Around the World

2009-10-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

Old Point sits on a Caribbean peninsula on the eastern side of the island Bastimentos, not far from where I served in the Peace Corps, I can actually see the Peninsula Valiente. Old Point has all the features of Peninsula Valiente, the rain forest, reefs, surfing, diving and the Indians. Although, there is one big difference; on the peninsula Valiente I was living in a wooden hut, on old point I am living in a Eco-Lodge…..okay, technically my wooden hut was a mini eco-lodge, but believe me there is a big difference. Interestingly enough the people that live and work on old point come from an Ngabes village called Salt Creek; apparently half of the population are people who have migrated from the peninsula. That said, I have had some interesting encounters with Indians in the area. When I arrived at Old Point, I was trying to get a lay of the land, walking around visiting people trying to get a feel for the place. Well one day an older Indian man stopped me and asked me what my name was using Ngabere (Ngabes dialect), I responded accordingly much to his satisfaction. He proceeding to ask me all the routine questions that Ngabes will ask a complete stranger (are you married, are your parents alive, do you like the Yankees), using Ngabere. Now you have to understand, most foreign tourist struggle to some degree with Spanish, but for a tourist to understand and speak Ngabere is unheard of. So I figured this guy has got to be a little impressed. He only feigned interest in my ability to speak Ngabere, whereas on the peninsula it was it was met with great interest. So I asked him where he comes from, and he said he was from Punta Valiente (my old site) but had come to Old Point in search of a wife many years ago. I told excitedly that I had lived in Punta Valiente and that really my name was Tuchi not Jack and the following conversation ensued (in Ngabere):
Old Indian: No you’re not.
Me: Yes, my name is really Tuchi.
Old Man: That is impossible; Tuchi speaks Ngabere much better than you.
Me: I guess I should practice Ngabere more, but I am Tuchi.
Old Man: You’re not tall enough
Me: What?
Old Man: Tuchi is seven feet tall and speaks much better than you do.
Me: Have you ever met Tuchi?
Old Man: No
Me: Then how do you know then, because I know that I am Tuchi, and you have never met him. (surely that will convince him)
Old Man: Tuchi took a woman and left and isn’t coming back, if he does I will let you know and you can meet him.

At this point I wasn’t sure what to think; really I wanted to laugh, because the guy was dead serious. I guess you never know.
Here is to being a legend in your own time, even if it is in a tiny corner of the world.
Cheers
Tuchi (supposedly)

2008-04-10T16:34:00.009-05:00

Sophia

I am not sure where to start; it has been so long since I have published anything. I guess I can start by saying that I recently had my first child, that may explain the hiatus in my writing, as many of you (especially women) probably know it is a rather time consuming thing. Sophia Jasmine was born five days ago here in Panama City; she weighed six and a half pounds and was 50 centimeters long, which is apparently the average. I neglected to say anything in the blog because I am rather wary of speaking too soon, but now that I can hold her in my hand I feel that I am ready to present her to the world. I am sure there are a million questions that are going through your head, the first one probably being, how the hell did this happen. Well that is quite a story in itself one not easily explained in a blog, the story will be much easier over a beer, so if you catch up with me anytime soon the first one is on you and I will tell you a great story. There surely will be many stories to come in what will be a rather interesting life of my little sweetheart Sophia.

Is that the Doctor or the Daddy

A beautiful woman and some guy

Some things in life just are not fair, poor horse.

Some times there just are not any words.

How many people does it take to fix a beer truck

The beautiful Darien

2007-12-22T20:58:00.000-05:00

What is that falling from the board I am carrying? God, it is gigantic, it looked like a mangled wasp. Wait, is it in my boot? Oh shit, I feel it crawling up my leg; it is almost to my knee, aaaaaahhhhh, now little (or not so little) bastard is gnawing on my calf. What is happening to me, I feel light headed, is that the ground touching toward my face? Opening my eyes and seeing the soft blue sky looking down at me brings me comfort, wait, please don’t tell me that is a machete slicing toward my leg, surely it isn’t that bad, are they amputating already, can I have a second opinion? I hear a muddled tongue of Ngobere coming from the medicine mans lips, “Ñan teibiare kwra, ti ta mabe,” what the hell does that mean? I should have studied a little longer last night, god the venom is throbbing in my thighs, wait I know that one, “don’t worry tiger, I am here with you.” Jesus, what in the world does that have to do with the machete slicing open the blue sky as it reaches for my calf, I need my leg, or better yet I want my leg! what is the Peace Corps going to say when they find out my leg was amputated by a medicine man deep in the jungle? I feel I dull pain in my calf as the creature discharges more venom into my limb. Crunch!!!!! “Ya tare mabta bi niken kurera,” can someone please speak Spanish or any other language except Ngobere? Yes I understand you “the pain you feel will soon end,” tell that to the lymph nodes in my upper thighs that are throbbing like a teen’s heart at a Brad Pitt movie. What in the world did you do with the machete, is my thigh still intact? Wait don’t leave me, where are you going, are you really going to leave me alone in the jungle? Man, I feel light headed, I think I will just lie my head on this spongy moss and close my eyes till the Doc comes back, did I mention the sky was a nice lazy blue perfect for a nap. Aaahhh, that is sour, don’t you know better than to wake someone up when they are sleeping? Why am I being told to suck on a lime? The response by the medicine man, “didn’t your mother teach you to do what you’re told?” Coming to my senses I realize that my leg is killing me and so is my head, wait that sensation is slowly fading, surely it is not the lime. But I am being reassured by the Doc that it is. As I thank the medicine man for saving my life he laughs at me, telling me that most “men” would have walked it off in a few minutes, that we are weak race (Americans, as if we are a species).
Recap, a massive ant with a stinger twice the size of a wasp fell from the board that I was carrying into my rubber boot. After a second or two of jumping around it decided to sting me in my calf, thus injecting a large amount of venom into my blood stream. The medicine man disappeared into the jungle gathering the local remedies for the sting in a record time. But before making his exit he killed the insect with the broad side of his machete, hence the impending doom part. After being resurrected in the tropical rain forest we picked up our load and made our way down the mountain and back to (semi) civilization. Upon arrival the story of me being stung by a “dribe” spread through the village faster than a California wildfire, my ego taking the majority of the thumping. I would like to formally apologize to all American men for not being “man” enough and walking off the assault by the bizarre tropical insect. I think the only way I can regain respect is by bare handedly tear a shark apart in one hundred feet off water. For now I will keep my head a little low in order to avoid the ridicule, although let me tell you, that sting hurt like hell and I don’t care what kind of man you think you are, it would bring you to your knees.

2007-12-21T18:17:00.000-05:00

2007-12-21T17:18:00.000-05:00

2007-12-21T15:45:00.000-05:00

2007-12-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

50 days or 1,200 hours or 72,000 minutes or 4,320,000 seconds, all of which equal one hell of a long time in the bush. Any way you cut the cake that was a long run without civilization. One must ask: What in the world were you doing out there for so long without coming in? The answer: A lot of reading, spear fishing, canoeing, hiking, body surfing, boogie boarding, fishing, basketball, pushups, aqueduct designing, bingo and last but not least enjoying the Caribbean from my Yucatecan hammock. Is the answer in any specific order? No. There were days when I did none of the above and there were days when I did almost all of the above, it almost always depended on the weather.

The weather on the peninsula varies from minute to minute or some times day to day. There were times when I would be at least two miles off shore diving for lobster and red snapper in water so calm one would think that there had been a massive oil spill that was weighing the water down. Then all of the sudden a wall of wind and water erupts from jet black clouds that were not there the last time that I went under water. Visibility then turns to a hundred meters or less, the direction of land becomes irrelevant because it is almost impossible to row against the wind and water even if you could see the land. So what is left to do? Go down for another lobster and hope that the canoe doesn’t fill up with rainwater, even if it does it doesn’t matter because they are made of wood. By the time you make it back up with your lobster the storm has blown over along with taking you and your boat a couple hundred meters farther off shore. Then the lip cracking sun reveals itself evaporating all the rainwater collected in the canoe in what seems a matter of minutes, those minutes then turn into an hour of laborious rowing that test the integrity of all the muscles in your body from the waist up. But in the end when land is but a stones throw away, you look down and see the fish and lobster that you will be eating that night, and think hell twenty days is nothing, not even a full calendar month.

