Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Rice Paddy

Yesterday I served as "official rapporteur"--a fancy French way of saying note-taking-peon--for the BRAC Road Safety Conference. I sat scribbling notes furiously and awkwardly with my left hand for nearly four hours. Some of the session was in Bengali, so I had to use extra brain power to listen, translate in my head, then write it down in English. Thank goodness for my iPod voice recorder.

I was running late in the morning, so I skipped breakfast, overpaid a CNG driver to take me the less than 1 kilometer drive to BRAC, and arrived on the scene with wet hair. The session was supposed to start at 9:30, and at five to nine, people were still hanging banners, doing sound checks, drinking tea. I was one of the first people there. To top it off, one of the talking heads they asked to speak (The Minister of Some Bureau of "Daddy Got Me This Job" Affairs) was running an HOUR late because he "never wakes up before nine." So 100 people patiently waited until he and his entourage paraded in at quarter after ten. The whole room stood up and saluted in respect. I sat in the corner and mowed on some apple sauce I'd thrown in my backpack at the last minute.

The session went well overall, and I was shocked at my ability to stay awake through it all. The best part was the launch of these children's road safety cartoons that will air on Bangladesh National TV this month. It's so funny to me to hear cartoons in my native tounge. There was even this goat character named "Rinku" who bleated sayings about looking both ways before crossing the road. It's a good thing, too. The better the roads get in this country, the faster those homocidal bus drivers go. It's a game of vehicular Russian Roulette getting on a Bangladeshi bus.

Must run. English class at 3:00. Katie's leaving the country today, and the entire Nari Jibon office is in shambles. Everyone is sobbing, grabbing her arm, begging her not to go. Even people she doesn't know. It just confirms my theory that Bengalis are genetically over-emotional. If anyone tries that stuff when I leave, they'll get a stern "pull your self together man!"

toodles.

TKP