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!
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!
posted by Stefanie at 6:34 PM
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