Speaking of the weather, one usually imagines the Caribbean as a rather peaceful sea that is great for beach-loving snorkelers and sucking on freshly cracked coconuts. But for a few wretched months of the year substantial swells roll in from out there on that glassy horizon, making some very nice waves for surfing but not so good for trying to escape the peninsula in a small boat with a forty horse power motor. So what does one do? I grab my boogie board and make the forty-five minute trudge through the jungle to a stunning beach with a long right to left break of waves up to eight or ten feet. Running across the golden sand to the bright blue water diving at the last second to make my glorious entry into the Caribbean Sea, I begin to think; hell thirty days that is just one flip of the page in the calendar year.

Hiking to the top of hill through the thick foliage following the trickle of a stream that hopefully will be a new source of water for the village, I tend to forget the bug gnawing on my neck and the yellow horned pit viper watching intently at something that it can kill but for the moment is enjoying its superiority. Pausing at the top to enjoy the sweeping view of the surrounding islands and crystalline water lying below, then looking down the path I just came up I begin to think that is going to be a pretty serious climb with a hundred and ten pounds of cement on my shoulders. At that point I take a swig from my water bottle only to find a large scorpion lying in wait for some innocent green horn, but this is no green horn I came prepared, and with what better than an oversized machete that would make Genghis Khans kneels rattle. Wielding my jumbo blade I begin to hack recklessly at my water bottle only to realize that it is still connected to my hand, which I am not interested in losing. A well timed release of the bottle and a well placed slice with weapon severs the container as well as the bright green and red scorpion in half. The good, I am now somewhat safe from the paralyzing sting of the deadly scorpion, the bad, I am now out of water and have a rather long trek back to the house. So I sit down and collect my thoughts and get my bearings, I feel my butt become wet with the water of the stream and realize that I am sitting at the source of a seemingly inexhaustible source of uncontaminated water. So as I am filling the half of my bottle that is left and is not tainted with scorpion, I begin to think maybe I can do forty days in the bush, just so long as there is a cold beer in the cooler when I get back.

So as I sit back and enjoy my refreshing beverage from the cooler and watch the sun set on yet another day on the peninsula, I begin to think that this isn’t so bad after all, maybe twenty seven months isn’t so long in the end considering that I have already knocked out sixteen. But let me make something clear, on that 50th day or 1,200th hour or 72,000th minute or 4,320,000th second I was very much ready to make my exit from the wilderness and into the civilized world. There is nothing like a hot shower, a warm water shave, a soft bed in the AC and some news from the land of milk and honey. In the end when I get to live in the civilized world fulltime, I will probably miss some of the roughness on the peninsula because living out here is one hell of an adventure, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

2007-10-27T17:41:00.000-05:00

One year, I really cant believe I have made it through another year in the Peace Corps. This is one hellava job, there really arent many that compare, and i only have one more year left before life goes back to normal, but to be honest i dont think that my life will ever be normal after this.

2007-09-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

Man, I really went nuts with my camera over the past few days, I realized it had been some time since I had taken any pictures. I took a nice long hike through the jungle to the abandoned WWII military base above my village, on the left you can see the old radio tower and the increadible view that they enjoyed.

I swear, the beach/caribbean never gets old!

We had to really toss those machetes around to get at the base because the jungle had completely reclaimed it.

Almost finished with the community building.

2007-08-04T15:32:00.000-05:00

Here area few pictures fromKusapin where I have been spending a lot of time lately.

2007-08-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

It has been quite some time since I made a reasonable posting, to be honest there really hasnt been alot to write about so I have been trying to save up some stories to make a nice long blog. I am sure that I mentioned that I made it back to the US, but if not let me just say that it was a real breath of fresh air, it was definately needed. I brought back a bunch of stuff back for my village, the biggest hit was all the baseball equipment. I brought the team eight gloves, two bats, twenty-five balls and a new nike baseball bag; they were really excited to say the least. It is pretty safe to say that we are the best equiped baseball team in the league, everyone knows why; because we have a gringo and they are all filthy rich. I am happy to say that with our new equipment that we made it to the semifinals of the Penensula League, which has been a great boost of confidence for the guys. Out of the sixteen teams we are one of the smallest villages, so anyone of age to play....plays, it is like mandatory military service. Playing baseball has really made the time go by, we play doubleheaders every weekend and practice at least twice a week.

Another thing that I brought from home was fishing tackle, they just about cleaned out the ocean with lures that I brought back. We catch everything from Thirty pound Barraccuda to twenty five pound Red Snapper, needless to say that we are eating well. The only problem is that we lose a lot of them because the fish are two big or have teeth that would make a grizzly bear back down......the summer season has finally hit down here, now what does that mean.... water as calm as a swimming pool, visibilty that is even better than a swimming pool and sun sun sun sun sun. The weather is amazing right now, so needless to say we have been doing a lot of spearfishing and lobster diving. I know that I talk alot about lobster diving, but it is really fun and now that the currents have brought a fresh batch in from the open ocean it has become a regular meal in the Tuchi household.

We finally got going on our rainwater catchment system project, I say finally because the families finally got it together and built their tables. Let me back up a little, a high school group from Springdale High called Paso A Paso decided to sponsor my village with a fundraiser. They raised five hundred dollars which goes quite a ways down here, so I am using the money to address the most pressing need of the village: water. We are building seven rainwater catchment systems in the village, basically all the houses that have metal roofs get one. Now, with any project it cant be just a handout or the people will never respect the project. It is kind of like that rich kid in high school who always wreaked their new car and their parents bought them a new one.

You make the kid buy his own car and the chances of them running it into the ground are a little

less , the same principles apply here, if I just build them catchment systems and they have nothing invested then they will let the project go to waste, believe me they will. So I have required that they build the tables on which the tanks will sit, I am not asking for much but it makes a difference.

So we finally got all the materials together and had them brought out from the mainland, not as easy as it sounds but it got done none the less. Within a matter of three days the project was half way finished, now what does that mean, it means that the people who built their tables got their catchments systems immediately. Of the six houses that are to recieve them three built thier tables before the materials arrived, the other three are still waiting to see if the systems really work. Well let me assure they do, as a matter of fact it rained about an hour after we finished the last one of the three and all the tanks filled within an hour. There were adults acting like children playing under their new showers and water sources, it was pretty funny to see macho men acting like kids in the sprinkler during the summer. They assured me that if fish stayed fresh from here to the US they would personally send each of the high school students their own personal Barraccuda and Lobster, believe me they would do it. Instead I ate them for the students and now weigh ten pounds more, thanks Springdale High (I never thought I would ever say that being a Fayettevillian).

I got bored the other day and decide to do a little Bob Vila home improvements. As you can see from the pictures I decided to cover my deck and close it in. This whole operation took about six or seven hours, including cutting the wood out of the tree. It is so nice to sit out there and enjoy the sunset especially after a long day of lobster diving and rowing on the open ocean, oh what a difficult life.

I know I paint a nice picture, but it is not always like that. Sometimes I have to settle for Snapper, hell life is hard sometimes.

So in closing, I hope all is well in the good ol US of A, I am way out of touch with the news so if anything interesting is going on back home (besides the depressing national news) let me know, I will be in town til Monday and then I am headed back out to my village for another month or so. Take care and call those hogs for me in that first football game.

