Fabulous

The last week has been pretty fabulous...

I'm house/dog sitting for a fabulous US Embassy employed family in their fabulous house in the fabulous neighborhood of Baridhara. It's the diplomatic enclave. Yes, I do feel guilty at times sitting in my air conditioned bungalow watching movies on cable and eating pasta (hard to find here), but I see it as a way to "ease" myself into the developing world life style. Plus it's only for a week. It's funny how we in the US take things like safe tap water and springy matresses for granted.

I had a few friends over (10 actually) and we had a great time Saturday night. There was a "hartal," or general strike the next day, so none of us had work the next day (work weeks are Sun.-Thurs. here since Friday is the day of prayer). It was fantastic, coffee, bagels and all.

This week I'm excited to start my project. I met with the director of BRAC's Research division, and I will be doing some exploratory research on expanding an existing gender equality "training class" into the so-called 'ultra poor' populace. It will require creativity, hard work, and the best part---plenty of time in the villages! Yay, I'm so excited I can hardly contain my geeky self. I'm doing background research and drafting up a proposal this week.

Well, I should get cracking on the research. I will post again soon. I'm going to be just across the Indian border in Calcutta next week for "Durga Puja," the yearly Hindu Bengali celebration of the warrior goddess. It's like the Mardi Gras of West Bengal.

Until then,

TKP