On Saturday I had a surprise visitor when I got back from the internet cafe. Deepa, who is a technical officer at the MCC Muktagatcha office where I will work (but she is trained as a civil engineer), stopped by with her daughter for a visit. Actually the visit was her taking me to her house. She also took me to her parent's house that was just down the street from her house and introduced me to part of her family. Then we went to her apartment which is on the sixth floor and had tea and cake. We talked about our families and the office, and while we were chatting the electricity went out. After a while it came back on and it was neat to see the city light up from such a high altitude. Deepa's two children were eager to practice their English, which they begin studying at an early age. Her daughter was full of energy and was putting on her deordant and climbing the walls of the apartment. I had dinner with Deepa, and met some female students who rent one of her rooms. The girls were perfect Bengali hosts and gave me bananas even though I just came into their room long enough to be introduced. Then I made my departure by rickshaw to my apartment in the dark.

Sunday morning I went to the local Baptist church. It is interesting to discover which events one has to be on time for and which ones you can arrive at any time. Church is definately one to be late to - as when we got there at 7:30, almost no one was there. As the hour past more people came. The men sat on one side and the women on another. The women covered their heads with their saris for part of the service. Lisa, my tutor, was involved in the music and she sang and played the piano. They sang some familiar hymns in Bangla. I could understand only a few words here and there, and was distracted by all the ants around me. After church I went to Lisa's house and had tea and puffed rice, and finally realized why there were so many ants around me during church. I had made the foolish mistake of leaving a cough drop in my purse and ants - millions of ants had come and were spilling out of my purse. Food is not safe anywhere - even in my apartment if I spill a few granules of ready tea, ants swarm to the spot. Actually ants swarm to the sand on the floor of my apartment. Hopefully I will not make this mistake again - but even as I write this I realize that their are some breathe mints in my bookbag in my apartment. Oh no! Lisa was very kind and help me abolish the ants from my bag.

After my tutoring with Lisa she demonstrated batik on a camij. Batik is similar to tie-dye, and many textiles are dyed in this manner. While Lisa was boiling the camij, she spilled the pan of dye all over her kitchen. Her kitchen is now a nice bright red color.

Today I awoke to loud music/speeches - not the usual rooster or call to prayer. It is not just the French who go on strike. Though for different reasons, there are usually around two strikes a month in Bangladesh. Today was the anniversary of the assassination of the founder of Bangladesh. From 6a.m.-12p.m. There was music, cheers, and speeches, and a lot of things are closed. I've heard that it is worse in Dhaka as the strikes shut the city down for the entire day. For me it was just an extra noisy day.