Tuchi Kobiarekobu

2007-07-03T19:00:00.000-05:00

Fifty percent of my time is spent in my hammock, the other fifty percent is spent carrying things that weigh more than me, that pretty much sums up my life in Panama. Half the time it rains and I dont dare get out of my hammock, i am not talking about a sprinkle or drizzle, i am talking about a deafening roar that would put a pride of lions to shame. That is when you just pick up a book and lose yourself for at least four hours on end. When the rain has passed I can usually expect a visitor requesting that i come help him carry lumber or pull a two thousand pound wooden boat. So that is what i spend the rest of the day. Sometimes i am invited to row distances that most planes cant travel on a full tank of gas, and catch fish that want to eat me more than i want to eat them, ie barracuda. I would have to say that at least twenty percent of my day is devoted to not understanding what people are saying to me, which are usually followed by hand motions that would confuse a major league first base coach. But all in all i do pretty well, when it is good it cant get any better and when it is bad it cant get any worse. I usually try and find the middle gound which is fried red snapper and a sore back.

There is more to come at a later date, but for mow the AC is freezing my toes and nose, sorry for the short blog and the hiatus but for now it will have to do.

panama jack

2007-04-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

Some nights I see some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life. A lot of the people in the village ask me why I built my house at the top of the hill, I think that the pictures explain the reason pretty well. Some nights I will sit there and watch the entire sunset , it really is incredible. Anyways I thought I would post these two pictures that I found tucked away in my camera. Enjoy
Panama Jack

2007-04-07T08:46:00.000-05:00

I guess it has been quite a while since i have last posted, i tried to post something the last time i was in town but it crashed and i was really tired and didnt feel like writing everything again. Things have been going well, as you can see from some of the pictures i have been staying quite busy. I finished the deck on my house which is really nice to relax on when there is a breeze, drink coffee and read a book. It took me about two days total to build, i framed it in one day and the next day i put the boards down.

I am really a starting to get into building things out of wood, i like the challenge of using really simple tools to build.

Among other things that i have been working on is fixing the water system which is finally finished and now functioning well. We had water in village for the first time in two months last week, everyone was really happy because we all worked really hard and it paid off. We had to carry sand and rock to the top of the mountian above the village for the concrete mixture. It was hard work because we had to mix the cement right there on the jungle floor, but as you can see from the picture it worked (I hope it stays that way). The hardest part though was carrying the one hundred and ten pound sacks of cement to the top, I seriously thought it was going to kill me, it very well could have been the hardest work I have every done in my life. But oh well it is done noiw and the village has running water again.

We also have been working hard on the community center, as you see fomr the photo we finished throwing the floor. Man, that also was a heck of a lot of work, the floor took thirty sacks of cement, three hundred buckets of sand and one hundred and fifty buckets of rock. My back was sore after that day of work. When i get back we are going to start framing it, all the wood is cut and we have the materials so it shouldnt take too long to get it done. The area that you see in the picture is the only flat area in the village which is roughly the size of the foot print so we got lucky that the building is going to fit.

Lately I have been playing a lot of baseball with my village, it is a lot of fun. We play in the regional league and we are fairly competitive. The only problem is that we have no equipment when we practice we use a ball made of tape and we use our hands instead of gloves, for bats we cut down really solid trees and carve bats out of them. When we play in the real games we get to borrow equipment, so that is nice, it is the first time that i have every played baseball bare foot it is a little strange at first. Anyways we practice everyday and play in games twice on the weekends which is helping the time go by.

As you can see in the picture on the left the moon is really bright at night sometimes, it is really pretty because it reflects off the water and makes everything that much brighter.

Man i love smoked stingray!

Well i guess that is about all for this blog, things are good so i cant complain. So until next time, I hope all is well.

Panama Jack "Tuchi"

2007-02-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

I made it back out of site again after a solid two weeks in, it is really nice to come out some times. Get my hot shower, air conditioning and a good dose of news from home. As you can see i got my camera back on line and went a little overboard with the photos, but it seems that sometimes pictures speak a thousand words. I can say that i have been enjoying myself the past two weeks, i have been staying very busy. The weather has been absolutely amazing, sunny and warm every single day without exception, and at night it rains so the land doesnt dry out. I have been doing a lot of diving and spear fishing, although the other day i came across a four anda half foot barracuda in my favorite spearfishing place so i kind of laidoff the past few days. It is really fun to spearfish though because it is so primitive, i use a real spear connected to a rubberband that is tied off to my hand. Believe me it takes a skill that i have yet to perfect, but it is fun, it is like going to the buffet and choosing what you want. What you see on my kitchen table is a productof a rediculous ammount of swimming and spearing. Some of the other pictures that you see are of my house and the spectacular view that i have from my hammock, all the sunset views are from my hammock. I finally got some pictures of my house so that you all can see, the house turned out good in the end, at least it doesnt let rain in for the most part which is a good thing.
There are several pictures of some of the work that i have been doing. One is of the bridge that we built over the creek that floods when it rains, we had to wait for the dry season to build it, then another is of the rainwater catchment system that i built for my family they are the only ones with water now, another of the work that we are doing on the aqueduct system. The toma de agua was blocked by a landslide that damaged the entire system, so we are cleaning it out and rebuilding it which is requiring me to learn about engineering stuff that i hadno idea about. It is really interesting though because it is like the ultimate test in
college. You get the literature on the subject and then you study it intensively and then you are literally tested on it. But the difference is that human lives are affected by your results, so there is more pressure, but unlike college there are actual results that are tangible which makes you care more, hence your performance is better. I am really enjoying this aspectof the job because i feel like i am really learning now, not that i wasnt learning in college but now it seems like i care a lot more. I guess i will see how it turns out, my unofficial test is on the second of march when i get home, wish me luck. But in reality anyting works because it is always better than what they had before. As you can see with the bridge it is not a big project (actually more like a sidewalk that crosses a creek) butwe used all local resouces and local know how (me). I cant say i know much about bridge building but we did it and it works really well and they are happy, which is what counts.

I always have a lot of visitor in my house, they come from all over the area (Bahia Azul, Kusapin, Punta Allegre) to hear the gringo speak their language, that is not their primary reason but they all seem to have heard that i speak their dialect. I am not fluent but i can hold my own for the most part, which took a lot of work and they seem to respect that. Like this guy, he is a mama tata religious man, he has long hair and wears a dress. One of the big things is that they are tryingto preserve their language which is disappearing quickly. So he came to my house to see if it was true that i could speak with him, i did okay, it seems like these guys speak much faster
and without mercy as far as vocabulary is concerned. But oh well, he was entertained and he gothis photo taken (for the first time).

Here is a good story. I was walking in the jungle with my brother and we came across a fairlylarge venomous snake in the path. Normally i would have walked around the snake avoiding all together, but my manhood was called into question at the expense of the snake. So with my extremely sharp machete i lopped off its head and not knowing what to do i continued down the path. My brother did not move an inch, he yelled from behind "where do you think you are going, you may be a man for killing the snake but you mustgive it the proper burial." So he showed me the ritual for killing snakes, you bury the head and plant a stick on top and then tie a leaf around the top so the snake cant see you next time on the trail. I thought that it was a neat tradition, but most importantly from the whole thing came a renaming of Tuchi (myself), i now have a new name for when i am in the jungle..... Itchi &#&#& (i cant pronouce it) "snake slayer."
For all you enviromentalist out there dont worry i am not going to deplete the snake population, but keep in mind that i have to maintain my reputation.

Man this sunset was unbelievable!

Some times the water turns such a beautiful color, this photo was taken outside my house when these two girls came to visit me.

Here comes the sun.

I will be out in my site for the next month or so, i am going in for a long hual, i will be out in the middle of april again. So if there are no updates for a while that is why, but please stay tuned I should have some good stories to come back with because i have a lot of work to do.

