TGIF

Me again.
I think this is going to be a regular occurrence now that on a Friday afternoon Grant and I head off for a huge walk and scout around.

Very quiet on the road early this afternoon.  It got worse!!!!

We ventured into Gulshan 1 and 2 today.  Had Movenpick coffee and a scoop...again and did a little shopping.  Grabbed some new DVD's as we have made our way through the last lot and Grant also found a good shop that you can buy a few Western type things. It seems it is much easier for men to buy western clothes here but not so much for women...as all the women's clothes seem to be something Chinese or Japanese women might wear...as you all could imagine that is not really me.

Tomorrow we are heading to Bashundara City...the 12th largest shopping mall in the world. 8 storeys and lots of shops...I don't think it is the cheapest place in Dhaka but it will be nice to even look around.


 Jem
 

Australia Day

I am such a traitor!!! Celebrating this say and actually organising the Sausage Sizzle is the epitome of bad taste being a kiwi. But it was great fun...but the balloons you buy in Dhaka taste awful and by no means they are not the best quality.

Quite a few balloons later and buns and sausages ordered and ready we were able to get things going.  The BBQ was an interesting debacle to say the least with "many hands make light work" not being the saying the depicts this event.  Charcoal BBQ make from an old tub and some baking racks made up our make-shift unit.


Lots of fun and a great event for the school to have the students, teachers, staff and parents all together.  Happy Australia Day to all...even 9000km from Sydney!!!

Check out the school chef...teehee!!!!

No words!!

It has been a while.

Let's just leave this one as a picture says a thousand word huh???

Please send fresh air

Yesterday for the first time I saw blue sky. This is not because the weather is bad, its because there is a constant haze that sits over Dhaka. Even though petrol & diesel cars have been banned from the city, there is contantly a cloud of grey haze. Add to this the dust from the dirt roads and constant construction and it can be hard to find fresh air. Yesterday we went for a walk, only about twenty minutes and when we came back I could feel the pollution burning in the back of my throat, I wont gross you all out with the colour of what I consequently coughed up, but you get the idea.
As if this isn't bad enough, people around us have small fires going at night, but because of a lack of decent burnable materials, it seems all they burn is plastic. I understand the need to keep warm at night, but the putrid smell of burning plastic is disgusting, not to mention the potential health problems of breathing in burning plastic fumes.
Its still a great place to be though, and I'm not complaining, as we did choose to come here, just longing for some clean green NZ air.

Grant

New Market & Yum Food

No not the Newmarket of Auckland but more shops with a lot cheaper clothes, shoes, and everything your heart could desire.

I did some research yesterday and with the limited info on the net about Bangladesh as a tourist location, I discovered that there could be a good place to venture.  New Market was said to be a great market with a large range of stalls and shops.  We enlisted the driver Abid and headed there...explaining it was an issue due to the fact he speaks limited English if any at all.


The car ride was quiet speedy considering the usual traffic, today we were lucky.  This place was like a rabbit warren.  Stall after stall of shoes.  Most of which were just similar the whole way round but still fun.  I am tempted to one day buy some of the most blingy shoes ever...but that is later when I have a party or dinner to attend LOL!!!

On the way we saw something we think is called a 'shamina' being constructed.  It is a bamboo type construction which then has metres and metres of decorative material stretched over it to create a temporary structure for an event.  This one that we saw and was said to be the biggest that the Principal and his wife had seen yet.  The man hours to do this would be incredible but I would be keen to go back in a few days and see the finished product.

 The discovery of the day, by far, was Kings.  A small bakery type place with amazing little pies, but the things that caught my eye was the sparkling, beautiful aroma of coffee from a machine...I was elated.  I did not get one today as they didn't have takeaway but I know where I am going next Saturday.  Yippee!!!

Finally we bought 1kg of delicious prawns and cooked these for dinner.  All in all a great day of exploring more of Dhaka and discovering sanity with coffee, little pies and sweets and prawns.....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Jem

Friday Walk

The noise is intense. It wakes you up and it keeps you awake. If it is not the call to prayer pumped from the huge speakers, it is the pile-driver on the building site in the opposite small box of space. We even heard an electric guitar blaring last night. It is a little hard to get used to.

Today is the start of our weekend as the working week goes from Sunday-Thursday. Friday is a Muslim day of prayer and people seem to be running around in their different, vast regalia in order to go to their local mosque to pray at some stage in the day.

We decided that it would be a pretty quiet day to go for a walkabout and take some photos.

