done. Immigration was a bit strange. I haven't waited more than 5 minutes to get through immigration in any of our recent travels (which admittedly are not that extensive), but it was slightly frustrating to listen to the recorded announcement welcome me back to the states while I watched about one hundred US passengers all wait to see the two border patrol agents that were open in our line. At 5:30 on a Friday night. Naturally, there were other agents there - but they were having loud discussions about how they were all going on break. Thanks, guys. Could you maybe take that discussion elsewhere since I've been up for the past 27 hours with 2 kids and I bet you haven't?? I know, I know. I get cranky without sleep.
Our bags arrived with no issues, and we went out to meet my parents with no further ado. The kids were of course thrilled to see Grandma and Grandpa and after some minor discussion in the car promptly fell asleep.
We celebrated B's birthday the following day with all family minus one in attendance - beautiful weather for lunch on the deck! In fact, we've had great weather - if cold - since we arrived. I say cold, but really it's been in the 70s. I just feel cold. In fact, I've taken to wearing a sweater when I go outside, and then I just feel silly. Warm, but silly.
I've managed to do some shopping and knock a few items off of my page-long list of "things to bring back", but there's still plenty more to find at this point. I've only tried to drive on the wrong side of the road a few times, and I've done my best to actually pay attention to road signs, red lights, and lane dividers. It's so hard, though! Oh, Dhaka, you've totally ruined me!
Last Friday in the wee hours of the morning, we left Dhaka without Josh to head back stateside to attend my older sister's wedding. Anticipating significant jet lag after the experience we had flying to Dhaka, I planned to arrive a week before the wedding - hopefully we'll be able to avoid significant melt-downs. I think at this point (after 4 days of recovery) we're pretty close to normal. The flight itself was fairly manageable. The kids both behaved as well as can be expected in a close confined space for 20 hours. Our layover in Istanbul was extremely short - just long enough to walk from our arriving flight upstairs to the departure terminal and then walk quickly to our gate. Part of me really would have liked to stop in the food court and pick up some really yummy looking stuff, but I have a slightly longer layover on the way home, so maybe I'll take advantage of it then. We were in the middle row of 4 seats on both of our flights and happened to have particularly accomodating grandfatherly types occupying our spare seat on both flights - totally lucked out. In fact, the man who sat next to K on our first flight was also on our second flight. During his first bathroom break on the second flight, he saw K, reached for her, and took her back to his seat to play for a while. I suppose in another culture, I'd be concerned about this, but Bangladeshis really seem to love kids. B made a fast friend on the second flight convincing his seat-mate to play some of the on-board video games with him. Really, I couldn't have asked for more. It was perhaps even better than having the seat empty. Perhaps.
K is recently potty trained, so I was convinced we would have issues on the plane, but I'm pleased to say that things went fairly smoothly. Of course, they never had to pee at the same time, so I probably had to get up about 6 times per flight, but I have to say I was pretty pleased nonetheless that they both did so well. I got to watch plenty of movies - the second Sherlock Holmes movie, Moneyball, Eragon, and one other that clearly didn't make a huge impact plus about 6 episodes of Big Bang Theory. Very pleasant ride. The food was fairly decent as well. It might not have been quite as tasty as the food on Qatar Airways, but they definitely made every effort to produce healthy meals - grilled vegetables, fresh salads, fish... I was very pleased by the food presented and look forward to the return trip. The only real downside was that the provided headphones didn't really fit into the headphone jack on the armrest - it was shaped strangely and just wouldn't sit securely. Time number 12 million that I'm pleased that we bought airplane headphone adapters for $1 a piece off the internet. I was able to just use my adapters with the kids own mini headphones and everyone was happy. But really, what's up with an airline that provides headphones that don't even work??? That was kind of weird. I might bring some tape on the return trip just to hold the jack into the outlet.
We arrived apparently just after a string of tornadoes happened through the area, so there was no circling the airport endlessly waiting for our turn to land - we just made a straight approach and were done. Immigration was a bit strange. I haven't waited more than 5 minutes to get through immigration in any of our recent travels (which admittedly are not that extensive), but it was slightly frustrating to listen to the recorded announcement welcome me back to the states while I watched about one hundred US passengers all wait to see the two border patrol agents that were open in our line. At 5:30 on a Friday night. Naturally, there were other agents there - but they were having loud discussions about how they were all going on break. Thanks, guys. Could you maybe take that discussion elsewhere since I've been up for the past 27 hours with 2 kids and I bet you haven't?? I know, I know. I get cranky without sleep.
Our bags arrived with no issues, and we went out to meet my parents with no further ado. The kids were of course thrilled to see Grandma and Grandpa and after some minor discussion in the car promptly fell asleep.
We celebrated B's birthday the following day with all family minus one in attendance - beautiful weather for lunch on the deck! In fact, we've had great weather - if cold - since we arrived. I say cold, but really it's been in the 70s. I just feel cold. In fact, I've taken to wearing a sweater when I go outside, and then I just feel silly. Warm, but silly.
I've managed to do some shopping and knock a few items off of my page-long list of "things to bring back", but there's still plenty more to find at this point. I've only tried to drive on the wrong side of the road a few times, and I've done my best to actually pay attention to road signs, red lights, and lane dividers. It's so hard, though! Oh, Dhaka, you've totally ruined me!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Basketball Diaries
There's no PT to speak of here (though the Bangladeshi officers do have to take a PT test), but twice a week, Josh stays late to participate in "games." Over the course of the year, they'll rotate through lots of different organized sports including basketball, football (soccer), volleyball, tennis, etc. Of course, they don't start games right after class gets out at 2:00 - instead they head home, eat lunch and then take a mid-day nap. Seriously. So games don't start until 5:00 which means Josh rarely sees the kids those days. Sometimes he makes it home just in time to tuck them in to bed.
