you broke another mirror, you're turning into something you are not...

On this New Year’s Eve, I woke up to the sounds of an army of goats who have moved in to the empty lot next door. Though it may be the celebration of a new year for me, the city is alive with another kind of busyness. According to the cycle of the moon, we are sitting on the eve of the second Eid I will experience in this country. However, the post-Ramadan Eid and this coming one are very different. For one, this one involves a lot more livestock! Entire cattle markets have popped up over night. On any given street there are anywhere between 2 and 15 bulls being dressed up and paraded home in preparation for Eid. You see this Eid is all about sacrifice…sacrifice in a very Old Testament way. I am more than a little bit excited for the photo opportunities I might get tomorrow considering that there will literally be sacrifices in the streets. Though I’m sure I’ll be learning more about the intricacies of this Eid tomorrow, I can say that it already fascinates me. Watching men get dragged home down the streets by unruly bulls covered with flower ornaments and painted horns brings the whole world of the Old Testament ALIVE!
I will begin my 2007 with the blood of the sacrifice of an entire city in the streets…talk about transitions! What a way to end a year, an internship, an experience like this and move towards a new year full of unknown potential and possibility.

i will love her for miles...

I have only spent one week in Nepal – and despite doing A LOT in those hours – I still know relatively little about the country. What I do know though, is that everything more about it that I know and experience makes me love it. It is hard for me to write about it just as a kind of holiday because in that one week, I have managed to lose a large piece of my heart to the country and the people and the beauty of the nature there. It is my Honduras of Asia in a way….and those of you who know me well will understand how much I have been affected by Nepal. But I am back in Dhaka now, where I have just comfortably begun to feel completely at home and confident in and I must now prepare for returning to Canada within the week. It is ridiculous to think that in these three weeks, each of them have been or will be spent in a different country! Already I have been back in Dhaka two days and I am beginning to look around myself at all the exotic yet everyday activity around me with a kind of nostalgia.

if only in my dreams...

A Christmas holiday like no other:

December 22 - Hari Krishna Festival in Kathmandu
December 23 - Monkey Temple and 25 minute scenic flight through the Himalayas
December 24 - Hiking in the Annapurna range valley for 4 hours to the World Peace Pagoda
So far so good and hopefully to come...
December 25 - Exploring Tibetan refugee camps
December 26 - Attending the International Elephant Race
December 27 - Taking an elephant ride through the Royal Chitwan National Wildlife park


Even though its not home, its a pretty good alternative...I LOVE NEPAL!

I recall the day, the temperature and time …

There have been certain significant moments here that have really shaped and affected my whole Bangladesh experience. There are two in particular I’ve been thinking about this morning. The first happened early in my time in Dhaka. I had just finished with the whole “wow I’m in a new place this is exciting and everything is fun and an adventure” stage and was at the point that things were beginning to settle down and get frustrating and difficult. And I went one afternoon to the Canadian High Commission to register and I got there just as they were closing. And the combination of seeing the Canadian flag and speaking English to other Canadians who were telling me that I could not go in to the High Commission was the last straw. I remember very little of those moments in front of the gate arguing with the Canadian officials and guards and shaking my passport at them and dangerously close to the edge of emotional stability. However, when I look back at that moment now I realize that was rock bottom. I mean, you can’t get more rock bottom than crying outside the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka shaking your passport at a guard who is afraid that you might not only be emotionally but mentally unstable as well. But I can see now that it was only after that rock bottom that I could actually collect myself and feel like really being here: to actually BE here.
Yesterday I went to Old Dhaka. I saw the fort, the pink palace, the star mosque, the old Armenian church and took a ride on the river. But the best part, by far, was strolling along Hindu Street. For those of you not traveling in overly populated places, you would see this street as being much more like an alley full of people and rickshaws you didn’t think could fit between the walls and smells and garbage and incense and people…so many people. But it was incredible. It is my favorite place in all of Dhaka. It kind of felt like I was a hippie in the 60’s wandering around India with the smells of sandlewood and earth and people all mixing together. I went in to little shops where craftsmen were making kali idols of clay and other shops where jewelers were carving bangles out of shells and where others were making drums and flutes and kites and everything. And I stood in the middle of the street looking at the sea of people and the noise and color and life and in that moment I felt, for the first time, that I really REALLY love this place. Not that I haven’t enjoyed my time here, but I haven’t ever lost my heart here. When I really fall in love with a place I leave a piece of myself there as much as I take the experience with me. There is a piece of my soul still in Honduras and it pulls at me and calls me back. And I know that there is a piece of my soul now in Hindu Street here in Dhaka that will tug at me when I go home and define much of my experiences here.
And when I think about it now, it was worth ever excruciating moment in front of the High Commission those months ago, trying to get myself back under control, feeling like all this was a mistake and all I wanted was tea and cake at home on a cool fall day…it was all worth it to stand in the middle of the river of people on Hindu Street and have the epiphany of Bangladesh wash over me. And though I’m excited for it, its hard to mix my excitement of going home in two and a half weeks with this feeling so fresh in me…I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to complete and utter emotional instability for the next while and just let myself be carried along by moments.

