Purgatory...or just May in Bangladesh?

Hola...

Because the typical Dhaka May heat has started to rear its ugly head, I am sitting in this air-conditioned American Center library updating my blog. I had almost forgotten what air conditioning felt like. We have an ancient looking A/C unit in our apartment that looks like some kind of archeological find rather than a modern-day appliance. When we finally got the appliance store guys (Both Hindu and both ecstatic to find out that my roomate Manisha and I are Hindus as well...and unmarried! Hot double date Saturday night at the Shiva temple baby!) over to our place to fix it, they discovered that someone had acutally STOLEN the compresser unit from our roof. Oh. That explains it. Someone simply burgled a 10,000 Taka, 60-pound unit from right above our heads and nobody's taking any responsibility for it. That is soooo Bangladesh. I wish our building gaurds did something other than constantly ask for "boksheesh" (tips) and give us a hearty "salaam alekum"/salute us when we walk out the front gates. Seriously--one of the guys even stomps his boot and does a full military salutation, even when I'm just running to the corner store to get juice or something.

I got a ceiling fan in my room last week instead. It works well, and cools my room down 100%. I am a fan of the fan.

Anyway, I'll stop complaining. Will post later.

A Salaaaaaaaaaaam W'alekum. Boksheesh?

TKP