We woke up to the sound of our doorbell ringing and Niru at our doorstep! She wanted to know what we wanted for breakfast, but we were only looking for some toast and fruit- nothing too special. Niru got to work in the kitchen using boiled then filtered water to wash the fruit with a Clorox solution! She sliced up fresh mango, oranges, and grapes. We have a dinning room table for 6, but Sav and I feel right at home with a beautiful flower centerpiece the school gave us with orange flowers (daisies?). Believe it or not, I have been enjoying hot tea in the morning and the wide variety of fruits so far! I’ve only been here a few days, and I’m already changing! ;) At school we had a few important meetings about household help and a health briefing (which left me suddenly feeling all sorts of symptoms to all kinds of diseases) before heading to the American Club for lunch. Hello BBQ and veggie pizza, salad and carrot cake! We ate on the patio next to the (incredibly refreshing looking) pool. I thought I was supposed to be getting skinny in this place- not with all the delicious meals around!
After lunch, we split into 2 groups and went shopping in the city! There are SO many people. People standing, squatting, sitting, begging, and staring, but mostly begging and staring. It is an innocent sort of stare that shows how curious the Bangladeshis are about what we are doing here. We went to a grocery store called Lavender’s and picked up toilet paper (which ended up being pink and very rough- #fail), Lizol (a lemon-scented cleaner) and a few other things we thought would help Niru make the our home nice and clean! Next, we headed to a cell phone store where I got the latest and greatest up to date cell phone. Not. But, who cares- it just needs to make phone calls and send texts!
Phones here are so cheap! It cost about 25 dollars and then making calls is about 10 cents a minute- totally reasonable. A few stores later, I was exhausted and wanting to rest… but orientation week does not allow it! We headed home to unpack our treasures and then Jamal was calling up to us to let us know he was here! Jamal is our driver- he is great and always on time. He drove us to Caroline’s (the elementary principal) house which is incredible! She has a 2 story apartment and it is like a museum. She used to live in Africa and has spent a lot of time collecting trinkets from all sorts of exotic places. Her cat was entertaining (I wish I had snagged a photo because he looks like he might be a mix between a Bengal tiger and a Persian).
We had a delicious meal (by candle light because the power went out) of traditional Indian foods. [The power goes out every day here. The city can’t supply power to everyone all the time, so there is a kind of schedule when you lose it. It is typically only out for an hour at a time, but we have generators that run 1 light and the ceiling fans in the rooms at our places]. After dinner, Savanna and I had Jamal take us to the Australian club to meet up with her mentor teacher and her husband for some celebratory Australian champagne. The Australian club seems really fun, but non-members are only allowed on Thursday nights! Again, we passed out before our heads hit the pillows once we got home.
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