But yes, I have invented a time machine and no, you can't use it.
Iiiin other news, I had promised some info about food etc. So here goes.
Mostly in the hotel I eat Chinese food and Indian Naan, for two reasons. 1, they put green chillies on everything, even the Chinese! 2, after eating real Bangla food in the village, the stuff at the hotel tastes a bit like sludge. Same with the tea; here it is called cha and it is amazing in the village, where we frequented the cha stand about eight times a day. I'm not sure what they do to make it so good, but holy man is it ever good. They use condensed milk, so maybe that's it. In the city I am too scared to stop for cha in the streets as you never see women just out for no reason, so I have to cope with the pseudo-cha at the hotel. Also, my delightful roommate gave me a tin of red tea called "be happy" which I have been greatly enjoying the last few days. It's hard to believe I am surviving without coffee, but somehow I am. Same with liquor... I dearly miss wine nights with Kathryn (or, who are we kidding, by myself doing homework on a Thursday night) and I am greatly looking forward to a return to Western social life when I get back. As Bangladesh is like 80% Muslim it is impossible to find liquor anywhere except on the black market, and I clearly do not have those connections. I very much regret not raiding the duty-free shops in Doha on my way here! I do have a mini-fridge which is about a meter squared, so I just store milk, juice and water, and the occasional foodstuffs such as last weekend's PIZZA HUT leftovers!! It's nowhere near my hotel but I sure do know where I will be going when I need an escape into the Western world, since it somehow tastes EXACTLY the same as back home. There is even sometimes Western music!
Today while I was eating dinner I met two interns who just came from Austria and another American who is using some of her vacation time from her job teaching English in China to take the Basic Training (different from the internship) at Grameen Bank. I am hoping that we will all go to the Tea plantations later this month, although I have a feeling their free weekend will overlap with the wedding (FEBRUARY 18th), so I will have to make that happen another time. I will also make a strong effort to see the mangrove forests and visit the Bengal tigers up North! Time to take advantage of my weekends, I think.
During the week, I am very excited to say that I will now be up at Grameen Trust on the 20th floor. Although I was trying to keep a positive attitude about my time at the Bank, they unfortunately don't hold their interns as a very high priority and the last week has been meetings with other areas of the Grameen family, about two and a half hours out of the full day. My internship supervisor was quite surprised when I told him Grameen had about 80 interns when I started, so he is also glad that I am able to move over earlier.
That said, my experience at the Trust will be quite different from that of their few other interns, who are mostly doing self-guided research. I have been asked to produce quite an extensive report on all Grameen Trust's operations, which includes partnerships with 150+ organizations worldwide and other direct implementation projects, as well as training and dialogues on microfinance and the Grameen Bank Approach. I should mention that Grameen Trust is involved in assisting/advising other microcredit practitioners around the world who want to implement the Grameen Model, while the direct implementation projects involve Grameen staff going in, with funding, to start up and run a new project while usually training locals to take it over. This is called Build-Operate-Transfer, BOT. I will get back to you about the other direct implementation models as I don't know much about them at this point. This project will definitely keep me busy for the next two months, and the best part? It will be PUBLISHED!! What has started out rather slowly is rapidly picking up, and on top of being able to create something genuinely useful for Grameen I will have a publication on my resume before completing my Undergrad. Woohoo! Although they name all the projects in their annual reports, I will get to look at them all in a lot more detail. I'm very much looking forward to the interesting, educational and productive experience starting in just a couple of days.
I also have a meeting with Prof. Latifee on Sunday, which I am really excited about because I have been reading his publications about Grameen for about a year now! He is the executive director of Grameen Trust, so we did meet with him as a cohort from Grameen Bank. But I will have him all to myself, to prod his brain and ask questions, on Sunday and in the months to come! Lucky me =)
Next on my to-do list is getting in touch with my contact at the Canadian Embassy here in Dhaka, to hopefully get involved with them a little. Now that I am over my culture fatigue hump I am quite bored with sitting around this hotel! Speaking of which, for those who remember Mr and Mrs Bug, they were actually Mr and Mrs Cockroach, and they didn't survive the weekend. But their offspring have happily filled their tiny bug shoes, and one jumped out at me from my dental floss container as I went to floss my teeth tonight, so it is now thoroughly closed and my nerves are (almost) back to normal. This bug net is a very worthwhile investment for knowing that my body is not their wonderland when I am sleeping! (John Mayer reference, anyone?)
I can't think of anything else for now, other than please leave comments so I know it's getting read! I love hearing from you all back in Canada. Also, I have become very aware of my Canadian accent, and thanks to "How I Met Your Mother" every time I say about (aboot) somebody laughs. There are other things too, like to/too is actually "tuh" and "gonna" and not pronouncing "t"s in the middle of words. It is very strange tuh be on the receiving end of accent commentary! Yet another humbling experience.
Anyway it is now 1:45 AM and much past my bedtime! Not sure what the plan is tuhmorrow but I think I am going to pick myself up a Team Bangladesh t-shirt for the Cricket World Cup before they all disappear off the shelves! I also have tuh get in touch with my friend Samir who I met at the Bangladesh High Commission back in Ottawa, I think he is here now and I would love it if I could arrange some cricket lessons before trying to get last-minute tickets for a match! We'll see.
I'm also very fed up with not being able to communicate, so I WILL at least attempt to learn Bangla/Bengali THIS WEEK, DARNIT! I have the DVD, so the excuses are all moot.
Wish me luck!
xox Lesley
Iiiin other news, I had promised some info about food etc. So here goes.
