Saturday, September 24, 2005

oo-att is yor name?

I'm so dumb for not thinking of this sooner: Type the blog post in Word while you're waiting for the sites to load and THEN copy and paste.

Finally went to Dhaka (the capital city) for a day and a half. Dhaka is the place where volunteers go to hang out, have American fun, buy stuff they need/want/crave, and occasionally engage in some form of debauchery. There is a Pizza Hut and a few other restaurants in that vein, and never have I tasted anything so wonderful as this. Believe it or not, rice 3X a day can get old. There was also a real live party quite similar to the ones back at home. This one was at the Marine House, which means it was Marines and Peace Corps volunteers (throw in a few Bangladeshi prostitutes and some weirdo ex-pats). It was great to crack a few beers again and play a little air hockey.

Getting very people-d out, I am. Answering the same 12 questions 20 times a day was novel for about a day and a half. It's actually quite arresting, the lack of originality of the questions you'll get. Just once, I want someone to ask:

"So whadja think of Sideways? Me, I saw it twice. Thought it was great, Paul Giamatti always cracks me up. And that other chick who's now on Gray's Anatomy, what's her name . . . ? She was good too. Not in my top ten, but one of the best of last year I think. Made me not want to drink Merlot -- oh, hey, by the way, did you hear that movie caused a measurable decline in Merlot sales? Yeah, some people must have been pissed. I would have been. So are you going on Friday? Yeah, I'm gonna try, some of my other friends want me to go to this housewarming, but I'll probably duck outa that as soon as I can . . . so I'll probably see you there. Yeah . . this is my stop, see you later!"

instead of:

"Watt is yor contree?"

Is that so much to ask?

-Yes.

Crap.

But it's all good; I'll lock myself in my room for an afternoon here one of these days and I'll be right as rain again. I don't mean to complain. Complaining is kind of a way of life for PCV's around here. And there's a fine line between letting off a little steam about a culture that you're committed to loving for the next two years, and just plain bitching. I'm trying to keep from the latter, but it does come in abundant supply. Positivity. The problem that I am attempting to remedy (and advice on which I am desirous of) is how to have the ENERGY to want to talk to all of these people on a day. I feel like such a jerk when I hear some little kids going "HI!" or "HOW ARE YOO!?" and I don't even feel like raising my head to say hello. Not that I'm an extremely bad person, but I have noticed other volunteers who can pull this off much better than I can. They stop, smile, talk in crappy Bangla, spend an extra 5 minutes -- and they do this like 15 times a day. I've usually got 2 or 3 in me. So I'm trying to work up to 15.

Baby steps.

Anyone got any thoughts on the hurricanes? I'm curious to know what discussions are going on.