Bangla Chronicles - Day 1

We made it to Bangladesh this morning at 6:15 am. I have to say, I felt like I was arriving into Bombay airport; the same look, feel and even smell…that smell of moist air inside a damp building.

However, unlike Bombay airport immigration and customs went real smooth, in fact so smooth that the customs guys were drinking chai in one corner not bothered about passengers leaving or entering the airport building.

OMG…. another reason why I felt like I was home was because of the roads, the people, the cars, buses, trees all lined in the same way, traffic maneuvering the same way, double decker buses made by the same company as in Bombay; everything’s the same except the language.

My teammate Angelina on the other hand is meeting her first challenge, the HEAT. It was 6am and the captain on the British Airways flight declared that the outside temperature was 23C, which is like 86F…yes can you imagine temperatures above 80F and its only 6am. She’s already drinking tons of water, getting paranoid. She’s asking around the IDE staff about malaria, Internet access, electricity, etc. It is interesting to observe someone asking a lot of questions, trying to cover their bases when they are not local to a region. Me on the other hand, I feel like I know this place already. Let’s see how long this feeling will last for me…lol.

Our first interaction with the IDE staff and I’m already worried. Information is being thrown at us, suggestions are being made and judgments are being passed. I’m feeling the pressure of heeding to their statements instead of focusing on what our team needs to achieve. On this first day I realized something that I had forgotten about that is people in the developing world have strong opinions that can alter your thoughts and plan. Our goal now is to stick with what we believe in and to achieve what we came out to do here.

Our first task will be to organize ourselves, plan our trip and share this schedule with the IDE staff.

In case if you're curious to know where I am exactly...here's a link to the map.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=115636423745751691386.00044dcca19d1db4ecaca