Take care until then

Tuchi

Snake Slayer

Panama Jack

2007-02-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

I am going to title this blog "My People"
Because that is exactly what it is, these are the people that i wake up in the morning and see everyday. These are the people of my village, they are my friends and most importantly they are my family, every single one of them. I see it like that and they do too. It may seem a little matter of fact but it is the truth, it is exactly like having one big family, you dont always get along with them but they are always there and eventually you get over your differences and work together.
I know that it has been a long time since i have posted anything but it is for a good reason, i have been holed up in my site for the better part of a month now. i have been working and slipping deeper and deeper into the indigenous life, it has brought many tough days but it has also brought about some of the most rewarding days of my life.
In that time i have finished my house, which was a huge relief, it was a lot of work but it was well worth it. it was a big symbol for them to see me build my house by my self, in their culture it is a sign of a man to build a house. if you cannot build one then your worth as a man is lessened, you could almost say that it is a rite of passage. man it was a tough passage but now i have gained alot of respect in the community.
As far as projects are concerned i am working quite a bit, i am limited to the things that are existing in the community as well as using what resources i can that come srom the outside. Recently a group of tourist showed up at my site and wanted a tour of the village, it was a rather comical situation because they were rich doctors and lawyers trying to mingle with extremely poor indians. My guys (villagers) did really well, they are a very proud people so they didnt let it phase them that the people that were walking among them make a thousand times a week than they do. it was strange, having outsiders come in made me feel much more like one of the villagers than the foriegner that i am. now the village kind of sees me differently now that outsiders arrive several times a month, they treat me much more like one of thier own, which believe in this line of work is a very good feeling. it is one that is not alwas achieved.

The money that is being generated by the new tourism is alowing for me to work in the community, although it is very little we have been fairly resourceful with what we have. it is not enough to do a major project (latrines, aqueduct, etc.) but we make do. so far we built a bridge over the creek, which was a major test of my engineering knowledge (none). But you use what you have and you keep on going. We actually made two bridges, one was of concrete and the other was a massive log that we carried and layed it into place. both of which were a lot of work but the outcome was very much worth the effort. the tourist (the guy that brings them) requested that we clean up the trail up the old world war two military base, he gave use some money (twenty bucks) to buy food for the workers. the whole thing turned out pretty funny. we had a meeting and decided on a time to clean it up, all the men over the age of fifteen volunteered along with myself so there were about twenty to twenty five of us. we set the date for friday in the morning. so all of us met on the beach and had coffee together and began sharpening out machetes for the work. we had chop this out of the dense jungle so a sharp machete goes along way. so anyways there we were on the beach, twentyfive indians and a white man sharpening three and a half foot machetes (small swords and let me tell some of these guys are pretty muscular and wild looking sometimes) when a two tourist groups pulled up onto our beach with tlooks of horror on their faces. at the time i didnt think about because it was normal for me, but we must have looked like a was party getting ready to slaughter the neighboring village. in retrospect it is hilarious to me, but i think it really freaked out some of the tourist. the tour guide assured them that it was safe and that the women were not gonna be

harmed in any way. i couldnt help but fall down laughing, so much that i almost impaled myself on my machete, which in turn all the men thought was even funnier so they all started whooping and yelling (a cultural thing that is fun but can be rather disturbing at times), which furthered the idea that the tourist might have made their last boat ride. anyways the people got off the boat and only stayed for a while while we continued to drink coffee and joke in the dialect, which for all the tourist knew we were plotting their demise. But as you can see from the pictures that i am posting these are really gentle and nice people, it is amazing the misunderstanding that arise sometimes.

other work that i have been doing is fixing the aqueduct which is a real head ache sometimes,
but it is coming along okay. something that i am really excited about is that there is a group coming out in march to do a project with us. i am in charge of organizing a project for sixteen high school students from Lawrence Acedemy in Boston, a really high end academy. they are coming down for two days and are bringing materials and everything. it is a really good oppotunity for us, one that is quite unusual. it looks as though it is going to be a long term thing as well, they are talking about bring more students for extended periods in june as well. apparently word is getting around that i am on the pennesula organizing the indians there and the resorts are interesting in coming with tourist as well as doing projects. so that is exciting. So it looks as though i have my work cut out for me over the next couple months, if anyone is interested in coming down or getting involve in some form or another you can contact me at jacksonjtaylor@yahoo.com

any help is welcome and will be put to good use, things are happening in Punta Valiente and i am really happy to be

a part of it.

i will leave you with this picture of Rogelio one of my good friendsm this is a classic picture of the men of punta valiente (pictured in the back ground). "we dont sit in ourr boats out here we stand, it doesnt matter how rough the sea is."
I cant exactly do that but i am trying, i have twenty months to figure it out.

Panama Jack

2006-12-29T08:51:00.000-05:00

well here i am again after a few more weeks of being here. right now i am enjoying the new years festivities on a tropical island in the caribbean (what a suprise), it is only a hop skip and a jump from where i live. the only difference is the tourist and the partying, which i must admit is a nice change of pace. this blog has several pictures that i really liked and have some comical and asthetic value. this one with me and the little girl is in my families house before dinner, she is the cutest little thing and she loves the camera. the next one as well i like a lot because she loves to play with my arkansas hat and i figure it cant hurt spreading the hog nation. her name for now is chi chi which means little baby. it is interesting because they usually dont give a really small child a name until they are a little older because they are never sure if the child will survive the younger years of their lives.
i am sure that yall are sick of seeing the sunset pictures, but the thing is that they are so increadible here, i dont know if it is being so close to the equator or what but the are amazing down here. this one was taken from the kitchen of my families house, not bad view for washing dishes huh.

this village that you see is called cayo de agua, it is a small island about a twenty minute boat ride from my house. it is a small sleepy village of about ten or fifteen houses, there is no electricity and no running water or sanitation. i am thinking about getting a project started over there if we can get the funding, if nothing else just go over there and relax every once and a while. as you can see from my host dad taking a nap in the afternoon after lunch there is not much going on over there but really that is how they like it, and i think that i agree with them. it is a lot like my site in that everyone gets around in canoes and lives off fishing.

this next picture really makes me laugh when i see, not because this girl is funny because she is not, if anything she is rather serious and shy, but i think that is only around me. this the girl that they (the people in my village) proposed that i take on as my "wife" what ever that entails. they felt bad for me because i had no one to cook, clean and wash my clothes for me. she is really nice but i kind of felt bad for her being put in that position, but i really dont think she cares because i would provide the home and all meals which really isnt a bad deal. but people in the past, volunteers that is, have had a lot problems with relationships gone wrong. it is not like home where you can slip away into the masses, here everyone knows everyone and their business, so it can be really damaging to my work the have a sour relationship in the community. it is no big deal because there are plenty of other places to go for women if one is so inclined.

The last photo is my favorite, one because of the sun burn and two because this is the girls father. he is the local shaman/priest, he saw me with my sun burn and started laughing really hard because he said i looked like a boiled lobster. so he disappeared off into the jungle for a while and came back with some thing for my burn and it healed right up the next day. he is a really resourceful guy like that, maybe it wouldnt be so bad having hi, as my "Uuhh" which is father in law, he could come in hany from time to time.

anyways that is about all for this time, i will post something else before i leave. so until then have a good new years and i want to see a big win out of the hogs.
tuchi

2006-12-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

Wow, I am not really sure where to start, it has been quite a while since I have written anything. There is good reason though, the largest storm in the past five years blew in over thanksgiving, so i have been stuck out in my site for almost a month without leaving. Although that might not sound like a long tiume it is, actually it is fairly rare for a volunteer to stay in site a month at a time. Most people take a break about every three weeks and some much more often than that. But it was a really good thing for me to be out there that long, i made some rather large strides in the construction of my house. I am learning alot about carpentry, at leasts the very basics because we dont have much in the way of tools to work with. I am pretty much building it by myself, i have help from some people when the wander up the hill to see what i am doing,

so they will hold a board in place for me if i need it or they will hold the level. But other than that i am doing on my own, it is a pretty awesome feeling building my own house with my bare hands. All i have for tools are: a hammer, hand saw, level, square, machete and nails. But as you can see from the pictures it is going well, i am amost finished with the skeleton and am ready to put the boards up, all i have to do is wait one more week to let them dry so they dont crack. The picture that you see below is when i had a junta (day of work), i bought ten pounds of fish and a bunch of rice and lentils and we carried wood all morning till it was done and then we had
fish fry in the afternoon. There were actually more people than are in the picture but they hadnt made it up the trail of about a mile and a half through the jungle. Anyways all that has been a great experience.

