lazy friday

well today it was 42 C with 99% humidity. The best way to describe the Bangladeshi climate is there are two seasons in Bangladesh, dry underwear season and wet underwear season. we are now in the wet underwear season. This was a photo was taken 50 ft from our Mission in 2005 when I first arrived here in Bangladesh

The monsoon season is coming and the heat is creating a burden on an already crippled power grid. We have alternating power cuts every hours and sometimes we are with out 3 to 4 hours and sometime as long as 8 hrs. We have a generator which supplies partial power to our apartment.

Bangladesh is the size of new Brunswick but with the population of 150 million people and Dhaka has 15 million people with very little infrastructure (Roads, water, sewer etc,,) coupled by the mass migration of the rural population to the city which is constantly increasing This place will be in trouble when global warming starts sinking this country and it doesn't help that past and current governments have been so corrupt.

Mark

explorers

Erin class has been working on explorers. They had the usual suspects Columbus, Marco polo, Magellan etc..

Erin chose an obscure anthropologist by the name of Sue Hendrickson. She discovered the most complete skeleton of a T Rex while excavating in North Dakota

Erin had to give a presentation to her parents and then to her classmates and other teachers

She did a wonderful job. - Mark

the long journey home

Karen and Erin ordered some clothes from sears. Well the diplomatic bag arrived last week and most of the clothes Erin purchased on line at sears were manufactured here in Dhaka.

There is a huge garment industry. Clothes are very cheap if you don't mind the ambiance of buying them on the open market.

Mark

TV IN BANGLADESH

TV in Bangladesh is somethings that is worth writing about. When I got here 4 years ago there were very few alternatives for watching TV. Now TV has stoop to a new low. We get shows like different strokes (now we are dating ourselves), murder she wrote,season one of Seinfeld( I hated Seinfeld back in civilized world, I despise it even more) 24 hrs cricket (snooze!!!!!!) - Mark

SIGNS SIGNS EVERYWHERE A SIGN

These are a couple of signs hung near our apartment. We thought they were pretty funny. I am not sure what audience they are trying to target. We come across these things on a regular basis, but rarely have the camera with us at the time.

Karen

cows, cows everywhere a cow

every day in Bangladesh, there are always surprises.

lately, outside our apartment a couple of cows have been finding there way by the entrance to our parking lot. The bedroom is located above the vehicle entrance. so now we are serenaded by cows everyday and at night.

The local rich people that live in our neighbourhood always have parties. Normally 3 day before the party or wedding a petting zoo (yes the kids of the rich visit the animal) is set up and all you hear for 3 days is goats, chickens, roster and cows. Later as macabre as this sound the petting zoo is turned into the buffet line. - Mark