Today, after two or three weeks of preliminary matches, they held the finals for basketball. While the game was interesting and fun to watch, I'm more of a people watcher. I'm not sure if I've shared this before or not (maybe I need to start keeping track of what I blog about...), but the spouses here are required to attend social functions (of which a basketball game is one) and they are also "required" to wear saris to these functions. There are a few exceptions listed in the instruction manual we got. Sporting events are supposedly okay for wearing salwar kameez (the less formal long tunic top with baggy pants and dupatta/scarf). So halfway through the day, Josh sent me a text to find out and approve of what I was wearing (and when does that EVER happen when we're stateside??). I went in my nicest casual salwar kameez. It is very lightweight cotton, and let's face it, it's hot here. It's 8:00 pm as I write this, and my weather station tells me that it's 89 degrees outside. Nice. So, if I have to sit around somewhere and sweat (did I mention the game was outside), I'd rather do it in cotton. Anyway, I got there and everyone else is wearing ridiculously nice saris full of beading and bedazzles. I think what really put me over the top was the woman wearing twisted strands of pearls. To a basketball game. <sigh> Oh well. I don't pay their dry cleaning bills, so if they want to wear silky saris and sweat in them, they can feel free. I will note by the way that they WERE all sweating. Sometimes I go to these things, and I just feel like I'm not accustomed to the weather. Today, they were all sweating. So I felt a bit better. Maybe I'm not such a wuss after all.
I returned home tonight to find the table set for dinner (minus food) and the kids' beds turned down with nightlights on. So really, how bad can things be? ;)
Today, after two or three weeks of preliminary matches, they held the finals for basketball. While the game was interesting and fun to watch, I'm more of a people watcher. I'm not sure if I've shared this before or not (maybe I need to start keeping track of what I blog about...), but the spouses here are required to attend social functions (of which a basketball game is one) and they are also "required" to wear saris to these functions. There are a few exceptions listed in the instruction manual we got. Sporting events are supposedly okay for wearing salwar kameez (the less formal long tunic top with baggy pants and dupatta/scarf). So halfway through the day, Josh sent me a text to find out and approve of what I was wearing (and when does that EVER happen when we're stateside??). I went in my nicest casual salwar kameez. It is very lightweight cotton, and let's face it, it's hot here. It's 8:00 pm as I write this, and my weather station tells me that it's 89 degrees outside. Nice. So, if I have to sit around somewhere and sweat (did I mention the game was outside), I'd rather do it in cotton. Anyway, I got there and everyone else is wearing ridiculously nice saris full of beading and bedazzles. I think what really put me over the top was the woman wearing twisted strands of pearls. To a basketball game. <sigh> Oh well. I don't pay their dry cleaning bills, so if they want to wear silky saris and sweat in them, they can feel free. I will note by the way that they WERE all sweating. Sometimes I go to these things, and I just feel like I'm not accustomed to the weather. Today, they were all sweating. So I felt a bit better. Maybe I'm not such a wuss after all.
I returned home tonight to find the table set for dinner (minus food) and the kids' beds turned down with nightlights on. So really, how bad can things be? ;)
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Driving, Television, and a New Visitor
I know, not a very sophisticated title today. Sorry folks. I'm all out. This past week has been a bit busy - punctuated mostly by the absence of my other half who has decided to take up temporary residence at the Staff College. He found out - much to his surprise - that they are having an "exercise" this week. While most of us left the world of all-nighters behind with our undergraduate degrees, apparently it's par for the course to hang out pretending to work until all hours of the night. In a large group. Like that ever works. Anyway, it's been a while since we've seen him, but supposedly he's coming home for clean clothes today (much to the combined relief of everyone, I'm sure), so we might get a quick visit.
With his absence, I'm pleased to report that we have had a new visitor for the past few days - a FAO IRTer from India. She came bearing gifts from Nepal (her previous stop) and had the kids wrapped around her finger immediately. So really, who needs dad??!
We started the with a non-visit to the Liberation War Museum. What I mean by this is that after getting my driver to sit in traffic for over an hour and a half, I got an SMS from the person who was supposed to be meeting us to give us the tour that he had forgotten the museum was closed on Sunday. SO... instead we turned around, stopped for lunch at Captain's World (ridiculously good and I'm already plotting a return visit) and then headed home. We made mention of the fact that we would likely try to tour Old Dhaka the following day (my driver's not-favorite locale), and Josh mysteriously got a message from my driver within the hour that he would like the day off to take his wife to a doctor's appointment. She's legitimately pregnant, but the timing was suspect. Not one to be deterred by the lack of a driver, we ventured out on our own and headed to Savar to see the National Martyr's Memorial. I'd been there before if you recall during the Overseas Officer Orientation offered by the school, so I at least had a vague idea where I was headed. Armed with a Google map (conveniently in km instead of miles), peanut butter sandwiches, apples, fruit snacks, cheese crackers, several gallons of water, and 2 traveling companions (K stayed home for this one), we headed out into the great beyond - also known as the suburbs of Dhaka. Google claimed the drive would take 52 minutes, so I planned on it really taking us about 2 hours. Guess who was right? That's right - I'm the master planner :)
Driving here is definitely an art - one I have by no means mastered. We traveled mostly on what would normally be termed a 2 lane road. Here, however, a two lane road is really much more. Both sides of the two lane road will be crowded with people walking 3 or 4 deep being passed by bicycle rickshaws (in the lanes of traffic). Keep in mind as well that no one likes to sit behind a slow vehicle, so there is always someone passing someone else. Generally in your lane. So it's kind of like a 2 hour game of Frogger where you're not the frog. In fact, you're trying desperately NOT to kill the frog. We never really got much faster than 40 kph - roughly 25 mph - the entire trip, but it was harrowing all the same. Throw in driving on the left side of the road and an aging manual transmission and it's no wonder that I was ready to call it a day by the time we got home.