The next picture that you see is of the site right next to mine, it is about a thirty minute row on a nice day. The guy that lives there is from Louisiana (huge LSU fan), it is nice to have a fellow SEC fan next door because we talk alot SEC football. I row over there is my canoe about once a week to take a load off and have a few drinks because there is a place there that sells really cold brews, which is really nice after a week of carrying wood and working on my house.

The next photo is of a community that i have been assigned to work

2006-11-13T15:48:00.000-05:00

Wow, I am not sure where to start........Hogs number six, i cant believe it, i leave and the hogs hae a cinderella season but be careful of LSU that is going to be a huge game. if we make it into a major bowl i am definately leaving my site to go watch it. I will watch it on the internet if i have to. I hope we can keep it up for two more games and the SEC championship.

As far as life goes down here it is great. i was required to leave my site to come into the city to meet ministry officials, otherwise i would have never left because there is really no reason to. I spent the last two weeks consecutive in site and loved it, the isolation has been a welcome thing since the last three months was heavily regulated and full od americans. I have been doing so much over the past two weeks and when i get home tommorrow i am going to be really busy as well. we started building my house about a week and a half ago, it is really interesting experience. i say building but that is not quite true, we actually had to go deep into the rainforest and find suitable trees and cut them up for lumber to build he house. That consist of three indians and my self disappearing into the jungle with machetes and a chainsaw to cut down and divide (with a chainsaw) the wood into two by fours and four by fours. it was some really intense work, much more difficult than any of the chainsaw work i did back home. so to start we had to walk two and a half miles into the jungle to find this type of wood called criollo, which is one of the densest woods in central america. we cut it into four by four by eight pieces, we cut nine pieces for the foundation. and then, believe it or not we carried them out on our shoulders one by one, it might have been the hardest hike i have ever done in my life. but after a days work we got them out and continued the next day to finish cutting the necessary wood. the community decided that we would have a "junta" to bring out the rest of the lumber, which is all the men in the village getting together and working. this entailed me buying twenty pounds of rice, ten lbs of spaghetti, six lbs of sugar, twenty packets of koolaid, ten lbs of fish, thirty pieces of bread and a rediculous ammount of coffee. all of this put together was twenty dollars and that included the cooking which was done by the women. we all got together early in the morning and drank coffee and ate bread until everyone was bouncing off the walls to prove thier manliness to me by carrying the most lumber (i had already proved mine by carrying the massive posts). so now it was thier turn, which i had no problem with. we carried out all the wood for the house in three hours, which i consider no small feat. we had a great time, they were so much fun to work with, on top of that i earned a huge amount of respect as a hard worker. everyone after that was going around saying "tuchi sribire krubode, bori koin tuch, bori koin tuch." that means that tuchi works "so much and that is very good." considering in some peoples sites the indians wont even talk to them i figure i am doing alright as far as community relations are concerned. so anyways when i get back we are going to start nailing the whole thing together.
I also built a rainwater catchment system for my family, now they are self sufficient when it comes to water. I used all local resources and built it with my host father, which is the epitomy of good development, use of local resources, training a local and making it sustainable. I was quite proud of the work as was my father, he is really happy now, his family has a renewable source of clean potable water and and it barely cost him anything.

On top of all the work i have been doing alot of fun stuff as well, like snorkeling, kyaking, hiking, swimming and most of all boating which might be the most fun. we go out on the open ocean all the time to fish and visit small islands about the size of two acres.
one night we wen out in the boat at about eight at night, there was something that they wanted to show me. i noticed something a little strange about the water, it had a different look to it. when i put my hand into the water before we started going, the water lit up bright green. it was fosfloresence in the water, algea that lights up before the full moon comes out. when we put our paddles in the water all the water around us lit up and sparkled like glitter. as we started to row i noticed small green flashes in the water, they were fish the glowed neon green to attract other fish to prey on. it might have been the most amazing display i have ever seen in my life, there were thousands of stars in the sky and the water was glowing around me and there were fish practically jumping into the boat. My friend Simion looked at me smiled as the other kyaks moved around us and said "mo nune kubiarete mo ta jute, biare Tuchi munkwe." Which means "you live in punta valiente your home, now you are one of us Tuchi."
signing off from a wholenother world
Panama Jack

2006-11-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

2006-10-27T08:43:00.000-05:00

Here are a few pretty rediculous pictures that were taken and sent to me throughout training, i thought that i would share them with you all. The one on the left is our going away party in Santa Clara, it was really fun. One of the families through us this party, it was pretty much our last day in the training site.

The next picture that you see is pretty silly but i thought that i would post it none the less. It is in the early stages of the "Tom Selleck Challenge." It was actually my idea, which i was proud of. In the end there were several participants that dropped out due to the feeling of "sleeziness," I dont know where that came from.......The picture with the parrot is out on the pacific coast a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the challenge.

The last one is the final stage of the challeng and the remaining participants. Everyone got a big kick out of the whole deal including myself. From left to right: Brandon, Ryu, Myself, Colin, Joe and Kevin. The winner was based on sleeziness and rediculousness, the conclusion that we came to was that we all looked pretty damn sleezy but either the guy on the far left or the japanese guy won the challenge. You can decide for yourself.
Anyways I thought you all might enjoy these pictures, more to come in the coming days.
Panama Jack

2006-10-27T08:12:00.000-05:00

Well I have done it, i swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer.....again. It was nice to end training.....again, but now it is over and all that boring stuff is behind me. Now I can go out to my site and start working......again. I am really excited about getting back into the Peace Corps life, when we are in training life is very regimented (if that is the right word) and most of the days are filled with activities even if they are extremely reduntant. Actually it reminds me of college, if you can jump through the hoops then you will make it. Well anyways I am happy that i can now do what I came here to do.
Swearing in was really fun, we had it at the Panama Canal Museum which is a nice place. It is located in the old part of the city, it really reminded me of Buenos Aires all of the colorful buildings. Afterwards we went to our program managers house (my boss so to speak), it was just us the Enviromental Health group, there are sixteen of us. There are more like thirty in the group but the other half are business volunteers. His house is really nice, it is downtown in a high rise. He is a former volunteer from El Salvador, so he is loving life here in panama. Anyways, we all made dinner together, burritos that is. You never realize how much you love Mexican food until you cant have it for more than a month or two. After that we went out for a night on the city, let me tell you they know how to do it down here. There is a reason they call this place the Miami of Latin America. So we had a good time and met up the other volunteer that are currently serving in country.
So now we are going on our honeymoon so to speak. We have a bunch of really nice cabanas reserved on the Pacific Coast to the west. So we will be staying on the beach for the next couple of days, but that really doesnt matter for me because I live on the coast now! I guess it will be a little different because i will be on the pacific coast which has other things to offer than the carribean. Isnt that kind of cool, I can spend consecutive weekends on two different oceans, the carribean and the pacific, i am not sure that it gets much better than this. I guess i have already down it twice since i have been down here, but it is not something that gets old very quick.
That is pretty much it from here, life is good and i really cant ask for much more (except for maybe a pair of Chaco sandals). Anyways hope all is well back in the states, i will be posting again in a week or two so stay tuned, next time i should have some pictures from swearing in as well as my site.
Hatwyaita Mroko (Ngabere for goodbye y'all)
Panama Jack

2006-10-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

This is another picture of my site, i thought it captured the sunset well. It looks like this just about everynight, ahhh what a relaxing atmoshpere, no matter how hard i work during the day i will be able to relax to this at night.