How you tore your dress, what a mess, I confess, that’s not all…

These two blog entries should go chronologically the other way, but for the sake of ending on a positive note, I’ve switched them….

My parents called this morning to say Merry Christmas since I might not get reception in the Himalayas on the actual day. (that’s right, who else can say they’ll be spending Christmas in the shadow of Mt. Everest?!) Anyways, I found out from them that my sister and brother-in-law put together this amazing package for me full of stuff I love and miss and that it got either lost or stolen on its way out here. And as I am increasingly more and more emotionally fragile lately - because of leaving soon and coming home soon and Christmas without family and all the million feelings and emotions that will drag me from one extreme to the next in the next few weeks – that news was icing on the cake and led to a mini breakdown after I got off the phone.
That being said, even though I didn’t get it, just knowing my sister put it all together and everything makes me feel excited to go home which is coming unbelievably close!
So thank you Laura and Vince. Even though it didn’t make it, it makes me miss you all the more!

I also got some really great e-mails today too, so it makes things a bit better. Thanks to all of you who, even though you’re on Christmas holidays, remembered me and sent me a shout out…and because your e-mail isn’t getting through Cait, I hope you read this and know I’m thinking about you and counting down the days until we can sit down and have a good long hot apple cider and some good cake so that it no longer feels like a dream!

i feel a weakness coming on...

With winter in full force here (usually the mercury hangs around 25 degrees) I have been able to witness a whole new winter fashion trend here. The sweater-vest. Now, I personally enjoy the sweater-vest, it has a certain appeal to it that has made it a bit of an underdog in the fashion world since the end of the 50’s. However, here in Bangladesh it enjoys a much higher status. Everyone from wealthy businessmen to local rickshaw wallahs can been seen sporting this look at any given time on any given street corner. Whether it be a flashy Argyll print or a solid, sensible grey or brown, it is THE article of clothing to be seen in. Now, if only it were acceptable for women to wear them.


…on a side note, I just now spotted a business man wearing a neon blue, pink and brown stripped sweater-vest…classy!

if it takes a lifetime...

I talked to my niece tonight on the phone and she told me about a Christmas party she had been at and a gift she had gotten there and how she could even braid this doll’s hair and everything. And she sounded so excited about it I genuinely got excited about it an told her that I couldn’t wait to see her doll. And without skipping a beat, she said to me, “We can’t wait to see YOU Auntie Bri”.
Exactly a month from today I will step off the plane in Calgary. And though I’m not quite in “countdown mode” quite yet, that’s 31 sleeps! 31 sleeps until I get to hug them and see that doll in person!

you're uninvited, an unfortunte slight...

