If I had 10 taka for every time I sat down to write a blog post...

... I could take a rickshaw all the way to Virginia... & BACK!

Here is a photo montage of my life (as this seems to be what my blog has been reduced to).

ENJOY!!

First night in India for Discovery Week Trips! We masking taped the doors so the students didn't try to sneak out and play spin the bottle in the other rooms :) 

We flew into Delhi and then embarked on a 12 hour bus ride to Himachel Pradesh for camp! (This is not the bus we took... this is one of the tuk tuks- they are all decorated like this! Can you imagine driving down 64 and all the 18-wheelers being hand painted?)

A view of one of the small towns we drove past while driving up to Northern India- you can see the Himalayas in the background! 

High School Students = Junk Food Hoarders.  We had them turn in all their junk food when we got to camp because food in the tent might attract wild dogs, or lions or tigers or BEARS!

Once we made it to Camp Junga, we settled into our cozy tents and had warm chai overlooking the Himalayan foothills! 

A view of our kitchen/eating area.  There are tarps down on the sides in an effort to keep the "cold" out. (It generally didn't.) 

These are the 8 kids I was in charge of and their Camp Junga leaders! Here we went on a little adventure to the edge of a valley to learn how to properly read a map.

It was perfect timing for me to sneak off and snap a pic of the gorgeous sunset.  

After a FREEZING night in our tents, it was time to pack the backpacks with all the essentials and set off on the adventure quest.  Tinni tries to flash an encouraging smile my way...

The sun is out and Team Ninja is ready to begin (what should have been a 3-hour trek) our adventure to the top of a nearby mountain!

There were 3 groups total and we were the first to embark on the mission.  Everyone is packed up and ready to study the map and decide which way is north and where the heck we are going to camp. 

HELLO BLUE SKY!!!! I've missed you! The fresh, clean, crisp air was worth the entire trip.

The junior girls took the leadership position as the rest of our group struggled to keep up! 

A few wrong turns (on non-existent trails) caused us to end up off course and feeling defeated. 

It felt a little like Virginia with all the pine trees :) But there were also random cactuses and monkeys (not so VA-esque) 

All decked out in my trekking gear (thanks to Nadine!) and posing here after our much needed lunch stop.

Hibiscus is the national flower of Nepal! There were tons of them growing here and our guides told us we could eat them if we wanted! I didn't want to, though.

After an almost 7 hour trek, we reached the "x" on our map and set up camp. The girls and I put up the tents, while the boys set off looking for firewood and preparing dinner!

After a nutritious meal of chai and ramen, we gathered around the campfire to warm up and roast 'mallows. It was FREEZING!

When Tinni and Julia went to go pee in the woods in the morning, they were interrupted by a loud "MOO!" They screamed and ran back to camp with their new friends in tow.

We returned to camp and tried to warm up by this: the worst fire ever.

The kids did a bonding activity where they made puppets and put on shows one night.  It was really weird.

Successful campfire! We let the students break into their junk food stash so we could have marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers! YUM!

One day Stella, Shaundele and I broke away from the students and explored some of the nearby towns.  The first stop was a temple. I took at least 4 pictures here trying to get the cutest puppy in the entire world to pose for me.

The temple was on top of the mountain! It had just started to snow when we arrived. We had to take off our shoes and climb 2 dozen stairs to reach the top. We looked like crazy Americans hopping from one foot to the other, worried about losing toes to frost bite and trying to take pictures of everything while others peacefully prayed.

The next stop was a palace-now-made-hotel in Chail.  This is the maharajah's room! He had 365 rooms in his palace for his 365 wives (one for each night).

On the way to Shimla, we passed through a small touristy town where people were climbing on horses to ride up to a temple in the mountain (only accessible on horseback?).  The snow + mud combination made for a very unhappy looking group (horses and tourists included)

I <3 Himalayan Snow! (especially now where the 10 day forecast reads nightly monsoons with highs in the upper 90s)

Yaks on the side of a snowy road.

When we reached Shimla, we bought umbrellas (it is at a lower altitude so it was raining here) and ducked into a street vendor for a hot coffee.

Stella zipping up after our coffee at the "Fast Food" joint

Monkeys, monkeys, everywhere!

A view of the upper half of Shimla.  Most towns in this part of India looked like this: shacks on top of shacks on top of shacks. And directly on top the shacks? That is where you park your car.

We made it back to camp just in time to catch a local mountain band!

All 25 kids! We made it in and out of India (even with a number of serious visa issues).  They loved the week and enjoyed the fresh air since we aren't getting very much of it here.

I would pay a lot of money for a large skinny vanilla latte right now. I miss the Delhi airport.

Some of the girls posing with "Flat Vicky"- a project I am helping one of Veronica's Italian students complete.

Mardi Gras Party in Dhaka! We got dresses made and our faces painted for the occasion!

My dress was functional as it doubled for a St. Patrick's Day outfit the following week!

Rocking our costumes that won "best group costume" award at our first party!

