Calling home
So now we are in Bangladesh. It’s really impressive. I’m still a little bit jet lagged, but still: This comes next to stimulus overflow. That’s not meant to sound negative now, in the opposite. There is new, unknown and different things to discover around every corner. And the best is the people. Never in my life I’ve seen so many lovable and friendly people in one place (after all 130 million on 144,000 square kilometers).
Last night I went next door to get a pizza and while I was waiting, two Bangladeshis called me to their table, offered me their french fries, ordered a drink for me and wanted to know everything about me. And when I was about to leave after half an hour, they were almost sad, gave me their business cards and let me promise to visit them. And that’s not an single case here. I’ll have to buy an extra suitcase for all the business cards…
I need to wrap it up now, we have to go shopping. We couldn’t do it yesterday since there was Hartal, a politically motivated general strike organized by the opposition to demoralize the government. For a few hundred Taka (60 Taka is $1) they hire some poor devils who then roam around and demolish all open stores. Since people here are insured either unsufficient or not at all, they have no choice but closing up their shops although it does more harm then good to them. But the next post will be more detailed, and once we got accustomed, there’s much more to report anyway…
February 29, 2004