Bangladesh's newest Canadian

It seemed like Carolyn might come to Bangladesh. She was going to go to Zimbabwe with the Salt program, but problems in that country prevented her from going. When she decided to come to Bangladesh instead, it took forever for her visa to come. Patrick and I found out that she was for sure coming on Wednesday night, so on Thursday afternoon after Bangla class we took a bus to Dhaka. Philip, Rebecca, and Hannah had arrived on Wednesday from the Lamb Hospital, and Jerry and Ethel arrived the same day from Thailand. All the MCC expatriots were together to welcome Carolyn. Thursday night we all had dinner together, and Patrick and I went shopping at a modern grocery store for food we couldn't get in Mymensingh.

At 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning Patrick, Philip, Jerrry, and I went to the Dhaka airport to pick up Carolyn, but she didn't come out of the airport. Of course, it is hard to tell if she was in the airport as you aren't allowed in the airport. To get close to the airport you have to push your way past guards with big guns or hand them a bribe. Finally we figured out that there had been some confusion as to her day of arrived - due to losing half a day and having several layovers during flight. Back at the guest house I had a normal Friday of sleeping and reading the newspaper, instead of Bangla class for a change. In the afternoon Patrick and I went to a store in Dhaka owned by Lisa's aunt, Khuku. The store had jewelry and clothing and furniture from all over the world and the lastest fashions from Calcutta. We spent about four hours looking around, talking, having coffee, and finally having Iftar with some of the store employees.

Again this morning the same group of us went to the airport. Patrick and I managed to bribe our way into the inner airport, and after about an hour of waiting Carolyn emerged. She had a very short amount of time in Dhaka - only time enough to buy clothes. Since Rebecca was still recovering from having Hannah and Ethel didn't want to venture out, I was elected to take Carolyn to the market and buy clothes. Amazingly I was somewhat about to do this. Getting a CNG (like a taxi) to take us to the market was no problem, and once we were at the market bargaining wasn't that hard either. I did have a bit of a challenge finding the types of clothing that we were looking for. I kept seeing lots of expensive stuff with tons of beading and embroidery. I'd like to blame it on the upcoming holiday, Eid, in which everyone buys new clothes - sort of like Christmas. However, I did manage to get Carolyn several reasonably priced outfits that are MCC appropriate.

At one point while we were in the market, all the lights went out. Now if you've never been in a market - it is huge, and you usually can't see an exit. There are people everywhere - not an empty space at all - today more so than usual as it is peak shopping time. If this market were full of North Americans, there would have been a riot and we would have all died. But this is a common occurance in Bangladesh, and everyone stopped and calmly waited for the lights to come on - which took about a minute.

I'm so glad that Patrick and Carolyn are both Canadian - it is very convenient to let them answer the question I hear dozens of times a day, "What is your country." Today Carolyn and I were in a shop, and one of the shopkeepers asked me for my country. I gave my usual answer of Bangladesh. Then a few moments later, they asked Carolyn and she said Canada. I signaled to her to be quiet and all the shopkeepers laughed as they thought she had given away my country. Then one of them said, "Canada is a good country." I think that if I had said America, they would have made a similar comment - Bangladeshis are most polite.