Trying to blend in at Rooftop Party #2 (not themed)

Rooftop Party #3: Carnival Themed!

Chatting it up with Professor Yunus (http://www.muhammadyunus.org/) when he came to speak at our Yunus Day at AIS/D.  He and I started off with some light conversation about world peace and ending poverty. All in a day's work.

He is so kind, humble and peaceful. No wonder he won the Nobel Peace Prize (first Bangladeshi to do it, ever!)

Here I am, entertaining him with my many hilarious jokes.

What's next? The entertaining story of what happened my last 24 crazy hours in India, and how I almost got to spend an extra weekend in the country being entertained by one of India's princes.

Semester Two Update!

Semester 2 has been go-go-go! I am now working in only English classes in the high school and it has been a bit of an adjustment! That doesn't mean I have been living a boring life, though.  Dhaka winter has a lot of great things going for it: cool weather, little-to-no power outages, themed dance parties, travel opportunities, and the WORLD CUP of Cricket!

Bangladesh in the news:

I experienced my first earthquake! It was pretty scary.  Savanna and I were watching TV in our living room, when everything started to shake and rattle.  I could see the apartment swaying as we made eye contact and silently waited until it was over to start to panic and yell.  I quickly grabbed my cell phone and called a few teachers until we got a hold of someone to confirm what we had just experienced: a pretty serious earthquake! There was a smaller one the following week, but I was on a rickshaw heading back from laying out at the Canadian Club, and didn't feel it! Here's some info on the first one: Earthquake Article

WORLD CUP MANIA! Dhaka has been counting down and preparing for the world cup for months now.  Before Christmas, I started seeing some signs of the upcoming cricket frenzy.  Large cut outs of the elephant mascot were stationed around the city to get people excited about the upcoming matches.





In addition to these, the airport got entirely redone: new tile floors, freshly painted walls, strange lifelike models of tribesmen making pottery on mudbanks, and cricket paraphernalia around every corner.

cricket poster outside of our gate at the airport

even the walkway to the airplane was WC themed

All of the medians in the streets were decorated with posters, twinkle lights, and cut outs of birds and flowers of Bangladesh!

This week, Bangladesh made it in the news for something negative I'd like to counter.  It was ranked 2nd worst city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit. I'd like to say: Watch this video! It doesn't exactly focus on Dhaka, but check out the great things, or as the slogan says, the "Beautiful Bangladesh" that is out there!

Finally, to really get a true picture of how Dhaka has been transformed for the better by a few weeks of hosting the World Cup here, read this article from ESPN.  Thompson has a nice way with his words to try to grasp the picture of the Dhaka spirit. While it is impossible most of the time to truly describe the things that happen here, he gives you another way to see "Beautiful Bangladesh".

Ok- enough legit current events.

How about the current events of my life (in photo montage)!

Epsom salt Bangladeshi Version. Dyed my foot purple for a whole day after use. 

New Super fun roomie: Kajori! She moved in a few weeks ago and is working as the Elementary Intern.  

I volunteered at the Elementary School Track and Field Event.  First, I volunteered saying I would only help if there was a running backwards race (go ahead, picture it and laugh), but I got assigned javelin throw. Some of the kids were definitely on 'roids cause they threw twice, some times three times as far as I could. (or maybe I have never been good at sports that didn't involve choreographed movements)

My form was at about this level.

Scene around the corner from school and near my apartment. There is a construction site behind the brick wall and, yes, a man carrying live chickens by their feet in the foreground.

The flowers are SO beautiful right now! Some of them are a foot in diameter, I swear! This one is outside of the gate to our apartment. 

We celebrated Kelly's birthday on the rooftop at the ARA with the karaoke machine.  It was AWESOME! 

80s Dance Party at the BHC with the girls! (This was a few hours post earthquake, but that didn't stop us from having a good time!)

Funkadelic Party a few streets down from our place! 

We had another Service Learning Day at school, and I traveled with my group to Apon.  Here, Barry is interviewing these children who have been rescued from the street.  They are sharing their horrific stories of drug addictions and suffering they experienced before coming to live in Apon.

Breaking the language barrier with a game of rock, paper, scissors.

At the gate ready for a long weekend getaway with Savanna to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! 

The most delicious dumplings I have ever experienced. We ate here twice while in KL. It was worth the plane ride just for this scrumptious treat! 

We did everything we wanted to get done in KL: sunbathed (this is a view from the pool on our hotel rooftop), drank starbucks, and shopped! 

Ok, yes we also went to a club.

We got up early and made it to the KL twin towers by 9:30am and the tickets for the walkway were already sold out! Oh, well- at least I snapped this pic!

What to expect in the next blog post? I am heading to the Himalayan Mountains of India on Friday with 25 high school students for Discovery Week.  Think warm thoughts for me and keep your fingers crossed I can successfully pitch my tent, pee outside, build a fire, and purify my own water.  On second thought, tomorrow I'll look into seeing if Misti can come along...