I took this picture last night, this is my host family. We are giving our families gifts when we leave, so a few of us thought it would be nice to give our families pictures of us together. Anyways I thought it was a nice picture.

2006-10-15T14:58:00.000-05:00

So this is my first posting after visiting my new site, my what a beautiful place it is. As you can see by the pictures it is on the ocean, i mean right on the ocean, my host family lives about twenty feet from the water. The really dark picture with the purplish sunset is from the kitchen window of the house i am staying in. The people are really friendly and ready to start working. But for the time being they are very interested in sharing their way of life with me. The are convinced that i must master ngobere (the language), i also must be a very strong kayaker. they are providing one for me so i can fish and go snorkeling. I actually suprised them when i proved able to do both fairly efficiently. We went fishing out on the open water (the ocean) in a small dugout canoe, i caught eleven fish as opposed to his twenty five, but i figured that was a good start.
That night we had a fish fry and all ate together, it was really cool to go out get your food and then prepare it that night. We also went up to the finca (farm) to pick vegtables and fruit to go along with the fish, it was one of the most healthy meals i have eaten in a long time.
I have also been officially named, which will stick for the next two years; Tuchi (pronounced "toochi"). It means little teeth, but it actually comes from an old man that has since left the village, the felt as though i was going replenish the wiseness of the village, little do they know. I have to admit i really love the place, they are some of the most kind people i have met in a long time, i cant even begin to explain how lucky i am. they took me on a hike through the rain forest, it was really amazing. we hiked for about an hour more or less, traversing through the mud and trees and foliage. when the trail finally began to drop out of the mountians we crossed a small stream and all the brush fell away, we had a arrived to a small deserted white sand beach with crystal clear water flanked on both sides by coral and islands scattered about one hundred yards off shore. i couldnt believe my eyes, it was on of the most beautiful places i have ever seen in my life, and it is only an hour walk from my house. i might be the luckiest volunteer in the peace corps.
This picture is the view that my house will have, the house that has yet to be built but is just
around the corner. it is on the side of the mountian above the village, they picked it out for me. It is absolutely incredible, as may be obvious from the picture. there are people that would pay big bucks to wake up to this view of the carribben in the morning, and here i am enjoying it and everything else for next to nothing, only a couple years of my young adult life. i wouldnt trade it for the world. Anyways there is more but i cant even begin to explain it, it is just one of those things that you have to see for yourself. I will write more when i get back to Panama City and have more time.

Take care and wooooooooooo piiiiiiiig soooooieeeeee, i leave town and we win, oh sweet irony.
Signing off,
Panama Jack, aka Tuchi

2006-09-29T17:24:00.000-05:00

So here i am again, after a two week stint in the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful in this country, I feel some times that I live in a national geographic magazine, these past two weeks have been really nice. The picture that you see on the left is Nutivi, it is the first place that we went. It was a four hour boat ride across a bay and then up a river. The baot was a dug out canoe with reinforced siding to make it safe for human transport. As we crossed the crystal clear waters of the bay dolfins surfaced about twenty feet to the left of our boat and began doing jumps along side. We then made our way up hte river, which seemed like to took forever. What you see here on the left is a picture of Nutivi as we got off the boat, this is the village that we built the rainwater collection system and immersed ourselves in Ngobe culture. In the afternoons we went swimming in this river to cool off and relax. I was exempt from going to the ngobere classes because my level pretty high so instead i just hung out with my two younger brothers. We had a great time, they took me fishing which was the most fun. We put on snorkel masks and he grabbed his spear (about five feet in length) and headed to the river about mid day when it was the clearest. I was the designated spotter and he was the "spearer" he caught enough fish and i caught enough crawfish for dinner that night. So we had coconut rice with fried crawfish and grilled riverfish, it was great.

The picture here is another of Nutivi, this the actual village itself, which was pretty small and spread out. As you can see the continental divide in the back ground, we were nestled between the river and the mountians. I really dont think the picture needs much explaining. they really speak for themselves.

The next place we went was another village called Junquito, it was a two hour hike into the mountians along a small trail that dropped down into a small valley. As you can see the houses were very rudimentary, and elevated off the ground. This village was much different than Nutivi, it was a very close knit community that spoke a variation on the dialect of ngobere. But dont get me wrong i liked them both equally. Junquito was much smaller, but thee was less

humidity in the air and the food was different . Here we built three composting latrines , which was quite a bit of work. We did everything from mix the concrete to make toilet seats. It was a really good experience for me. The whole community worked together to make it happen, so everyday we all ate lunch together and worked together. It was reall neat to see everyone come together for a common cause. Everyone did there job well, the women made really good food and the men hauled the sand and concrete blocks.

In both villages i was given a ngobere name, in Nutivi they called me "Nichi," which means "Little One." In the second one i was named "uchu-lu" which i have no idea what it means.
Anyways needless to say i had great time, there is much more to share but my time is up right now, i hope all is well and the razorbacks are winning.
Panama Jack signing off

2006-09-16T11:27:00.000-05:00

well, here i am again. life seems to be much easier here, and the internet much faster and accesible, but that wont be for long. tommorrow i am going on a two week trip into the heart of the comarca ngobe-bugle, it is going to be quite a trip from what i understand. there is a group of six of us that are going on this training, we are going to a place called nutivi. We have to go to the laguna in the western province of bocas del toro and take a lancha (boat) across the laguna and then up a river with class three rapids. the river ride will last about two and a half hours and i have heard that it is a pretty wild ride, so i am looking forward to that. we will be staying with a village of ngobe indians and will be studying their culture. that includes living with a family and learning ngobere (thier language), fortunately i have been studying ngobere since i arrived so i have a pretty good grasp on how it works. but i am the only one in the group that has been learning ngobe, the other guy that was in my class (the native spanish speaker) that an indigenous language wasnt for him and asked for a latino site, so now he just does community projects. everyone else has been working on spanish but yesterday a few of the people tested out of spanish and joined me in the ngobe class. i was really lucky to have three weeks of one on one classes, but now there are five other people in my class, which is a bummer. ngobe is fairly similar to bangla as i mentioned before so i am picking it up pretty quick, but now i have to go put it into practice in the village setting which wont be a cake walk. i feel kind of bad for the people that have only had two days of classes because it is going to be really difficult to communicate, the spanish of the ngobes is really poor so it is difficult to understand. anyways i guess we will see soon enough.
i am really excited about my site, i will be living in a tropical paradise only accessible by boat (three hours). the community is really small and lobster is one of the most common dishes there, i know it sounds pretty rough. hammocks, crystal clear water, coral reefs, dolphins, ceviche, palm trees, houses on stilts, cliff lined coves and me enjoying every second. once i get my house built i will be open for visitors, but beware there is no electricity nor plumbing, so it is not for the tourist, more for those who have adventure in their blood. or better yet, those who just want to escape from the world and disappear for a while into an undiscovered paradise. but it will be a couple months before anyone can come visit me, but for those that want to it will not be a waste of time or money.
anyways enough of that, so all is well in this tranquilo country which is nice but not so great. i miss the excitement of living in bangladesh, there is nothing like it. although it was dangerous and one big circus living in bangladesh i grew an affinity for it. i will always appreciate what i experienced and learned there, it is by far and away the best thing that has ever happened to me, which is easy to say now that it is over. maybe i can find something wild to do here, like take a boat up class three rapids to a secluded indian village ;)
well i guess that is all for now, i will post pictures of my trip when i get back, which should be about two weeks from now so stay tuned even though there will be a gap in my posting.
signing of from a place where i can count the # of degrees off the equator on both hands.
panama jack

2006-09-10T14:58:00.000-05:00

These are the pictures from the trip that i took into the mountians, i hope you enjoy them.