That's enough on that one though. I've also spent the past several days trying to get our television connected here. This one kind of came at us out of the blue although I'm sure somewhere I read something about it. Cable television in the US is NTSC, while televisions here and in India (and other assorted places) operate on the PAL system. So it's not really as easy as just hooking up your TV. In fact, we've been at this for 3 days now with a paid professional and we're not really any closer to having our TV working than we were when it was sitting in a box in the warehouse. But we now have a satellite installed on our roof, a hole drilled through the wall of our home, and lots of new cords. Today, the guy is supposedly coming back with a PAL to NTSC converter box which might or might not fix our problem. We are using Tata Sky service (which I think is actually pirated from India, so maybe I shouldn't be saying that too loudly), and while there is an HDMI output on the set top box (STB), it is not compatible with NTSC televisions (even though the installer said it would be). So, today, he will be making his third attempt to get this thing to work. The only real downside is that I need to be in the house whenever he's working, and thus far, even when he's told me when he's going to show up, he's been both early and late by several hours. Today, he gave me no time, so I will just wait. So - word to the wise on this one - if you're bringing your TV overseas, check into buying a PAL/NTSC converter prior to moving. They're tough to come by over here. The cable provider explained to me that the only one he could find locally was about 4-5 hours drive away. Keep in mind, it's probably still in the city of Dhaka, but he'll have to sit in traffic that long to get there and back. Ah the joy! But at least it's him and not me.
Hope to report soon that we have a cable connection. And if not, we'll stick to our pre-recorded television shows that we brought from the states. The kids haven't seemed to notice (or care) yet that they're watching the same shows over again.
With his absence, I'm pleased to report that we have had a new visitor for the past few days - a FAO IRTer from India. She came bearing gifts from Nepal (her previous stop) and had the kids wrapped around her finger immediately. So really, who needs dad??!
We started the with a non-visit to the Liberation War Museum. What I mean by this is that after getting my driver to sit in traffic for over an hour and a half, I got an SMS from the person who was supposed to be meeting us to give us the tour that he had forgotten the museum was closed on Sunday. SO... instead we turned around, stopped for lunch at Captain's World (ridiculously good and I'm already plotting a return visit) and then headed home. We made mention of the fact that we would likely try to tour Old Dhaka the following day (my driver's not-favorite locale), and Josh mysteriously got a message from my driver within the hour that he would like the day off to take his wife to a doctor's appointment. She's legitimately pregnant, but the timing was suspect. Not one to be deterred by the lack of a driver, we ventured out on our own and headed to Savar to see the National Martyr's Memorial. I'd been there before if you recall during the Overseas Officer Orientation offered by the school, so I at least had a vague idea where I was headed. Armed with a Google map (conveniently in km instead of miles), peanut butter sandwiches, apples, fruit snacks, cheese crackers, several gallons of water, and 2 traveling companions (K stayed home for this one), we headed out into the great beyond - also known as the suburbs of Dhaka. Google claimed the drive would take 52 minutes, so I planned on it really taking us about 2 hours. Guess who was right? That's right - I'm the master planner :)
Driving here is definitely an art - one I have by no means mastered. We traveled mostly on what would normally be termed a 2 lane road. Here, however, a two lane road is really much more. Both sides of the two lane road will be crowded with people walking 3 or 4 deep being passed by bicycle rickshaws (in the lanes of traffic). Keep in mind as well that no one likes to sit behind a slow vehicle, so there is always someone passing someone else. Generally in your lane. So it's kind of like a 2 hour game of Frogger where you're not the frog. In fact, you're trying desperately NOT to kill the frog. We never really got much faster than 40 kph - roughly 25 mph - the entire trip, but it was harrowing all the same. Throw in driving on the left side of the road and an aging manual transmission and it's no wonder that I was ready to call it a day by the time we got home.
That's enough on that one though. I've also spent the past several days trying to get our television connected here. This one kind of came at us out of the blue although I'm sure somewhere I read something about it. Cable television in the US is NTSC, while televisions here and in India (and other assorted places) operate on the PAL system. So it's not really as easy as just hooking up your TV. In fact, we've been at this for 3 days now with a paid professional and we're not really any closer to having our TV working than we were when it was sitting in a box in the warehouse. But we now have a satellite installed on our roof, a hole drilled through the wall of our home, and lots of new cords. Today, the guy is supposedly coming back with a PAL to NTSC converter box which might or might not fix our problem. We are using Tata Sky service (which I think is actually pirated from India, so maybe I shouldn't be saying that too loudly), and while there is an HDMI output on the set top box (STB), it is not compatible with NTSC televisions (even though the installer said it would be). So, today, he will be making his third attempt to get this thing to work. The only real downside is that I need to be in the house whenever he's working, and thus far, even when he's told me when he's going to show up, he's been both early and late by several hours. Today, he gave me no time, so I will just wait. So - word to the wise on this one - if you're bringing your TV overseas, check into buying a PAL/NTSC converter prior to moving. They're tough to come by over here. The cable provider explained to me that the only one he could find locally was about 4-5 hours drive away. Keep in mind, it's probably still in the city of Dhaka, but he'll have to sit in traffic that long to get there and back. Ah the joy! But at least it's him and not me.
