A ripe banana peel

I finally can share with you "what's next" for me because we've announced my new unit formally!  See the post I wrote on the launch of BRAC's Social Innovation Lab for details!

On October 27, we launch Making TB History in France.  After we get that our of the way, I can get onto the important business of taking a week of vacation.  This happens to correspond with "bloody" Eid here, which is when cows, goats, and even camels are killed rather publicly as part of the day's celebrations.  So I'm not already disappointed to be far away sipping on wine and walking around European cities.

My two team members and I gave the presentation at the launch event, and we were all a bit nervous.  I was less nervous than I should have been because I'd spent the two days prior shuttling between different offices to get my visa extension finalized before leaving the country.  So I didn't really have time to freak out appropriately about public speaking.  My goal for the presentation was to be funny.  Content is overrated (and see, now that I'm an author and I've even SOLD a book for tk 685 (US $8), I can say that with great confidence).  I think I made three jokes, and I heard chuckles as a result of two of them.  Note: always try to plant a few easily-amused people in the audience.

Fazle Abed, the founder of BRAC who continues to be an amazing presence in our office today, kicked off our event by telling stories of innovation at BRAC.  One involved figuring out how to make the government vaccination program effective by creating a rural distribution network of functional cold chains. One huge discovery was that a peel from a ripe banana provided a perfect environment for the vaccine during transport.  And there are plenty of bananas here!  Simple, appropriate, effective.

The perfect analogy, in my mind, for was the Social Innovation Lab should be.  It's an ap-peel-ing image for such a fruit-ful opportunity, right?  Maybe we can make a mascot and get a costume.  Or just have a constant supply of banana bread in our office.....

With huge amounts of help from several people at BRAC and an inside hero at the visa office, I was granted another 335 days (now 331) in Bangladesh, with multiple exits, meaning that I can go to France AND get back into Bangladesh (sweet!).  Looking forward to making each one count.

Boi craziness

Jumping around like a crazy person at the amphitheater by Dhaka University
This was actually before the book came out, so I don't really have a good reason....

So, as of earlier this week, I am officially a published author!  I wrote a book!  How's that for awesome?  I didn't anticipate how excited I'd be, but when the first five copies showed up at our office, everyone started laughing at my giddiness.  There's something very satisfying about no longer saying "I'm writing a book," and instead being able to say, "I wrote a book."  Definite.  Done.  Shesh.  High five.

One of 25 copies in the world!

It's really fun to share it with everyone at BRAC and in Bangladesh.  I took it to North End the first night I had it, since 80% of it was written from the coffee bar there, it was only fitting.  They likely will sell it there too once we have more copies (Don't worry, I'll announce when these babies actually go on sale too...and no, I don't get royalties, at least on the first 1,000 copies)!  As I wander from floor to floor in the BRAC office, I carry it with me because finally I have a tangible thing that I did during my time here; people understand what it is I've been working on!  I took it to the guys helping me with my visa extension (yet again!) and said, "my full-time job was getting your government to let me stay in your country, and my part-time job was writing a book."  They agreed and said that next, I should write the book about writing the book.  Not a bad idea, actually, given all the characters it's involved.  And now that I've got one under my belt, can a second one be that hard?

