What? TWO BLOG ENTRIES?!!

Yes friends and fiends, behold! Such was my enormous guilt at having left it a month and a half since my last entry, I decided to write two at once in order to make it up to you, my avid and cherished readers. Thus this one whatchyoornowreadin'innit deals with a day trip we took from Dhaka some time back in.... November. Yes, I'm afraid so, I'm that far behind. But I AM making the effort now, honest. The second post, below this one, details the volunteers' social exploits over yuletide...oohhh, the anticipation!

This post will show you a bit more of rural Bangladesh, which is far more representative than the city scape of Dhaka covered in this blog up until now. Our day trip was down south, to a place called Potuokhali. It only lasted a couple of days but it gave us a great chance to see what placements are actually like. We had as our guide a lovely Phillippino volunteer called Rhori. She has oodles of experience from being Executive Director of her own NGO back in the Phillippines and she pulled no punches in describing the poverty she encountered while doing her job.




On our way to Potuokhali we had to cross the mighty Dharmaputra river. This huge body of water is, in it's own right, a major reason the Mughals took a while to subjugate all of the Bengal region. Traffic on the river varied in size from fairly substantial ferries to myriad fishing boats like one above. We wished the passenger ferries were slightly more numerous - we waited four hours in our bus before we could board one!







As I said in the beginning blurb, the above are more typical scenes of Bangladesh than the Dhaka city-scapes.

As part of our orientation, we were taken to a couple of villages where Rhori's Community Based Organisation (CBO) works. Project Officers acted as intermediaries between ourselves and the villagers.




The guy in the bottom right is the project officer. Through him, the women of the village told us about how lack of sanitation is the key problem for them, as well as lack of access to education. The men of the village were all working in the fields at the time of the meeting. It was a moving experience if for no other reason than because the entire community was gathered in the centre of the village to speak with us.




A final shot of one of the local rivers at dusk. Compared with the colossal Dharmaputra, this 'river' isn't much to write home about. The reason I am writing home about it is really just pity. Because no one else is going to. Because it really isn't anything to write home about....stop writing now? Yeah, you bet.

All my love guys, and I'll write again soon (probably).

Scanta Claus is coming to town...

Oh yes, merry merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.

But not in Bangladesh...oh no. In Bangladesh, Christmas is just another day. Bangladeshis get the day off, which is nice, but apart from that, there is absolutely NO significance to the date of December 25th - none. Well, imagine what our intrepid band of god-fearing volunteers thought of that. We thought 'bollocks to that young fella milad, we want our hollow and debased exercise in rabid, whorish commercialism draped in the soiled, ragged, torn remnants of what once was an honest religious sentiment'. Well, I thought that...ahem.

So, step 1: download 'Now that's what I call Xmas 2006' - essential. Now everything can be done to the sweet accompaniement of the Pogues' Fairytale in New York, Kylie Mingogue's 'Santa Baby'...we even had Aled Jones' 'Walking in the Air'. Genius.

Step 2: acquire booze...lots and lots of booze. Me and Keith spirited ourselves to the government depot where we stocked up on five crates of larger, plus white wine - YES, WHITE WINE!!!! MUTHA-FLIPPIN' WHITE WINE!!! The first such golden deliciousness to pass our lips in many a month. It was the equivalent of Bangla-own liebfraumilch (translation - loveladymilk for those non-german speakers among you) but it still tasted soooo good.

Step 3: acquire CHEESE...and other food we don't have regular access to (but mainly CHEESE). YES, CHEESE!!!!! MUTHER-FLIPPIN' CHEESE. It tasted like it had been churned from milk teased lovingly from the nipples of Christ himself. So good, it deserves to be only written in capital letters.

Step 4: purchase materials for the manufacture of makeshift santa claus outfit.

No doubt at this point, many of you are wondering which of us would dream of manufacturing a makeshift santa claus outfit to wear on christmas day? Well, keep reading and that mystery will be revealed.

Christmas eve we had a decoration party to transform the induction flat into a seasonal grotto of justice. This included a mini-christmas tree from keith's family - awesome. And there was drinking, plus a few carols. None of us could remember the words so there was some great improvising, plus lots of 'dur dur durrring'.

Christmas day began with a lovely brunch, complete with CHEESE!!!! It was after the CHEESE, at about two in the afternoon, that Keith and myself judged it a propitious time to begin drinking.
Then, as guests began arriving, I donned my red apparel (stitched by my own fair hand), cotton-wrapped wire beard, red hat and my red chinese t-shirt. Scanta Claus (aka Banter Claus) had arrived.

Thankfully, my rucksack was red. This facilitated a process where guests sat on Scanta's knee and, provided that they had been good girls and boys, they were rewarded with their heart's desire from my big sack...as long as their heart's desire happened to be a can of luke warm heineken.

Queue lots of dancing and cavorting. Excellent stuff all round. And below is some documentary evidence:




The beard in all it's magnificence. To those of you who reckon it's in my mouth and are asking yourselves 'what kind of spaz makes a beard that winds up in his mouth', fuck you, that's who.




Scanta Claus dishes out the booze to the masses...




...before taking a crafty sip himself. A straw would have been a good move.




Old Banter Claus with Job - the beard looking decidedly frayed.




And now it's just a farce...a god damned farce!!!!




A bit of a hazy one of the party in full swing - whoever took this may, MAY, have been drinking...ahem.




Compulsory pout - Laura wins best Zoolander 'Magnum' look. I opted for Blue Steel myself.

So that was Christmas - all in all, we made it happen against great odds and, with all due respect to the centuries-old religion of peace that predominates in Banglaland, everytime the azaan sounded, interrupting my beloved Pogues, I was driven to scream 'you can shove your call to prayer up your arse!', a regrettable outburst for which I apologise.

Much love all!