Hope to report soon that we have a cable connection. And if not, we'll stick to our pre-recorded television shows that we brought from the states. The kids haven't seemed to notice (or care) yet that they're watching the same shows over again.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The Move
Well, it was one week ago that we actually moved into the new house - and what a week it's been. The movers showed up early in the morning to bring in all of our boxes. The kids stayed at the old house with Suchona so they wouldn't get in the way. Most of my movers spoke "some" English, so most of the boxes ended up close to where I wanted them. They were a bit disappointed that I didn't want them to unpack everything into my cabinets, but who has time to sit around and watch someone else unpack everything?? Well, maybe some people do, but I had kiddos waiting to come over and another appointment in the afternoon for GSO to come and help me move the items from my temporary apartment to the house. So, there was no time to waste. I had them assemble the crib (which required a bit of intervention to explain how exactly it was supposed to go together) and the piano. They tried to put together K's high chair, but I stopped them as they had most of the pieces on backwards. I thought about taking a photo, but they were working so hard, I didn't want them to think I was making fun of them ;)
After getting all the boxes in the house, I went back to the old house and once the kids woke up from their naps, we loaded up the car with suitcases and boxes and made our first trip of stuff over here. While unpacking from that trip, GSO showed up with their truck, so I went back and cleaned out the apartment. They also hung our bed nets so we'd be mosquito free (or at least we couldn't use bed nets as our excuse for the bites that always seem to crop up). For those who want to know, out of everything we shipped, we lost only a single wineglass to breakage. And honestly, I think we lose at least one wineglass every time we move, so that's not too big a deal.
There are of course a growing list of issues we'll need GSO to come take a look at, but on the whole, we have no major complaints. The rooms are clearly spacious, so plenty of room to spread out. The kids could really use some outdoor space. The gardener took B up to the roof to play tennis yesterday. Can anyone else guess how that game ended?? Right, so we're minus a few tennis balls right now (and my neighbor will probably make a profit selling them to someone). The lot directly behind our house is empty (awaiting funding for a high rise I'm sure), so we get quite a bit of street noise. With the A/C, fans, and air purifier going though, we've got quite a bit of ambient noise in the house that really drowns all that out. A few times a day (5 for those of my friends who have hung out in Muslim countries before) we hear what K affectionately refers to as the "singing man" from the nearby mosque. She routinely tells me to turn him off. Like it's that easy...
My new bedroom is much brighter than the old one. I generally slept late at the apartment because we were on the ground floor and light never came into my room. Here, I'm up most mornings slightly after 6 because it's as bright as midday in my bedroom. I kind of like it though. At least I'm not waking up tired (which is what always happens when it's dark in my room).
No pictures up on the wall yet (maybe next week??) and still a few boxes to unpack, but we've made pretty good progress. Josh is now wearing a brace on his arm from irritating a tendon (who knew moving boxes was considered a repetitive movement), but should heal soon enough - probably after all the boxes are gone.
I'm looking forward to settling back into my old routine. I baked my first loaf of bread today in the new house and sent my ayah out searching for some local spices so I can start cooking really yummy stuff :) Recipes courtesy of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook.
Khuda hafiz!
After getting all the boxes in the house, I went back to the old house and once the kids woke up from their naps, we loaded up the car with suitcases and boxes and made our first trip of stuff over here. While unpacking from that trip, GSO showed up with their truck, so I went back and cleaned out the apartment. They also hung our bed nets so we'd be mosquito free (or at least we couldn't use bed nets as our excuse for the bites that always seem to crop up). For those who want to know, out of everything we shipped, we lost only a single wineglass to breakage. And honestly, I think we lose at least one wineglass every time we move, so that's not too big a deal.
There are of course a growing list of issues we'll need GSO to come take a look at, but on the whole, we have no major complaints. The rooms are clearly spacious, so plenty of room to spread out. The kids could really use some outdoor space. The gardener took B up to the roof to play tennis yesterday. Can anyone else guess how that game ended?? Right, so we're minus a few tennis balls right now (and my neighbor will probably make a profit selling them to someone). The lot directly behind our house is empty (awaiting funding for a high rise I'm sure), so we get quite a bit of street noise. With the A/C, fans, and air purifier going though, we've got quite a bit of ambient noise in the house that really drowns all that out. A few times a day (5 for those of my friends who have hung out in Muslim countries before) we hear what K affectionately refers to as the "singing man" from the nearby mosque. She routinely tells me to turn him off. Like it's that easy...
My new bedroom is much brighter than the old one. I generally slept late at the apartment because we were on the ground floor and light never came into my room. Here, I'm up most mornings slightly after 6 because it's as bright as midday in my bedroom. I kind of like it though. At least I'm not waking up tired (which is what always happens when it's dark in my room).
No pictures up on the wall yet (maybe next week??) and still a few boxes to unpack, but we've made pretty good progress. Josh is now wearing a brace on his arm from irritating a tendon (who knew moving boxes was considered a repetitive movement), but should heal soon enough - probably after all the boxes are gone.
I'm looking forward to settling back into my old routine. I baked my first loaf of bread today in the new house and sent my ayah out searching for some local spices so I can start cooking really yummy stuff :) Recipes courtesy of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook.
Khuda hafiz!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Drumroll please...