Nothing special

So.....I am alive.....and I haven't forgotten that I have a blog. Bangladesh is not set up for single people--and I'd go ahead and extend that statement to say it's probably hard even for non-single people to get settled into a new place.  What I'd give for a target or even a walmart right now....
But, we're getting there!  This weekend, a friend (actually a bff) and I went down to Dhaka University for the last day of Puja, a big Hindu festival and then were killing time before we met a few other folks for a Tagore Indian/British cultural fusion (I know! Who knew the British had culture?!) by checking out Nil Khet, a street with lots of vendors selling books of all types and qualities.  Barack Obama's "Memories of my father" seems to be popular, along with Paulo Coehlo and english/bangla dictionaries (which sadly, if you can't read bangla, are useless).  Across the street, I spotted beds.  There is a place in the slum near my house that stuffs mattresses (right there on the road; I have walked past it many times without considering stopping) where folks recommended I go to buy a decent price mattress (since everything is imported here, it's really pricey and often not great quality).  Despite assurances from locals that there are no bedbugs in Bangladesh, I am skeptical that I really want a mattress made there, given the amount of trash that's also right there.  But these stores seemed like a step up, and the owners were quite professional, though my bff was a little uncomfortable with the insinuation that we were picking out a mattress together (I saw no reason to say otherwise, so just enjoyed it by dropping an occasional "honey" or "sweetheart" in there to make him blush). For a mere US $6, I could get it delivered to my place anytime after 10PM.  Sweet!  I bought a bottom cushion filled with fibers from coconut shells (how's that for tropical?!), a cotton mat to go on top of it, pillows of the finest, seedless cotton "available" (at that shop), and some ridiculously tacky Carolina blue sheets that have "Love love" and ying yangs and hearts on them.  Sometimes my sense of humor goes too far.  It's super comfortable though!  So, I'm now accepting guests.  Also, to anyone planning to move abroad into an unfurnished apartment (assuming you don't have "people" to take care of everything for you or a limitless expense account), bringing an airmattress with me was like the best idea I've ever had.  It made this transition infinitely easier.  Other things that I learned:
1.  You have a choice of currencies--if you don't want to spend crores of taka, you can choose other routes--asking favors, arguing for long periods of time, doing extensive research, etc.  I ended up choosing procrastinating and seizing opportunities.  And asking lots of favors (but trying to distribute them somewhat evenly among my social network, though people with cars inevitably have had to be more helpful).  I'm impressed at how helpful people are here.  Rarely have I really had to do something on my own.
2.  Although that brings me to my next point: how you frame things is really important to not going crazy.  Running errands here sometimes feels like a fool's mission.  I tried to get a (friend's) USB modem (on loan) activated so I'd have internet at home, but they said I needed a letter of authorization because it was in his name.  This was after waiting for an hour.  So then I went to the hardware store that copies keys and has a good reputation (evidently there is a concern of an extra copy being made if you go somewhere else).  Unfortunately computerized keys, which are more secure, are surprise, more difficult to copy, and this hardware store's machine was out of commission for at least another week.  So two hours into running errands, I'm still at square 1.  Turns out most of my friends giving me a hard time about how long it's taking me to get settled have outsourced all these tasks (outsourcing of the outsourcing, woah)!  Part of me is tempted to do that, but honestly, these are EXPERIENCES.  This is why I'm here, tai na?  To see what life is really like here.  And, I am getting a lot of free bangla practice in these exchanges, not to mention, practice negotiating, which I need almost as badly as bangla practice.  So I've decided that instead of calling it "errands," I'm calling it collection of writing material and language class.   At no cost, really.  Pretty sweet deal.  I did end up using one of these not so legit key makers that i found in a parking lot.  Uncomfortable with me breathing over his shoulder as he worked, he produced a key for me that so barely resembled mine I was 99.9% convinced it wouldn't work.  I pointed at him a lot, got him name, and threatened to come back when it didn't work (he of course assured me that it would).  It did not work.  I had full intention of going back to get a "refund" or another key made or just practice yelling (useful, indeed), but my day got hijacked by chichu chichu (some things).  That night, i decided to try again, this time as if I believed that it would work. Amazing, the power of the placebo effect.  It did work.  So I have a spare key!  Useful if your as scatterbrained as I am and don't have anyone at home all the time, like everyone else does.
3.  Prioritize.  Having chairs on the balcony gave me a place to stomp to when things were particularly slow or frustrating (like when I got the fridge into the kitchen and the outlet didn't work!).  By your own list.  Others may not have seen a punching bag as the right starting point, but again, it made me happy.  I suggest trash cans, paper towels, insect killing things, and foods that keep (halloween candy--shesh!) around.  And don't neglect laundry!
But, readers, this story has a happy ending.  I'm sitting here, at my (donated) desk, using speedy internet (I went back and tried again, this time no letter required :), waiting for the tasty food that I just cooked to take for lunch tomorrow to cool a bit before I stick it in the (donated) fridge.  This is the first time I've really made more than pasta or oatmeal (or coffee with a tea strainer).  Slightly burnt but fairly caramelized onions meet okra and tomatoes, to accompany couscous and of course, dal (lentils).  I've missed my cooking, I realized today.  Not just the activity, but the taste.  My onions are pretty much that same overly crisp consistency here as they are at home, despite not adding butter (too expensive) or wine (too hard to find to waste on food!) to them as they cooked away.  I'm pretty satisfied with how my place is coming together.  It's more mine and reflective of my personality than anywhere I've been for a while.  Getting a few pieces of art framed (yeah, me! That's nesting!) that will only reimforce that.  It's still empty, but guess what, I don't actually need to fill a three bedroom house completely to live comfortably.  Having a soccer court in your living room is underrated.  I need a bookshelf, a table, and a place for guests to sit, maybe another little table for the balcony, but otherwise, I'm about settled in.  I figure if I wait long enough, people will move and want to get rid of things.  And I'll be waiting to pounce of them :)
So more to come.  I have a few new pictures to post, and news to share about life post book launch on October 27th.  Hoping to see the hard copy of the book tomorrow--we're waiting for the binding, and the length of time that requires depends on the weather.  These daily torrential rains are not helping!
A colleague sent me something he wrote with this quote that has me thinking:
a quotation from Shunryo Suzuki, a Japanese Zen master: “As a Chinese poem says, ‘I went and I returned. It was nothing special. Rozan famous for its misty mountains; Sekko for its water.’ People think it must be wonderful to see the famous range of mountains covered by mists, and the water said to cover all the earth. But if you go there you will just see water and mountains. Nothing special.”
Whenever I have "an awesome" day here, it's hard to figure out how to write about it.  Usually it's the little details, incidental pieces that are fairly meaningless to everyone outside of my little microcosm, that make it particularly significant.  My daily struggles here are certainly not extraordinary, but there are certainly moments when not feeling like Dhaka sucked me in and spit me out seems like a huge accomplishment, and one that results in seemingly overzealous pride/celebration.  And to be honest, this last week or so has been a continuous thread of "nothing special" but fantastic days.  With secret sources of intense pride (that will sound pretty ridiculous to you, I am sure).  For example, I will be so proud of myself tomorrow with my little packed lunch.   Almost as proud as I am that I bought a lunch box!  It's blue, with compartments, and made in Bangladesh!  Sweet!
My dad reminded me that I hit 10,000 days of life tomorrow.    How does one celebrate that?