2006-09-08T15:40:00.000-05:00

well here i am again, fortunately i am still alive and kicking, not that i have been doing anything that would put me in that kind of situation. but i have been having quite an adventure to say the least. last week we went on our volunteer visit, which was quite a ride. the person i went to visit lives in the comarca ngobe-bugle, which is basically the indian reservation. over the past week i have been learning ngobere (the language of the ngobe) which is quite difficult but i am picking it up with a suprising amount of ease if that makes any sense at all. so anyways, my assignment was to take a bus to a small pig trail on the side of the road (the pan american highway) and hike up he road until i found the volunteer. now the what were forseeable obstacles: the community spoke very little spanish instead they spoke ngobere, the site was a three hour hike up hill (12 miles), the possibilty (likelyhood) of a tropical rainstorm, the road (trail) was unmarked by signs, the site was deep in the comarca, and the guy lived on top of the mountian which was called "mutu wobti" which means on top of the pigs head." so with all that on my plate i set off on the adventure, when i finally arrived to the small dirt path going up the mountian on the side of the interamericana i was greeted by a small indian man on a horse. the funny thing was that we were looking eye to eye, which was a little akward. i asked him if he knew "the white man who lived on top of the pigs head," he promptly pointed up the mountain and muttered something about a pigheaded whiteman ontop of the mountain. so i knew i was in the right place, so i headed up the mountain. after an hour of up hill hiking i reached a resting point, at that very moment it began to pour rain like i had only seen in bangladesh. so i then proceeded to continue up the mountain, after being passed by a few indian old men i realized i better step on it or i would not make it to the cerro (mountian top) by night fall. at hour number two i had aquired to little indian kids that insisted on being my companions, which didnt bother me until the next sequence of events. apon completing a half hour down hill portion i was feeling pretty good, until i arrived at a semi-large river. at this river there was only one way to make it across, a swinging suspension bridge that dangled over a swollen river. after gaining the courage to cross this bridge that was incomplete at best i then realized the kids wernt following me. i thought to myself this cant be good, so about half way across the kids then steped foot on the disgrace of an engineering attempt to connect the opposing banks, and began to jump up and down laughing outloud. this made the whole bridge begin to dance, which inturn made my heart cling to my collar bones and my huevos retreat into my abdomen and that left me with nothing sheer terror. the river was gushing underneath me and i still had the rest of the rickety bridge to navigate. so in an instant of insanity i yelled outloud and dashed across the planks which were incomplete, only taking about four steps total equaling about twentyfive feet. after arriving at the bank of the other side i turned around to see the kids laughing so hard the almost fell off the structure (if it is even fair to call it that). with out wainting for them i continued on my trek. around the next turn awaited the next obstacle, another swollen ravine but this time with no bridge. so here i was stuck between two death traps and nowhere to go. behind me i heard one of the kids approaching, he looked at me then the ravine and then back at me. i asked him if there was anyway around, he said this was it. then in a fit of selfishness i started across the ravine, and from behind me i heard him begin to cry. the nice guy in me began to take over and i turned around and scolded him for scaring the living hel out of me and threw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. i then comenced my anphibious crossing of the muddy gushing water. the kid was clinging to me like a cat over a bath tub and the water wasnt getting any shallower. halfway across the water rising over my waist and was extremely powerful, now mind you i had a backpack and a small indian boy over my shoulder and had been hiking for over two hours. not sure which would give out first my legs or my will to carry the little rug rat i continued across the stream as to not lose my balance. now let me tell you it took no small effort to make to the opposite bank which was muddy and porous with snake holes. well needless to say i made it without incident, but it was no small chore.
the rest of the hike was straight up hill and was like walking on a bar of soap. but i made it safely to the top of the pigs head and found the gringo without any problem. there is much more to the story but that is for another blog.

for now i have much bigger fish to fry. i found out where i will be placed today, which is still supposed to be a secret but i have my methods. it is on the carribean side, on the carribean to be more specific. it is a small cove on the penensula called bahia azul, he desribed the place as a pirates cove with the a small sandy beach flanked on both sides by coral reefs. yea i know. an hour hike over the hill is one of the best surfing locations in panama and is a white sand beach. yea i know. the community is a small indian village of two hundred. yea i know. i will be the first volunteer there to date, and i will be speaking a coastal ngobere langauge. so anyways that should be nice, there is much more to write but i will have finish it on sunday because i have to go.
take care everyone.
signing off from nowhere (which is exactly where i want to be)
panama jack

2006-08-27T11:33:00.000-05:00

Making our way to the training site, this is a sketchy little bridge that we have to cross, although i think sometimes it might be safer just to jump.

When i wake up in the morning i sit here and enjoy my coffee, it doesnt get much more relaxing than this for the start of the day.

2006-08-27T11:17:00.000-05:00

This my back yard, my house is on the hill to the left, so no the shack is not mine it is my neighbors. It is really nice and mellow here, the old man who lives here is nice and always likes to talk.

This is along the trail on the way to the training site, i have to walk it every day rain or shine. It is really beautiful and calm, except for the occasional snake here and there, but that is what the machete is for.

This is our training site, pretty rustic huh. This was built by the last group that came through, they call these ranchos, almost every family has one. They are really nice because this is where you hang your hammock up and read a book.

2006-08-27T09:18:00.000-05:00

well this is my first posting from panama. man this country is great, it is so beautiful and mellow. i am living in a small place called santa clara, it is about an hour and a half outside the capital. it is really small about a thousand people dispersed through the mountians. it is jungle everywhere i look, monkeys and rain is the name of the game down here. the pace of life is increadibly slow, exactly what i was hoping for. the training is pretty easy, i got the second highest score on my language test, the guy who beat me out was a native speaker from mexico. so i kind of have that area covered, on monday i begin my indigenous language training which should be really interesting. we are the only two that are allowed to begin so it looks like we will be facing the challenge alone for the next few weeks. for the most part i am loving life down here, having served in bangladesh has made my life so much easier here. it is pretty funny because i am the only returned volunteer, so some of my stories from bangladesh have really freaked the group out. they kind of see me as a leader, which i think is even funnier. i guess i will figure out how that works soon enough.
we had machete training yesterday which was also funny because i think that it was the first time that some of them had raised a hand in hard labor. i had to impart some of my surveying machete skills apon some of them, i think that they think that people from arkansas are crazy. but that doesnt bother me, i am the first arkansan that many of them have met so i am trying to make a impression that is impossible for the rest of you to live up to.
so my job looks like it is going to be really interesting, we hike through the mountians and jungles looking for good sources of water and then figure out what it is going to take to get it to the village. it is right up my alley, although many of the other trainees have a much more technical background than myself i.e. engineering, all that goes out the window when the first mosquito lands on your arm. as it tuns out my surveying experience is all that i am going to need, which was how to rough it out in the woods all day.

so anyways i have some pictures that i am going to try and post later today if i still have a chance. i hope everyone is well and that this adventure will be as intriguing as the last. do keep in touch through email if possible, if not oh well. take care.
el diablo blanco

2006-08-15T17:03:00.000-05:00

well off i go. my flight leaves tommorrow, and then there is no turning back. well maybe not, but i doubt i will be unless there is excessive force. the more that i hear about panama the more excited i am, our training site is on the beach from what i understand. i really cant wait, but i will have to because my flights will last the duration of the day, that is what is bad about traveling with thirty seven people, we have to provide extra time for everyone. it is kind of funny because everyone here is sooooooo nervous, i think that i am the only one who is completely care free. i am also the only returned volunteer, which has made for some interesting conversations. i think it freaked some of the people out when i told them that our group was evacuated. oh well, all i know is that i am going to the beach and i already speak some spanish so i am ready to rock and roll. with that i leave you in the USA and the next time i update this i will be in central america, but that may be a few days.
signing off on the eve of yet another adventure.
the now "panama jack"

2006-08-01T12:14:00.000-05:00

This is along the hike we took, these glacial lake were unreal. Despite the clouds it was still a really nice hike.