Presenting our house:
I don't have any photos of the third floor yet, but up there, we have an office, a guest bedroom, and a bathroom. Additionally, there is walk-out roof access to an area with concrete picnic tables and potted plants.
Sorry for the total lack of substance here - we've had a busy couple days.
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| K having snack with Josh in the sitting room downstairs |
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| View of the living and dining room from the entryway |
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| Living Room |
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| Front staircase as viewed from the living room. The sitting room is straight ahead, front door is to the left, and entry to the kitchen is on the right. |
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| Dining room |
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| Kitchen. It's strangely proportioned. The ceilings are about 18 feet high and you'll notice that the cabinets go all the way to the top. Like anyone can reach that??!! Actually, the bottom of the upper cabinets is at my eye-level. It's annoying right now, but something I'm sure I'll get used to. |
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| B's room - and yes, every toy is on the floor. This was shortly after all of the toy boxes got opened and he was on a bit of a high after not seeing his toys for 5 months. |
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| View of the 2nd floor living room from B's doorway. The door on the very far left leads to the back stairway (the only access to the third floor). The door in the middle leads to the upstairs kitchen (which is more of a glorified laundry room, but is called a kitchen). |
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| 2nd floor living room viewed from the master doorway. The door on the right leads to K's bedroom. |
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| K's bedroom. Slightly out of focus... |
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| The upstairs kitchen/laundry room |
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| Master bedroom sleeping area |
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| Master bedroom closet and sitting area (also box storage area) |
Sorry for the total lack of substance here - we've had a busy couple days.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Life as We Know It
I was having tea with a friend yesterday when she related this story (that I absolutely have to share). Her daughter and my son are about the same age, so she did kindergarten assessment this year in preparation for the school she will be attending. The school here (as I'm assuming is true with schools everywhere) "test" the children on many different levels looking for physical as well as mental readiness to start school. One of the logic exercises posed the following to the child: "You go into a room and it's dark in there. What do you do?" Naturally, the response they're looking for is that the child realizes that if it's dark, the lights are out and they should turn on the light switch. But, well, we're in Dhaka. So nothing is quite the same. Her daughter's response? "It's okay. The lights will come back on in a minute." And I suppose when you live life immersed in a world of power outages and generators, that's probably true.
How's that for child logic...
How's that for child logic...
Sunday, April 29, 2012
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!
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!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
A House, A House. My Kingdom for a House...
First, bonus points if you recognize my "almost" quote. Second, yes, I did it. I cursed our move. Again. And today I feel much better talking about it than I did yesterday. Maybe if I hadn't already re-boxed up half of our stuff in preparation I would have felt a bit more generous about waiting another 2 weeks. But I DID box stuff up, and I really DID think we were going to move. But now, we will wait. Again. After so long, what's another 14 days?
Third thought of the day - and yes, this is random - ... You know what, we need a brief background story first. So, I think just about everyone I know owns tupperware containers. Maybe you prefer Glad brand or Reynolds. Whatever. You have them in your kitchen. And if you're like me, you use them all the time. But before tupperware, there were butter containers and other totally reusable things that people used to store small quantities of stuff. So how much do I love that here in BG (the land of re-using everything) that my ayah (without my even saying anything) naturally assumed that I would want to reuse all of the ricotta cheese containers that I go through. I came home one day to find all of my boxtop points inside a container on my microwave and my scrubbie sponge in another container next to the sink. After my next round of ricotta, I came home to find my kids eating their morning snacks in them. I love it. Have I mentioned that she also washes out and reuses my ziplock bags? Thriftiness at a whole new level, people.
Third thought of the day - and yes, this is random - ... You know what, we need a brief background story first. So, I think just about everyone I know owns tupperware containers. Maybe you prefer Glad brand or Reynolds. Whatever. You have them in your kitchen. And if you're like me, you use them all the time. But before tupperware, there were butter containers and other totally reusable things that people used to store small quantities of stuff. So how much do I love that here in BG (the land of re-using everything) that my ayah (without my even saying anything) naturally assumed that I would want to reuse all of the ricotta cheese containers that I go through. I came home one day to find all of my boxtop points inside a container on my microwave and my scrubbie sponge in another container next to the sink. After my next round of ricotta, I came home to find my kids eating their morning snacks in them. I love it. Have I mentioned that she also washes out and reuses my ziplock bags? Thriftiness at a whole new level, people.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Garrison Keillor, Where are you??
Well, it's been a quiet week in Dhaka, my hometown... I admit to being a bit of an NPR addict (my kids will one day complain as we ride in the car, "Why can't we listen to music like NORMAL people?" - but luckily at this age, they don't seem to care too much), and I admit it's strange the things you miss while you're not in the states. Radio, for instance. Yes, there are internet alternatives, but I really miss being able to listen to the radio while driving. Especially since driving always takes so long! A blog I read a while back from a family stationed in south-east Asia said that instead of dreading long car rides, you need to pack a book, bring your iPod, have games for the kids, and appreciate all of that nice "quiet" time. Once we're in our house and have our HHG - including my iPod dock - I'll be able to listen to NPR podcasts to my heart's content, but until then...
And on that note, no, we still haven't moved. I know, I know. I said it would be soon. And we really thought it would be. I'm not even sure I can really adequately explain why we're not in our house yet. But we're not. And we're okay with that. As Josh pointed out yesterday, there are people who sleep every night in the unfinished building next door that is still under construction (remember the noises through my bathroom window?) so I can't really complain too much about being in a fully furnished apartment. But I also admit to still feeling unsettled.