Today I was working on the manual I am writing and as usual this morning when I opened up my computer and sat down to write up more specifics about the People’s Institutions, I felt a bit useless. I have only been here 12 weeks. Most of those 12 weeks were spent watching and waiting and witnessing a very different kind of democratic system. One I have come to be very frustrated with, as it has robbed me of many opportunities while I’ve been here. And now, with a sparse sampling of field visits under my belt and a stack of translated documents, I am to write up a manual that describes exactly what the People’s Institutions in Bangladesh do. And as usual, the weight of this project combined with my ignorance causes me to stare at the blank page in front of me and wonder how in the world I am to do justice to this challenge.
Then, flipping through the pages and pages of interviews I have typed up, I came across a conversation I had with Gabriel (the director of PARI) just before I left Mymensingh. Other than my few field visits, talking with him has been probably the most helpful and enjoyable time I have spent on this entire project. At the end of this particular conversation he was telling me how self-help development was very new to Bangladesh and rather revolutionary in its thinking. He said to me, “People ask me, ‘how does it happen? How does it work? Do you have some sort of magic, Gabriel?’ And I tell them, YES! It is magic. Come and visit, live with our organization, meet the people and you will see our magic.”
And as I sat there thinking about that, I had this feeling of enormous guilt for the frustration I’ve felt with the government and the angry I’ve felt at ‘missing out’ from seeing all the things I had hoped to. I may have only spent one day in the field with PARI compared to the 3 weeks I was supposed to, but I have – as Gabriel puts it – “seen the magic” happening through the development practices here and the task I have ahead of me, putting together this manual, will take some of that magic and help make it available to other areas.
It is a very small task in the scheme of things. A manual that breaks down the steps of People’s Institutions will not change the world. And maybe I will never get to entirely see first-hand the effects of this development in Bangladesh. But perhaps, someday, I will be in Tanzania or Honduras or Cambodia and get to see the beginnings of self-help development transforming lives there because of the success and encouragement the Bangladesh People’s Institutions have shared.

and when she passes he smiles but she doesn't see..

Since earliest times people have asked the great question: What is the supreme good? You have life before you. You can only live it once. What is the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet?
We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the religious world is faith. That great word has been the keynote for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul takes us to Christianity at its source, and there we see, ‘The greatest of these is love.’
It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, ‘And if I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing’. So far from forgetting, he deliberately contrasts them, ‘Now abideth faith, hope, love’, and without a moment’s hesitation the decision falls, ‘The greatest of these is love’.

- Henry Drummond “The Greatest Thing in the World”

i recall central park in fall...

I got a package from home yesterday, filled with Halloween candy and letters and pictures of my roommates and King’s Chronicles. It was awesome. And it was the perfect day to get it too. It was a slow, unexciting first day of the work week kind of day and I was not looking forward to slogging my way through this first week of December. But now I have pictures of Edmonton and roommates and snow on my wall that I can look at while I eat mini bags of sour skittles (which, by the way have an amazing new blue flavour!) and Canadian chocolate. And even though I am in my final stretch here, it seems to me the perfect time to get this gift which gives me both strength to throw myself wholeheartedly into this last month as well as strengthening in me my longing for home and getting ready to come back. So roommates…thank you. And I notice from the pictures of home that you have kept up all the creepy pictures of me that I left lying around to keep my “presence” in the house. You rock.

our the night into a glass, and I sip it slow to make it last…

This past Friday was International AIDS Awareness Day and to celebrate it, Alana and I got Sari-ed up and rickshawed over to one our working area slums to be a part of their rally. (those are two “verbs” I never thought I’d use before I came out here – “sari-ed” and “rickshawed”)
Well, we actually ended up in out youngest working area – which I had yet to visit – and it was incredible. The people, the noise, the crowd…it was a complete sensory overload! I will be posting pictures soon (www.flickr.com/photos/fatalcleopatra), but they certainly do not convey what it felt like. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to in Canada is the first 10 minutes of Dr. Long’s Sociology of Mass Media course, but even that falls short of the complete and utter inundation of sounds and smells and color and people. The size and energy of the crowd is almost frightening because everything gets dangerously swept along. However, there are moments in the field that I feel so connected to and loved by the people living there and that makes me feel incredibly safe and at home in the midst of it all. During some of the skits put on by the People’s Institutions, Alana and I were crouched down with the kids to watch and one little boy beside me watched over me like a hawk. If the pushing of the crowd made the kid behind me have to put his hand out and steady himself on my shoulder, this little boy would whip around and let the other kid know in no uncertain terms that he was not to lean on me, and if the bottom of my sari would fall and brush the dirt, he would gently lift it on to my feet and sandals so it wouldn’t get dirty. He was so genuinely sweet and sincere that I felt as though my heart would break with the love I felt for him. Sometimes in moments like these, this city catches me so off-guard and just sends my mind reeling that I only have a month left here.