Guest Blogger

I told Dad that if he wanted to, he could write a blogpost about his trip for everyone to enjoy! So here it is :) 

Dearest Diane and Savanna,

We are so grateful to you and your fellow American International School/Dhaka teachers for showing us such warm hospitality during our recent visit to Dhaka.  I felt quite honored that you all would gather together with lots of prepared food and drink at Lauren's apartment for a welcoming cocktail party.  You are very fortunate to work with such a talented and worldly group of professionals.  As you father, I hereby instruct you to maintain contact with all of these people for the rest of your life!  We feel especially fortunate to have met Briana Wilson. Bree, you are  truly  an inspirational traveler, committed to spreading good will wherever you land.  I look forward to following your life course and hope to meet you along the trail elsewhere at other times.  Diane, I know I keep telling you how proud I am of you and your decision to work in Dhaka.  Having visited you and experienced first hand the nature of life in Dhaka, I must add that I believe this experience will shape you in positive ways forever and enhance your professional prospects immeasurably.  Any time any prospective future employer sees that you spent time working as an intern in Dhaka, the message they should see is "This is a person who has courage, is willing to work hard, and has paid their dues".  Thank you for taking me on a tour of your school. We are also so glad to have met Mr. Mark Condon, your mentor.  The level of intellectual talent at your school is impressive, and a credit to the entire AIS system. Savanna, I will always remember your class room and the highly intellectual challenge you posted for your students to think about the cultural, religious,economic, and political vestiges of Empire.  All seventh graders do well to consider these questions as we prepare them for a life in the international community that will dominate their generation.  

Dhaka certainly is a difficult environment!  Moving from one place to another requires coordination, planning, and assistance from local persons knowledgeable of traffic and road layouts.  I can hardly believe that my little Diane is driving a car in Dhaka with skill, patience, and the appropriate level of aggressiveness necessary to get anywhere.  As Mom can attest, simply crossing a road can be life threatening.  So be careful out there please and thank your regular drivers for us please.  Since returning several people have asked, "What is it like in Dhaka?"  I tell them that it is very difficult to fully express in words that the city is truly like, because to fully understand Dhaka, one must smell it, touch it, hear it, and see it.  I try to explain that the air and water are sadly polluted, and that great masses of people live in dire poverty, on the streets lining virtually all roads, but there is also a fine quality of hard work valued there and each day I saw workers performing skilled labor without regard for their safety or health, but with a commitment to get the job done.  I will not forget the two men who were charged with tearing down a 17 story building that had become unsafe.  They simply climbed to the roof, armed with heavy sledge hammers, and began knocking down the building from the roof down. Nor shall I forget the man who carried a large bamboo ladder and leaned it up on the mass of electric wires, climbed up, skillfully picked out the faulty wire, performed the repair, climbed down, then moved his ladder another twenty feet down the line and did it all again, for hours and hours.  There is only one word to describe my feelings for the many hard working people of Dhaka:  Respect!  I also noticed a genuine happiness expressed by many Bengali people towards me for simply visiting their country.  They were genuinely glad to see that I chose to visit their country and anxious to help me with anything I required.  We were also very lucky to have been in Bangladesh during a Hartal.  A national strike, called by the opposition party to protest perceived poor treatment of an opposition leader by the government.  It seemed to me that it was relatively non violent, and effectively shut down the country for an entire day.  I can't think of a comparative event in U.S. history, except for the afternoon of 9/11/01, when everyone just stopped doing everything for a day.  This however was an organized political protest, an educational experience for me. 