This week has been fairly uneventful. We briefly stopped by a Bangladeshi New Years celebration at the embassy, Josh and I had a reception at Mirpur (where I got to experience my first BG-style military function), and other than that, we've just been trying our best to stay busy. The pool is open at the American Club after several months of refurbishment, so we stopped by there earlier in the week and the kids played the entire morning. This also gave me a great excuse to have some more of the yummy pad thai they serve at the club.
My washing machine broke over the weekend - and by broke, I mean it emptied all of the water inside of it through the bottom and all over my floor. At this point, I should perhaps point out - in case you were not aware - that I have a split level kitchen and my washing machine is upstairs. So when all of this water started pouring out, there was a mad dash to grab the mop before I had water pouring down my stairs. Nothing like a little excitement in the middle of the diaper load. The maintenance guys stopped by Sunday morning and said it was definitely broken and they would be back to replace it the next day. All was fine and good except the new washing machine they brought by was also making strange noises. We have been using it now without incident for most of the week, but I hold my breath every time it goes into the spin cycle. While I'd love to say we could survive without a washing machine, I have a chronic bed-wetter and another child in cloth diapers, so there's really a limit to how long I can go without washing things before the smell here gets truly overwhelming. And on that note, I have some laundry I need to get out of the dyer :) Tune in soon for (and here I go cursing it again) pictures of our new place!
 |
| All ready to go to the reception |
This week has been fairly uneventful. We briefly stopped by a Bangladeshi New Years celebration at the embassy, Josh and I had a reception at Mirpur (where I got to experience my first BG-style military function), and other than that, we've just been trying our best to stay busy. The pool is open at the American Club after several months of refurbishment, so we stopped by there earlier in the week and the kids played the entire morning. This also gave me a great excuse to have some more of the yummy pad thai they serve at the club.
My washing machine broke over the weekend - and by broke, I mean it emptied all of the water inside of it through the bottom and all over my floor. At this point, I should perhaps point out - in case you were not aware - that I have a split level kitchen and my washing machine is upstairs. So when all of this water started pouring out, there was a mad dash to grab the mop before I had water pouring down my stairs. Nothing like a little excitement in the middle of the diaper load. The maintenance guys stopped by Sunday morning and said it was definitely broken and they would be back to replace it the next day. All was fine and good except the new washing machine they brought by was also making strange noises. We have been using it now without incident for most of the week, but I hold my breath every time it goes into the spin cycle. While I'd love to say we could survive without a washing machine, I have a chronic bed-wetter and another child in cloth diapers, so there's really a limit to how long I can go without washing things before the smell here gets truly overwhelming. And on that note, I have some laundry I need to get out of the dyer :) Tune in soon for (and here I go cursing it again) pictures of our new place!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Happy Easter and Happy New Years!
So I'm a few days late on the Easter wishes, and a couple days early on the New Years wishes (Bangladeshi New Years anyway). This week has been a bit of a blur mostly because I spent over an entire day just lying in bed. No, I'm not just lazy. I mean, I am - but in this case, I was sick and spent the entire day lying there. While I thought it was ridiculous, we are still on anti-malarials from our recent trip to Sri Lanka, so I was supposed to go see the doctor. Naturally, all he told me was that there's probably nothing wrong with me. I could have told him that over the phone and skipped the visit ;) Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers that now that my fever has gone away, it will stay away.
This past weekend, I went sari shopping for the first time with my upstairs neighbor who has been here a bit longer than I have (and happens to speak Bangla as an added bonus). The next time I'm feeling unhappy, I'm totally going sari shopping. It's probably the easiest way to feel ridiculously gorgeous! Naturally I bought one and next we went to the tailor - which was another "experience" for me. I've heard there are some tailors who speak a lot of English and some who don't speak a lot of English - and you tend to pay accordingly. So for someone who "speaks your language" and understands each and every thing you're trying to tell them, you pay top dollar. For someone who speaks only basic English, you can get a much better price. Naturally, as my neighbor speaks Bangla, we went to a tailor who speaks basic English. Well, that's not even totally true. The guy in charge speaks quite a bit of English and is very easy to understand. The people who work for him have varying levels of understanding. And really, I don't have much room to complain since essentially all I can say so far are "hello" and "goodbye" in Bangla. That's something I intend to work on.
Since I was having a sari made (and not having some sort of western wear produced), I felt totally comfortable dealing with someone who might or might not understand everything I was saying because essentially, this is their style of dress. They know better than I do anyway what it should look like and what they need to do. Experience number 1 with my neighbor who speaks Bangla was excellent. Trip number 2 after another field trip to New Market was a bit sketchy and while I have no idea if I will get exactly what I want, I'm sure I'll be happy with what I get. Trip number 3 (yes, I visited the tailor 3 times this week - please don't judge) was very quick and short. They have acknowledged that I speak no Bangla and we have moved on. Maybe one day I'll surprise them and actually know a few words. The downside of visiting them so often? A trip of 4 km each way took almost 2 hours each time. I can't even really describe traffic here. Oh yeah, google maps says it should take 12 minutes to get from my house to the tailor. Nice. Clearly google is not familiar with Dhaka.
Easter was interesting this year. All of our Easter stuff is in boxes in storage here in a warehouse awaiting our move to our house, so the egg dye kit, easter baskets, eggs, etc are all just sitting there (before you ask, I meant plastic eggs). The DAWC (Dhaka American Women's Club) hosted an egg hunt on Saturday which we took the kids to. It poured rain. So that was fun. We waited for a break in the storm and then headed home. Sunday is a workday here, and Josh was in class, so the kids and I went to Easter mass by ourselves and sat in a virtually empty church (probably a first for me on Easter). The priest mentioned that the vigil mass had been standing room only - a bit more what I'm used to - but it went until 1 o'clock in the morning which would have been a bit late for me. Josh stopped by the mailroom on his way home and was able to pick up boxes full of Easter stuff for the kids mailed from the states, so they still got baskets and toys, and way too much candy. In the end, all was good.
