Finding Expats

I need to find some sort of routine for my blog, so I've decided that this will be the last unexpected time I will blog.  Also, due to many requests, I have changed the color scheme so that it is a little easier to read.  I hope it worked!  David and I have remained pretty sedentary since we STILL haven't started working.  But we have been out and about some.  Last Monday, David finally got the boxes his mom sent him, which was nice because not we finally have wireless!! It's not perfect, but it is definitely something.  I've been using Skype some, and it's been nice to be talking to some people back home.  We also visited the US Commissary, which has a grocery store with American products.  It was pretty sweet...I tried to get a membership, but it didn't work out because I didn't have the right forms.  But I did get some Morning Star veggie burgers, Philadelphia cream cheese, and some other stuff too.  

On Wednesday, we went out to buy David a yoga mat.  The store was in the Gulshan 2 circle, not very far away from us.  I wondered if we were getting ripped off, which we probably were.  i really need to work on my bargaining skills here.  Later that night, we went to dinner with Geoffrey at the American Club.  Harvey, a guy who works at the Embassy, came and joined us.  I really need to find new places to eat!  But the dinner was nice, and it was good to catch up with Geoff.  Thursday was pretty dull, but we did go up to the roof of our building and were able to see a great view of the city.  Also on the roof, someone has place lots of plants and flowers...it's like a garden.

On Friday, I received an email from Emily, a medical student who is here on a Fogarty Scholarhip.  I met her roommaate Ana (also a Fogarty Scholar), earlier in the week at the ARA.  Emily goes to Vandy for med school, and Ana at Tufts.  We will be meeting up with soon, hopefully.  David and I ordered pizza for dinner from a place called Spaghetti Jazz - it was decent.  Later, we were getting pretty restless, so we decided to call Catherine, one of the FSOs (foreign service officer) who works at the embassy, to see what she was up to.  Catherine is only two years older than us, and is fun to be around.  She told us about a party at Bagha, the British club.  She came and picked up; I was pretty amazed by how many expats were there.  We finally met a whole bunch of people out age who are working in Bangladesh for an extended period of time.  It was great just talking to people about what they are doing here.  What I did noticed is that everyone tends to have the same idea about Bangladesh: not the greatest place in the world, but you kind of just deal with it.  I really hope that by the time I leave here, I have a positive attitude about the country.  Everyone seems so negative to just neutral.  Regardless, I had a great time at Bagha, and I'm sure I'll be there again.

The next day I was feeling very tired all day and I didn't do anything productive.  David and I did finish watching the first season of the horror show Dexter, which I think will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.  I slept with all of my lights on.  On Sunday, I woke up absolutely sick.  It was my first time being sick here, which I guess was inevitable, but it was no fun.  It could have been worse, but I stayed in bed all day.  On Monday, I had to back to the doctor so she could check up on my rash.  When we got to the hospital, they told me I didn't have an appointment, and that I would have to wait for an opening.  Turns out, the doctor just hadn't come in yet.  So I waited for three hours, and she saw me for about....oh, 4 minutes.  That was a little annoying.  And, she prescribed me petroleum jelly.  Yep, Vaseline.  Because I didn't bring enough of it with me from home.  Oh I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but my rash from underneath my eye has spread sporadically over my body, which is not good.  So apparently Vaseline is the answer?  I don't think I'll be taking that advice.

I finally got my sponsor letter from IUB, so hopefully that means I'll really be working soon.  Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here, and I remember that I'm supposed to be research!  I really want to start working, but I guess it's not really up to me at this point.  Hopefully in the next week or to.  Definitely by the time Ramadan ends.  We shall see.