Here today, Ganges Tomorrow: Savanna's Bangladeshi Birthday

Jello shots at one of the houses!

Weekend of September 2nd-4th
Savanna's birthday weekend started off by all the newbie teachers getting to go on a house tour! We met in the main rotunda at school at 3:45, boarded a bus and set off to journey from Baridhara to Gulshan in hopes of finding some inspiration for our empty (but painted- yay!) walls. Everyone's houses looked so good and ready for entertaining! I guess that is one of the many benefits of having bearers- your house is nearly always presentable. We got some good decorating ideas (and good treats- drinks/apps) from our lovely hosts!

Squeezed in our first (and Bree's millionth) rickshaw!

We had to skip out of the last house in the tour to make it back to Wendy's boot camp class! Working out on a "Friday" burns twice the calories, I hear. Thursday night was pretty chill. We headed to the ARA and there was some awesome karaoke on the roof. And by awesome, I mean really weird Asian videos playing in the background of 80s/90s American classic song lyrics + Bangladeshi Americans singing their hearts out. We were quite entertained for a few hours and then realized that the entire work week was catching up to us and we wanted to head home for a movie night in our pjs. After piling in the car, we decided to first hit up Movenpick since we haven't stopped talking about ice cream for the past 40something days. However, the large crowd of young local men reminded us we were not appropriately dressed to be out in public, and we were forced to turn around and head home sans ice cream. Movie night failed when Bree and I both passed out from exhausted shortly after returning home.

Our view from the rickshaw

On Friday morning, we got up at a decent hour and donned some of Bree's shalwar kameezes! We had opted to have our first rickshaw experience in the comfort of Baridhara and to make it legit- wore the traditional clothing for Bangladesh. We headed to the gate and Bree taught us the fine art of getting a rickshaw. She yelled "HEY RICKSHAW" really loud down the street and one excited young man came peddling up full speed and stopped right at the gate of Dokhina. He tried to charge us 50 taka for our 10 street journey and Bree laughed in his face. We ended up settling on 30 taka which is still a rip-off for the short distance. Since there were 3 of us, and we are bigger than the average Bangladeshi woman, we decided we would settle on this price. We shoved ourselves in to the little carriage and off we went! It was quite fun and felt a lot like being pulled in a horse drawn carriage, except the horse is replaced with the skinniest man you can imagine. Once we got to Avera, we were pampered with mani/pedis and feeling like local royalty with our brightly colored SKs on.

Sav and our awesome new friend!

Post salon treatment, we picked up Melissa and went to the ARA to pick up our long awaited club cards. Over a month in Dhaka and they finally let us in to the fine establishment as true members. It felt great to scribble my member number on the tab and know I wouldn't have to think about the cost until the end of the month. I think that feeling will quickly disappear after my first bill, so I am cherishing it while it lasts.

To continue with our princess treatment day- we set up appointments for Ronjon to come to our house for massages in the evening. Everyone at school highly recommended him. He showed up at the door with a big smile on and a small bottle of massage oil. We moved a spare mattress into the living room, plugged the ipod into some speakers with calm music, and dimmed the lights to set the mood. Sav and I each got Swedish hot oil massages for over 1 hour and a half each! And it cost a whopping 700 taka (10 dollars!) It was a much needed stress/anxiety releaser for me. I was tempted to go ahead and set up a weekly appointment with Ronjon, but with the holiday coming up, decided to put it off for the time being.

Our server and his mosquito net

I made a quick batch of mac-n-cheese for dinner (so yummy!!!!) and then got ready quickly before our friends came over to help celebrate Savanna's birthday. After hanging out at home for a bit, we went to our standard stomping grounds- the ARA to bring in Sav's 23rd at midnight. There was a decent crowd of young people there and it was nice to see that there are people besides teachers who live in Dhaka. They were really fun and perhaps a little too fun, seeing as I didn't feel back to my normal self until a few hours before dinner the next day!

Dinner was a total success. Tracy and I made reservations at a Korean restaurant- Sura for 7 o'clock. We had a back room reserved and about 20 teachers came! Sav had a really good time, and it is just so great to get together with everyone in a non-work environment. The people at AIS/D are all so unique and have such incredible life experiences to share. I feel like I should walk around with a tape recorder most of the time so that I can make sure I remember all the specific details that people share with me about other parts of the worlds and things adventures have had. The food was yummy and made me think of Aunt Jina :) After dinner, we had cake (Bree and I made it!) and cupcakes and then opened presents at home.