Our field trips this week with Josh's class included the previously mentioned trip to New Market - similar to a Namdaemun experience for those who have been there - as well as a tour of the Ansar Academy and BKSP. The Ansar is similar in ways to the National Guard. There are different level of participation. On the most basic level, there is the VDP - Village Defense Party - which actually has very little to do with defense. There are 32 men and 32 women per village who receive training from the government in some sort of useable skill - weaving, sewing, auto repair, electronics, etc. There is no service obligation associated with this. I think (and this was not directly stated, so I'm extrapolating) that in an emergency situation, these people would be called upon to assist. On higher levels, the participants assist with varying types of security. Anyway, it's an interesting program. Our visit to BKSP was relatively short, and K was kind of done by the time we got there, so I missed much of the brief, but it's essentially a sports training academy of sorts for those who show an affinity.
Have to leave shortly for family photos at the school, but I hope to share photos of my saris once I pick them up from the tailor.
This past weekend, I went sari shopping for the first time with my upstairs neighbor who has been here a bit longer than I have (and happens to speak Bangla as an added bonus). The next time I'm feeling unhappy, I'm totally going sari shopping. It's probably the easiest way to feel ridiculously gorgeous! Naturally I bought one and next we went to the tailor - which was another "experience" for me. I've heard there are some tailors who speak a lot of English and some who don't speak a lot of English - and you tend to pay accordingly. So for someone who "speaks your language" and understands each and every thing you're trying to tell them, you pay top dollar. For someone who speaks only basic English, you can get a much better price. Naturally, as my neighbor speaks Bangla, we went to a tailor who speaks basic English. Well, that's not even totally true. The guy in charge speaks quite a bit of English and is very easy to understand. The people who work for him have varying levels of understanding. And really, I don't have much room to complain since essentially all I can say so far are "hello" and "goodbye" in Bangla. That's something I intend to work on.
Since I was having a sari made (and not having some sort of western wear produced), I felt totally comfortable dealing with someone who might or might not understand everything I was saying because essentially, this is their style of dress. They know better than I do anyway what it should look like and what they need to do. Experience number 1 with my neighbor who speaks Bangla was excellent. Trip number 2 after another field trip to New Market was a bit sketchy and while I have no idea if I will get exactly what I want, I'm sure I'll be happy with what I get. Trip number 3 (yes, I visited the tailor 3 times this week - please don't judge) was very quick and short. They have acknowledged that I speak no Bangla and we have moved on. Maybe one day I'll surprise them and actually know a few words. The downside of visiting them so often? A trip of 4 km each way took almost 2 hours each time. I can't even really describe traffic here. Oh yeah, google maps says it should take 12 minutes to get from my house to the tailor. Nice. Clearly google is not familiar with Dhaka.
Easter was interesting this year. All of our Easter stuff is in boxes in storage here in a warehouse awaiting our move to our house, so the egg dye kit, easter baskets, eggs, etc are all just sitting there (before you ask, I meant plastic eggs). The DAWC (Dhaka American Women's Club) hosted an egg hunt on Saturday which we took the kids to. It poured rain. So that was fun. We waited for a break in the storm and then headed home. Sunday is a workday here, and Josh was in class, so the kids and I went to Easter mass by ourselves and sat in a virtually empty church (probably a first for me on Easter). The priest mentioned that the vigil mass had been standing room only - a bit more what I'm used to - but it went until 1 o'clock in the morning which would have been a bit late for me. Josh stopped by the mailroom on his way home and was able to pick up boxes full of Easter stuff for the kids mailed from the states, so they still got baskets and toys, and way too much candy. In the end, all was good.
Our field trips this week with Josh's class included the previously mentioned trip to New Market - similar to a Namdaemun experience for those who have been there - as well as a tour of the Ansar Academy and BKSP. The Ansar is similar in ways to the National Guard. There are different level of participation. On the most basic level, there is the VDP - Village Defense Party - which actually has very little to do with defense. There are 32 men and 32 women per village who receive training from the government in some sort of useable skill - weaving, sewing, auto repair, electronics, etc. There is no service obligation associated with this. I think (and this was not directly stated, so I'm extrapolating) that in an emergency situation, these people would be called upon to assist. On higher levels, the participants assist with varying types of security. Anyway, it's an interesting program. Our visit to BKSP was relatively short, and K was kind of done by the time we got there, so I missed much of the brief, but it's essentially a sports training academy of sorts for those who show an affinity.
Have to leave shortly for family photos at the school, but I hope to share photos of my saris once I pick them up from the tailor.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Let the Orienting Begin!
Josh's course orientation started this past week, so we are officially on our own - if you don't count my helper and driver who both also started this week. We are still in temporary housing, but I have seen the new house (it actually does exist) and we hope to move in before the end of the month. Mid-month would be nice, but likely that would be pushing things a bit. We're comfortable where we are, and other than really wishing K had not had a growth spurt, we had enough stuff in our suitcases to last us. It's a bit ridiculous when I realize that I packed my suitcase in December. December, people. Makes you wonder how much of that extra stuff is really "necessary".