Since we were there during Eid, Diane and Savanna got a few days off work and we made it out to Chiang Mai Thailand for a few days of vacation.  Yet another amazing country.  This one more oriented to tourism.  I became accustomed to the traditional greeting "Seewadsee Ka" with hands folded and head bowed.  One notices that the people love to smile, and I made a point to check it out even when people didn't know they were being watched.  Thailand truly is a land of smiling people.  Chiang Mai is a fine place to branch out into the surrounding mountains where the Golden Temple is located, and filled with jade and gold statutes and gold structures that are unique in the world. The city itself is a filled with fun diversions, massage parlors, bars (sometimes in the same establishment), lots of restaurants and very low prices on everything.  Transportation is fun, plenty of cheap tuk tuks, tuk trucks, and cabs, scurrying about anxious to take us where ever we needed to go.  And of course the famous night bazaar, where negotiating skills are finely honed and worthwhile for the best bargains.  I have experienced the souks of Old Jerusalem and Cairo, and the negotiations at the Chaing Mai night bazaar rival those of the best souks in the world.  Not too many fine quality goods for sale however (my opinion), buts scads of stuff, lots of knock offs, and some rare art.  The highlight of our Thai trip was the Baan Chang Elephant Park.  We arranged a trip through the hotel concierge and he understood that we wanted a humane facility.  Our driver and guide for the day, Pon, was an outgoing and informative and stayed with us through the entire day.  He explained that the concept of this farm was to rescue elephants and show them that humans can treat them with compassion care for their health, and introduce them to other humans who care about their health and well being.  We began with an orientation by the owner of the farm (also named Pon) who explained that he has a self sustaining farm with banana groves, and bamboo trees, and plenty of natural elephant foods carefully grown on his farm and that his 13 elephants are voracious consumers of the food he has.  He explained that at least 80% of his income goes directly into the growth, medical care, and feeding of the elephants. He currently has two pregnant elephants requiring careful medical monitoring from a specialists who basically is flown into the farm and spends several months with the elephants till they give birth.   We learned that the first born elephant is at great risk of death at the hands of her mother.  The mother only knows that this thing has caused her great suffering and pain and she sees it first as an enemy to be destroyed.  Two things must happen to prevent this, one a skilled doctor and staff must promptly separate the baby from the mother and clean her up so the mother can see that this thing is actually a little elephant, and secondly, the other female elephants in the heart move in to corral the mother away from the baby to prevent her from killing her young one.  The mother eventually realizes that the source of her pain and suffering is her baby, and begins the loving and nursing process, helped along by the entire herd.  We donned the special elephant "juniforms" which were infused with the scent of many prior elephant riders and carried a distinctly wild animal scent recognized by the elephants as the scent of a person who is going to feed them and treat them kindly.  It worked.  We approached the elephants early in the morning with buschel  baskets of freshly grown bananas and conducted their morning feeding.  They and we enjoyed this exercise to the fullest. Our group of 5 people feed all 13 elephants.  Pon told us that these elephant would now remember us for at least 5 years as a person who has done a good deed for them and they will recognize us should we ever return to visit.  Next we were given elephant riding instructions consisting of how to give proper commands for the elephant to lay down, stand, turn right, turn left, walk forward, and sit down.  Works like a charm.  We climbed on board and took off up a trail leading to the top of a mountain.  The two hour trip was rustic and bareback, the elephants were fairly complaint but occasionally wanted to taste the nearby brush, or wander into the woods to scratch their hides or poop in private.  Linda and I rode Bon Mor, a 35 year old Asian elephant with a kind and gently disposition.  At the top of the mountain we dismounted and allowed the elephants to wander around in their natural habitat for a while. The seemed to enjoy walking off into the rain forest and scratching their hides on the barks of tress, or occasionally pulling up a small tree and eating the leaves.  When called by their names, they lumbered back to where we were for the trek down the mountain.  At the bottom awaited their bath pond which they joyously tromped into with us on their back and began spraying us with water and baying loudly.  We dismounted in the water, grabbed a couple of brushes and scrubbed them down from head to tow.  One can tell a happy elephant by its eyes, when content, the semi close their eyes in the same way that a dog does when being scratched behind its hears, its quite a site.  These are gentle and kind animals and we are so relieved to see that the elephant tourism that is becoming a large part of the Thai economy has an element devoted to the humane treatment of rescued elephants.

Upon our return to Chiang Mai, we made arrangements to see Harry Potter 7 at the Major Cineplex.  English with Thai subtitles and sold out for every show on opening day a day before the rest of the world opening.  I need to go back and re-read the Deathly Hallows as I seem to have forgotten lots of details that are important in this move.

Our next day was major shopping in the night bazaar.  My major purchase was three hand made writing cards with art work hand drawn by the lady selling them.  I asked her to sign them and they will be framed art work in my house.  Bargain.  Linda and the girls scooped up all kinds of goodies at bargain prices.  We also managed to spend lots of time at our classy Le Meredien hotel pool and I found time for one of the authentic Thai massages that dot the cityscape of Chiang Mai  (about $12) for an hour and worth every baht.  We also enjoyed several very nice authentic Thai restaurants, again at unbelievably low prices.  Overall, a place that I would like to visit again, maybe the southern part where I hear there are some really nice sailing waters.

Linda headed off to London while Diane and I trekked back to Dhaka and I spent another day with her and Sav while I waited for an early a.m. flight to Doha and Dulles.  We also greeted Bree upon her return from Bhutan and saw her awesome pics of that trip.  Also a place I would like to visit.

Overall this is was the most educational and culturally enriching trip that I've had in many many years.  Have I mentioned how proud I am of Diane and Savanna?  Thank you again for hosting us and watch out for those rickshaws!

Love, Daddy