This is some pictures of a bustling market just down the road. It sells vast arrays of fruit, veg, fish and meat. Fruit and veg is ok but would not go anywhere near the others.

 Meat carved on the spot...what more could you ask for right lol?

The view of an extremely quiet main road by our house. This is on a day when no one is around and about. You could only imagine it on a busy day.

 Some kind of official building.

 Building site with scaffolding made from bamboo. OSH would love this!!

We found a nice park in the diplomatic area close by. It has a nice 500m circuit that we walk around a few times and some great inspiring messages to motivate you. They make me laugh!!!

There is a playground for kids as well.

So we had a bit of an adventure walking around the streets. We were approached by hordes of kids wanting to say hello. After following us for about 500m they started to ask for "500tk, 1000tk ...BOSS please please". I told them to get lost and put on my grumpy face. Therefore Grant and I checked out pockets, decided we had not been pick-pocketed and headed home.

Jem's turn...being my turn!!

Well what an interesting few days we have had since the teachers arrived and we begun going through the curriculum, talking about displays and trying to get these women to understand the concept of westernised teaching.
 
1. They all seem to talk at once
2. They worry about having an aiya (maid) to take the children to the bathroom
3. They get told to do something and 4 of them decide they will sit there and just let everyone go off

WOWZER!! But to be honest I am incredibly relaxed. I am happy to just let them be a little slow and do most of the planning for them to start with because I think that is the least of all our worries.

When we started 2011 at ROPS we went with the philosophy that we had to laugh everyday...well we need to laugh every minute in this place because otherwise we would jump off the building I think.

Everytime you ask someone to do something...they ask someone under them...then the photocopy/everything boy does it...then he tells the driver to do it...then he tells the cleaning lady who is only there to wash the stairs to do it. Magnificent isn't it!!!!!!!!

The teachers had no idea that they would have to photocopy and prepare their worksheets so they waited at the P/C for Filzell (general everything boy) to do it. They waited 10minutes just standing there until I came down and taught them how to do it. We asked them to pick up their cutting scraps after an activity and they swept them onto the floor and did nothing. Ohh these people have no idea about doing things themselves as everyone has someone else to do it for them.

Other than all that...we are having fun going around the local markets. I got a 1 hour manicure today for $300 tk which is about $5 and we finally have the internet at home.

Enriching to say the least.

Jem

Update, Quick before the power goes off again!

So after finally deciding it was well past due to update the blog, and getting halfway through it was fantastic timing that the generator should stop working briefly. Not normally a problem as there are uninterrupted power supplies on all the computers, but of course the one on this computer doesn’t work, great way to find out!

Our apartment now has cable, we have 90 channels, about 70 of which are in Bangla or Hindi. But at least we have something to watch at home. We may even get the internet connected at home today, not holding my breath, but when we do get it, it will be even more satisfying. Hopefully will be able to Skype people soon.

The school was meant to open on Sunday (sun – thurs work week here), but of course there is a giant religious festival happening on the road near school, and no one will be able to get here, so the school will have to have its first day on Monday (the school is a brand new school for those of you following who don’t know). But it gets better, the following Sunday the other half of Dhaka will be attending said festival and school will be closed again.

I don’t think I’ve laughed as much before as I have in the last week, and you definitely have to have a sense of humor to live here. It is a fascinating place though, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Surprisingly we haven’t actually eaten a curry since we’ve been here, so I have ordered a mutton & a chicken curry for lunch today. Its costing the grand total of 390 Taka, which is roughly $6 NZD or $4.75 USD. pretty pricey for takeaways for two people I know.

Plenty more to report, but will get this uploaded before the power decides to go off again. 

Grant

The view from our apartment and the roof of the school.

 The school is the one with the half finished nets on it, literally a stones throw away.

Our Apartment & the school

So we have finally arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This is just a crazy crazy place, it is probably best described as living in nice buildings in a rubbish dump, with millions and millions of people and an equal number of bicycles, rickshaws, cars and trucks.

Our apartment is up on the fifth floor and is really really big for a two bedroom place. The school is really looking after us, and if we want anything we ask and it seems to appear pretty quickly. We even have hot water now, after a cold shower on the first morning.

 This is our apartment building.

 Lounge (No cable yet, but it will happen eventually)

 Living Area

Kitchen.

The school is literally around the corner, although tramping boots are almost necessary as the road (below) is pretty rough.

One of the classrooms and Jems office.

The school, the guard at the gate salutes every time we come and go, both here and at home.

Pictures looking out from our apartment and from the school roof to come in a minute.

Grant