The orientation that is going on is actually only for the foreign officers and their families - the regular course has not actually started for the Bangladeshi officers. This portion is mostly focused on allowing all of us to become familiar with what Bangladesh has to offer and showing us some of the sights. While this is not terribly convenient for us since we live in the city and the bus to take us around departs from the school in Mirpur (about 35-45 minutes away by car) I think it's a great opportunity to get out and see things that I otherwise would miss. The school is providing air conditioned transportation and food for all of us, so why not get out and see what's out there!
This past week, we participated in an evening excursion to the Bashundhara City Complex and the following day boarded another bus taking us to the National Martyr's Memorial and Nandan Park. The mall was very reminiscent to me of shopping in both S. Korea and China. Stores are grouped by "theme", so if you're looking for nail polish (as I happened to be), all of the cosmetic stores are in one area. Convenient for the shopper, but I have to imagine that this increases competition. I can't help but wish that stores in the States were organized this way. It would save so much walking around! We browsed through the sari stores (I'm going shopping for one tomorrow and hope to be able to provide some insight later), but I haven't yet decoded what makes a casual sari casual and a fancy sari fancy. We also made it up to the food court for some fast food - it all tasted good and no one was sick the day after (this is really the definition of successful eating out). We picked up some DVD's on the cheap and also browsed Bata - a shoe store - where I almost bought some cute sandals. The bus brought us back to Mirpur where one of Josh's fellow officers invited us in for coffee. Sadly, it was already pretty late for the kids and we had to decline.
The following morning, we were on the road with the kids at 7:30 heading back to Mirpur for a full day of sight-seeing. The weather was warm, but I'm pretty sure we were the only ones sweating. There was a very nice presentation followed by an opportunity to walk around the memorial and take photos. I'm pretty sure the entire thing was closed off just for our group as there were other people present, but no one else was allowed near the memorial the whole time we were there. After taking a few photos of the entire group for the school, we re-boarded our buses and had what I assumed was an early lunch - a tasty spicy burger of some sort (please don't make me try to decide if it was chicken or beef...), an apple, and a pastry - while we drove to Nandan Park.
We all went to the waterpark portion of Nandan first. Josh assured me the water was very refreshing, but as I'm not a big fan of swimming fully clothed (which probably would have been acceptable) I decided to refrain. I think several of the officers are here without their families, and they are all very friendly with our children. It really makes me appreciate that we were able to come here together. The park had several different playgrounds located in different areas, so we wandered through the park and let the kids explore. It was certainly nothing compared to a theme park state-side, but it was a great opportunity to spend time with Josh's classmates and their families. We had a wonderful lunch of Tandoori chicken at the park and got a bit more time to explore the park before it was time to board the buses and head back to Mirpur. All around, a good experience for us. The kids both slept all of the way back to where the car was parked. Once we got home, it was showers for all (we were pretty dirty), dinner, and early bed.
We had our first big thunderstorm today and it has cooled temperatures off significantly, but I have to assume that it will be just as hot after the rain has passed. I'll just be thankful that it rained today instead of yesterday as I'm sure the tours would have gone on as scheduled and we would have all just gotten wet.
The orientation that is going on is actually only for the foreign officers and their families - the regular course has not actually started for the Bangladeshi officers. This portion is mostly focused on allowing all of us to become familiar with what Bangladesh has to offer and showing us some of the sights. While this is not terribly convenient for us since we live in the city and the bus to take us around departs from the school in Mirpur (about 35-45 minutes away by car) I think it's a great opportunity to get out and see things that I otherwise would miss. The school is providing air conditioned transportation and food for all of us, so why not get out and see what's out there!
This past week, we participated in an evening excursion to the Bashundhara City Complex and the following day boarded another bus taking us to the National Martyr's Memorial and Nandan Park. The mall was very reminiscent to me of shopping in both S. Korea and China. Stores are grouped by "theme", so if you're looking for nail polish (as I happened to be), all of the cosmetic stores are in one area. Convenient for the shopper, but I have to imagine that this increases competition. I can't help but wish that stores in the States were organized this way. It would save so much walking around! We browsed through the sari stores (I'm going shopping for one tomorrow and hope to be able to provide some insight later), but I haven't yet decoded what makes a casual sari casual and a fancy sari fancy. We also made it up to the food court for some fast food - it all tasted good and no one was sick the day after (this is really the definition of successful eating out). We picked up some DVD's on the cheap and also browsed Bata - a shoe store - where I almost bought some cute sandals. The bus brought us back to Mirpur where one of Josh's fellow officers invited us in for coffee. Sadly, it was already pretty late for the kids and we had to decline.
We all went to the waterpark portion of Nandan first. Josh assured me the water was very refreshing, but as I'm not a big fan of swimming fully clothed (which probably would have been acceptable) I decided to refrain. I think several of the officers are here without their families, and they are all very friendly with our children. It really makes me appreciate that we were able to come here together. The park had several different playgrounds located in different areas, so we wandered through the park and let the kids explore. It was certainly nothing compared to a theme park state-side, but it was a great opportunity to spend time with Josh's classmates and their families. We had a wonderful lunch of Tandoori chicken at the park and got a bit more time to explore the park before it was time to board the buses and head back to Mirpur. All around, a good experience for us. The kids both slept all of the way back to where the car was parked. Once we got home, it was showers for all (we were pretty dirty), dinner, and early bed.
We had our first big thunderstorm today and it has cooled temperatures off significantly, but I have to assume that it will be just as hot after the rain has passed. I'll just be thankful that it rained today instead of yesterday as I'm sure the tours would have gone on as scheduled and we would have all just gotten wet.
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