Rain, Rain

Even though it's supposed to be the dry season right now, we've had a day or two of rain every two weeks or so. The downpour is deafening on our tin roof so between the cows, children, rain, frogs, snoring, and thunder so loud that it rattles my insides, I didn't get much sleep last night.

We slipped in a few hours of work today, but with all of our work sites reduced to soggy mudslips, there wasn't so much we could do. I wrapped up my assessments in the afternoon just as the sky darkened with a full gray cover, and made it back to the house as the first drops started to fall.

The sky took on an ominous pinkish brown tone, and water cascaded down. As I sat in an impromptu logistics meeting with Save the Children, we were no longer able to communicate because we simply couldn't yell above the din of the rain on the tin roof. Outside, the wind blew the rain against our windows, and we could see spindly coconut tree trunks waving wildly in the strangely glowing sky. Water pushed in through the window frames, pooled on the floor, seeped under the doors - it even worked its way through some of the screws on our 2-month old roof! Wind blew in through the rafters, the power went out, and we were left with flickery candles in our cold house.

This is a simple thunderstorm that wouldn't even rate on an actual hurricane scale; I can't imagine the power of a storm like Cyclone Sidr, the reason we're here.

Newsprint Entertainment

One unexpected perk at the HODR base is that we receive a daily English-language newspaper. The Independent features lots of articles about massive arms seizures (usually consisting of 2 grenades, one rifle, and 4 bullets or some similarly impressing stash), bird flu, dacoits, and more.

The writing is of debatable quality and I read it more for entertainment than to be informed. One of my favorite literary tools used by Independent reporters is the three-peat - using the same information in headline, lead-in line, and quote. It's a great way to pump up the volume on skinny articles.

A particularly entertaining recent example:

"Bangladesh is haven of corruption: ACC Chief

UNB, Dhaka
Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Lt Gen (retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury yesterday described the country as a haven of corruption saying that the vice has been the cause of miseries to crores of people.

'The country is now a sanctuary of corruption. It's corruption that causes miseries to crores of people,' he told a discussion..."

Hee.

Dinner with the DoD

An "Interagency Assessment Team" (IAT) comprised of the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense, USAID, and various branches of the armed forces has been stationed just north of us in Morrelganj for three weeks. They've been assessing and identifying small and large scale rebuilding projects they can help with in the area.

Marc struck up a dialog with them a few weeks ago, and we're helping them to implement a couple small projects in Rayenda and in Morrelganj. Right now, we're finishing up re-roofing a kindergarten school, starting on a Hindu temple, and about to start rebuilding a primary school, all with funding from the DoD. Hee! It just sounds funny to say that.

Working with "The Army Guys" (as we call them) has been fun, and they wanted to cook us dinner on Wednesday night as a thank you. We tried to let them off the hook by saying a box full of MREs* would suffice. They ended up sending over their cook to cook for us, with a truckload of produce and a woven plastic sack full of freshly butchered beef. Lovely and their cook banged out an awesome meal of pullao rice, salad, dahl, eggplant, curried vegetables, and beef. Yum!

The Army Guys joined us for dinner along with their two armed Bangladeshi escorts, who left their guns propped up unattended against our bunk beds when it was time eat. I spent most of the time talking with David, a Puerto Rican who is helming the team, and Harvey, who usually works at the Embassy in Dhaka. They were all really interesting, really nice. When the power went out, we all cranked our new Embassy-issue battery-free bulb-free hand-crank flashlights. While wearing Embassy hats and Embassy polo shirts, jotting notes in our new Embassy planners. Jk. Kind of.

In other news, the house internet has gotten a little bit faster! They must be repairing those underseas cables...

* MRE stands for "Meal Ready to Eat." It's how soldiers often eat out in the field, and it's how HODR volunteers ate lunch in Biloxi, MS. Entrees such as "No. 14 Pasta Primavera" and "N0. 08 Beef Stew with Vegetables" come neatly packed in an indestructible plastic pack along with a heating unit (just add water!), a dessert ("Fudge Brownie" is my favorite, although "Pears" is nice too), some beverage powder (I usually get something like "Grape Flavored Drink"), snacks (crackers with peanut butter or cheese spread, sometimes cheese with jalapenos even, or maybe mysteriously crunchy potato sticks), and then utensils, matches, tiny bottles of Tabasco, a napkin, more packaging and more packaging, etc. One complete MRE actually has something like 3000 calories, which makes sense if you're out in the field. I find that they're best enjoyed when shared between 3 or 4 people, and when you don't read any of the ingredient lists (the packaging is completely covered with a list of ingredients, half of which seem to be preserving agents, and the MREs themselves last a decade or something ridiculous). After two months of eating rice and mushy curried vegetables every day, they are a treat!

On the meds

I've finally been felled by spectacular diarrhea - not bad, considering I've been trotting pretty dirty parts of the world with very little incident. I also have a headache, alternating fever and chills, and a little queasiness in my stomach. After a five minute consult with a local doctor, I was prescribed Azithromycin.

Azithromycin's side effects are diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain, and vomiting. Great. So I still have the same symptoms, but good to know that it's simply because the meds are working. The meds are working!

Lofts, Misti, and more

I've been back in Rayenda for a week and it feels like I never left!

New people came (Ken, Lenka, Sarah, Whitney, Alan), some people left (Bob, Lenka), and Marc is off in Nepal for his own visa run/break adventure.

We've added two lofted sleeping spaces to our base, which are actually quite fun and sturdy. I think everyone will take a turn sleeping up there at some point. Ken sawed off the freshly nailed railing on one though, so that his feet can stick out when he sleeps. (Loft = 6', Ken=6'+)

We've finished 3 HODR Halves, and had a small celebration with the community on Thursday night. We bough a couple kilos of misti (sweet, doughy balls saturated with syrup, covered with sugar, dipped in syrup, sprinkled with more sugar, etc.) and Sprite (we decided to forgo the local lemon lime soda "Fizz Up" and go with something more familiar, and palatable). Pack about 50 screaming, amped-up-on-sugar children and camera phones into a room, and you end up with a party where everyone is sweaty and flushed, yet no one is drinking.

There's also an new trio of projects (2 schools and 1 Hindu temple) to re-roof/re-build! This is in collaboration with the "Interagency Team West." That vaguely translates to the US State Department, Department of Defense, US AID, and some US Army support. Random! It's a group of guys with varying specialties who have identified a range of small and large projects in this area. Who is the perfect partner for small project implementation?

Before he left, Marc and I took a leisurely bike ride out to one of the IAT-West school sites. Our bikes are some mix of Bangla and Chinese parts, assembled into a Mary Poppins-esque ride where you sit extremely upright and wobbily steer the handlebars at about hip level. Somehow the Bangladeshis look completely normal riding these beasts, yet we look completely ridiculous. They come with a cheery little bell, which is fun. Unfortunately, the bell covers, pedals, and various bolts and screws seem to rattle loose and then fall off as you ride.

The chocolate chip pancake also made a return this morning, since Sarah packed a bag of chocolate chips all the way from New Zealand.