Here are a few more pictures for who ever reads this to look at. I think that the pictures of people are the neatest, the people are the real asset of this country. The kids on the left are my host brothers and sisters, the little girl in the red is as cute ass can be her name is maliha.The woman on the right is my host mother, she has taken it upon herself to make sure that I am okay at all times. She is the nicest lady I have met since I have arrived. She has made my life so much easier, she has helped me with all the things that I dont understand about Bangladesh language wise and socially. Considering that she was married off by her father at the age of twelve she has got to be one of the most down to earth people I have met. She has no education besides being first in her class at the school of hard knocks. She is the one that I have written about in previous blogs, she loves to hear the stories about what goes on outside Bangladesh. Anyways she has been a god sent to say the least.

I finally made it back to Kurigram, thank god. I spent at least a week in Dhaka for no good reason, and now I will have to go back sometime soon. Sometimes it is unbelievable how disorganized the American Government can be. I wish that they would just leave us alone at our sites so that we can work, everytime I have to cancel class I feel bad. I try to teach my students by example, for instance I give them a hard time about attendence yet I have to go to dhaka every month or every couple of weeks which makes me a pretty bad example as far as attendence is concerned. Oh well, what can you do...... nothing.

I am not sure whether I already wrote about this or not so if I have please excuse my forgetfulness. As many of you are aware my cooking is not so good, so I eat a lot with my family. But recently I found these places called Hotels (restaurants), why they call them hotels I do not know. I found one in particular that I like, it has no name but I would be willing to call it "I hope you came hungry and broke." When you sit down the waiter/guy sitting around doing nothing brings out no less than four glasses of water, then he always asks me one thing "mangso na shobji?" (meat or veggies). Once I respond it sets in motion a chain of events that cannot be stopped ( or at least I have no interest in stopping them), he immediately disappears behind a wall of smoke known as the kitchen. Then he returns with two heaping plates of white rice and sets them down next to the four glasses of water, after that he disappears again behind the veil of smoke. Then he returns with a mountian of fried veggies with some crazy spicy curry, so now I am surrounded by smoke and about five or six Bangladeshis that want to witness the spectacular show of me eating. After I down the plate of veggies he returns with a bowl of dhal (lentils) which he dumps on my plate along with something else that I havent got the courage to ask what it is ( maybe cow heart, but I am not sure). After that he brings this things called pe-aji, which I systimatically inhale. All the while the Bangladeshis are watching me like I am in the circus. Then comes the sweets and tea, ooooooo they are soooooo good. After all that the waiter/man who sits around brings me a cigarette, which I am required to smoke even though I dont smoke. So he sits down next to me and puts his arm around my shoulder and lights up a cigarette for the both of us, you would think we just had sex or something. He is sitting there with a big grin on his face and I am ready to cry because the food is sooooo hot and my stomach feels like it is going to burst. I usually take the cue to leave when he puts his hand on my thigh and asks me "was it good for you?" So as I am approaching the cash register (a guy smoking a cigarette with a wood box in his lap) I am trying to tally up how much food I ate. I know for sure I had three plates of rice, four pe-aji, two bowls of dhal, two plates of veggies, three chum chums (sweets) and two cups of cha and one god awful cigarette. I am wondering to myself how much is this going to cost, that was a ton of food. The man grins with no teeth "that will be thirty cents please," I couldnt believe it, it was practically free. I guess I really complain....... let me just say that I will be paying that place a visit very very soon. So now I am not only known as the man who is taller than all but I can also eat more than three plates of rice in one sitting without even flinching, it looks like I am going to be a legend in my own time (or at least in Kurigram). I heard the next day at work about my lunch experience, the hotel and my office are at least three or four kilometers apart. People are coming up to me on the street asking me if it is true, I neither confirm or deny truth, so the legend is growing. I think that it is now at about four or five plates of rice and a cow heart or two. Hopefully now no one tries to make good on the myth. The people here see it is as a sign of respect to eat the Bengali food especially if you are a foriegner, and for me to clean my plate is even more important. They see us (Americans) as very wasteful people, which is probably true in some respects. But now they know about one 6'4 American who wastes nothing on his plate. I feel bad for the next volunteer that has to come live here, becuase he/she is going to have some pretty big shoes to fill. Anyways........... I guess that is about it from this side of the planet, anything interesting happening in the States. Whatever you do dont draw any cartoons depicting Muhammed, WWIII is going to start over some damn cartoon...........

Thanks for tuning in, until next time Shada Shoitan signing off.