Mostly in the hotel I eat Chinese food and Indian Naan, for two reasons. 1, they put green chillies on everything, even the Chinese! 2, after eating real Bangla food in the village, the stuff at the hotel tastes a bit like sludge. Same with the tea; here it is called cha and it is amazing in the village, where we frequented the cha stand about eight times a day. I'm not sure what they do to make it so good, but holy man is it ever good. They use condensed milk, so maybe that's it. In the city I am too scared to stop for cha in the streets as you never see women just out for no reason, so I have to cope with the pseudo-cha at the hotel. Also, my delightful roommate gave me a tin of red tea called "be happy" which I have been greatly enjoying the last few days. It's hard to believe I am surviving without coffee, but somehow I am. Same with liquor... I dearly miss wine nights with Kathryn (or, who are we kidding, by myself doing homework on a Thursday night) and I am greatly looking forward to a return to Western social life when I get back. As Bangladesh is like 80% Muslim it is impossible to find liquor anywhere except on the black market, and I clearly do not have those connections. I very much regret not raiding the duty-free shops in Doha on my way here! I do have a mini-fridge which is about a meter squared, so I just store milk, juice and water, and the occasional foodstuffs such as last weekend's PIZZA HUT leftovers!! It's nowhere near my hotel but I sure do know where I will be going when I need an escape into the Western world, since it somehow tastes EXACTLY the same as back home. There is even sometimes Western music!
Today while I was eating dinner I met two interns who just came from Austria and another American who is using some of her vacation time from her job teaching English in China to take the Basic Training (different from the internship) at Grameen Bank. I am hoping that we will all go to the Tea plantations later this month, although I have a feeling their free weekend will overlap with the wedding (FEBRUARY 18th), so I will have to make that happen another time. I will also make a strong effort to see the mangrove forests and visit the Bengal tigers up North! Time to take advantage of my weekends, I think.
During the week, I am very excited to say that I will now be up at Grameen Trust on the 20th floor. Although I was trying to keep a positive attitude about my time at the Bank, they unfortunately don't hold their interns as a very high priority and the last week has been meetings with other areas of the Grameen family, about two and a half hours out of the full day. My internship supervisor was quite surprised when I told him Grameen had about 80 interns when I started, so he is also glad that I am able to move over earlier.
That said, my experience at the Trust will be quite different from that of their few other interns, who are mostly doing self-guided research. I have been asked to produce quite an extensive report on all Grameen Trust's operations, which includes partnerships with 150+ organizations worldwide and other direct implementation projects, as well as training and dialogues on microfinance and the Grameen Bank Approach. I should mention that Grameen Trust is involved in assisting/advising other microcredit practitioners around the world who want to implement the Grameen Model, while the direct implementation projects involve Grameen staff going in, with funding, to start up and run a new project while usually training locals to take it over. This is called Build-Operate-Transfer, BOT. I will get back to you about the other direct implementation models as I don't know much about them at this point. This project will definitely keep me busy for the next two months, and the best part? It will be PUBLISHED!! What has started out rather slowly is rapidly picking up, and on top of being able to create something genuinely useful for Grameen I will have a publication on my resume before completing my Undergrad. Woohoo! Although they name all the projects in their annual reports, I will get to look at them all in a lot more detail. I'm very much looking forward to the interesting, educational and productive experience starting in just a couple of days.
I also have a meeting with Prof. Latifee on Sunday, which I am really excited about because I have been reading his publications about Grameen for about a year now! He is the executive director of Grameen Trust, so we did meet with him as a cohort from Grameen Bank. But I will have him all to myself, to prod his brain and ask questions, on Sunday and in the months to come! Lucky me =)
Next on my to-do list is getting in touch with my contact at the Canadian Embassy here in Dhaka, to hopefully get involved with them a little. Now that I am over my culture fatigue hump I am quite bored with sitting around this hotel! Speaking of which, for those who remember Mr and Mrs Bug, they were actually Mr and Mrs Cockroach, and they didn't survive the weekend. But their offspring have happily filled their tiny bug shoes, and one jumped out at me from my dental floss container as I went to floss my teeth tonight, so it is now thoroughly closed and my nerves are (almost) back to normal. This bug net is a very worthwhile investment for knowing that my body is not their wonderland when I am sleeping! (John Mayer reference, anyone?)
I can't think of anything else for now, other than please leave comments so I know it's getting read! I love hearing from you all back in Canada. Also, I have become very aware of my Canadian accent, and thanks to "How I Met Your Mother" every time I say about (aboot) somebody laughs. There are other things too, like to/too is actually "tuh" and "gonna" and not pronouncing "t"s in the middle of words. It is very strange tuh be on the receiving end of accent commentary! Yet another humbling experience.
Anyway it is now 1:45 AM and much past my bedtime! Not sure what the plan is tuhmorrow but I think I am going to pick myself up a Team Bangladesh t-shirt for the Cricket World Cup before they all disappear off the shelves! I also have tuh get in touch with my friend Samir who I met at the Bangladesh High Commission back in Ottawa, I think he is here now and I would love it if I could arrange some cricket lessons before trying to get last-minute tickets for a match! We'll see.
I'm also very fed up with not being able to communicate, so I WILL at least attempt to learn Bangla/Bengali THIS WEEK, DARNIT! I have the DVD, so the excuses are all moot.
Wish me luck!
xox Lesley
tuh tuh tuh! lol i really enjoyed your use of it at the end, very you! miss you! glad to hear youre starting to settle in :)
ReplyDeleteLUCK!
ReplyDeleteAlso missing wine night with youuuu xox
I'll make sure I have a bottle chilled for your return (or, who are we kidding, I'll chill a bottle for me to start on whilst doing homework this week, haha)