This is the place where i went trekking, we hiked up to the mountian that you see in the fore ground. despite the distance it was a really nice hike and it was really nice when we finally made it there.

This is the town Bariloche that i wrote about two weeks ago. As you can see there is a nice view of the lake from just about anywhere in the city. This church was really neat, it was about two hundred years old (i think). it was really hard to leave this place in the end, it was absolutely amazing.

2006-08-01T09:02:00.000-05:00

well this looks like the end of my trip, it has been really fun and amazing experience. one thing it has done for sure is confirm that i want to come back as soon as possible. although it lasted only three weeks they were great. i am ready to move on to panama, i am excited to see what awaits me there (malaria).

right now i am sitting in my hostel waiting until seven tonight when my plane leaves. i hate this waiting stuff, it drags on forever. as it turned out i didnt go to iguazu falls up north, fortunately i happened across a couple of people that just returned from there and they told me that there was hardly any water. so i got luck by stumbling across that little piece of information, otherwise i would have sat on a bus for eighteen hours (one way) just to see some waterfalls that were weak due to the lack of water. so instead i hung around buenos aires, it is a really cool city. it has a lot of really neat architecture and an amazing night life. they dont even leave for the bars until two or three in the morning, and when they do go out they have a good time. although i must say that i am ready to come home, i cant keep up with these people.

i have been having steak dinners every night for the past five days, the kicker is that it only cost five dollars for a porterhouse and six dollars for a tenderloin. of course that doesnt include the wine which is an extra three dollars. so on average i had a massive steak and a bottle of wine and a salad for less than 10 dollars every night. needless to say i am ready to have some good pasta or a hamburger, i dont think that i can eat anymore steak.

well when i get home i will post the pictures from my trip, believe me i have a lot of them. so hopefully you (whoever you are) will get to see the pictures from this trip in the next couple of days.

jack

2006-07-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

now i have done it, i went paragliding today. it was probably the most amazing thing that i have ever done. it was kind of a spontaneous thing, but it was well worth. i rode in the back of a little chevy pickup to the top of a mountian, that was one of the scariest rides i have ever taken in my life. even the bus rides in bangladesh dont compare, the road was about ten or twelve feet wide. one side of the road was the face of a cliff, the other side was straight down, and when i say straight down i mean about a thousand foot drop. the driver was hanging out the window with a cigarette in his mouth making sure that he didnt go off the edge. after about a hour of straight up the mountian we arrived at a small shack with a three hundred and sixty degree, there was a massive valley below us in which mendoza was located, behind me stood the towering andes. after a good bit of preparations we were ready to take off, believe me i was being very patient. it was a tandem flight thank god because otherwise i would have killed myself. the man told me to start running toward the cliff in front of us, let me tell you something, you really have to trust some one to follow those orders. so i took off running toward the cliff with this little argentinian guy strapped to my back and the glider attached to him. those twenty steps were some of the most exhilirating of my life. as i arrived at the cliff i took a mssive lunge. i felt like my whole body went weightless, it was unbelievable. immediately we dropped about twenty feet off the side of the cliff and then all the sudden we were flying, my adrenaline was pumping through my viens like gas through a high powered engine. i couldnt believe that i was literally flying, it was a one of a kind experience. we sailed through the air for about a half an hour, spinning and doing aereal manuevers. the landing was really smooth, the guy obviously had a lot of experience. i have to say that it was definately the highlight of my trip, if not the entire year. i can see how it is easy to become an adrenaline junky, and it looks like i am headed down that path due to the nature of this trip.

yesterday was much more docile, we rented bikes and rode through the city to all the different wineries in the area. it was really fun, the wine here is phenomenal. we were pretty buzzed by the end of the day, dont worry we werent wearing helmets. it still wasnt anything compared to the paragliding though.

tommorrow i am headed up to the border of brazil, uruguay and argentina to see some of the most amazing waterfalls in south america, that is if everthing works out okay. you just never know what is around the corner down here, that is why i never really make to many plans while traveling. anyways i will update if anything crazy happens between now and monday, which is pretty much a given since it is the last week of my trip.

jack

2006-07-24T15:18:00.000-05:00

well here i am again, once again i am not quite sure where to start. so i will just try and start at the somewhere. i went snowboarding last week, it was pretty neat but needless to say i am not much of a snowboarder. i did okay but it was pretty tough for a first timer. so after coming down from the mountian i drank a bottle of wine with brazilian girl and decided to make it skiing next time. she really wanted to go skiing, she had never been nor had she ever seen the snow. what a surprise that must have been for her. so we (the brazilian girl and her friend (she had never skiied either) as well as an english guy that we met) went up the mountian the next morning on the first bus. it was wild, the first time they ever saw the snow there was a white out on the mountian. we couldnt see more than thirty feet. that didnt deter us from going up up the hill (me and the english guy, the girls got some lessons). it was some of the wildest skiing i have ever done, it was really dangerous but it was really fun. so we came down the mountian later in the day when it was forced to close. when we got down we found out that the pass up to the mountian was closed and that everyone was stranded during the whiteout. it was a major travesty to get off the mountian, believe me we got very lucky to make it off, there were several hundred that were still stranded when we left. let me just say that i am very thankful that i speak spanish, it has gotten me out of more than one sticky situation.

so now i am much deeper in the Andes, i took a twenty hour bus ride north to mendoza, heart of wine country. also the outdoor capital of argentina. today i went white water rafting among the snowcapped mountians. yes i know that sounds a little crazy but it was amazing. we had full body wetsuits so we didnt get too cold. it was definately an experience whitewater rafting in the crystal clear glacial runoff in the andes. tommorrow i am going wine tasting with a couple of friends that i made in the different hostels that i have been staying in. it is amazing how many people you meet in the hostels. but anyways, am looking forward to tasting the best wine in south america.

will keep the blog going when i get back the buenos aires, or something like that.
so cheers to wine steak and the increadible Andes.

2006-07-18T17:34:00.000-05:00

I am not sure where to start...... how about trekking through the fjiords (if that is how you spell it) . oh my god, they were some of the most amazing things that i have ever seen. massive glacial valleys that are full of crystal clear water, with stands of trees that i never even dreamed of. it was almost nausiating, i was standing on the edge of this cliff about two hundred feet tall and was so mezmorized that the girl had to grab my shoulder to make sure that i didnt just fall off into the glacial fed lake below. it was breathtaking, i am not sure that there are many things in the world that i will see much better than what is here (naturaleza speaking). we stopped off and drank from a stream that was coming directly off the snow capped peaks one hundred feet above us. it was some of the most refreshing and pure water that i have ever tasted (or didnt taste), i dont care if there were a thousand parasites and it makes my stomach do flips for a week, it was definately worth it and i would do it again even if i get sick. between the chocolate the snow capped andes and the diversity of foriegners my age, i have already gotten my moneys worth two times over.
so the plan is as follows, tommorrow i am going to summit Cerro (mount) Catedral on horseback, which is the highest peak in the area. then on thursday i am going to make my first attempt at snowboarding which should be fairly interesting. they say that is fairly easy if you have any experience skiing, i guess i will find out soon enough. there is much more to do, but i dare not speculate on this blog.
so anyways, until next time.
chocolate, glaciers, and whatever comes to mind.

2006-07-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

well this is my first posting from patagonia. it is absolutely beautiful here, the mountians are unbelievable. right now it is snowing massive snowflakes outside, i am staying in a hostel called the tango inn. it is pretty nice and cozy, at least it is warm at night. tommorrow i am going trekking in the mountains, to a place called cerro catedral. i met two english women in a bus station a couple of days ago and they have "convinced" me to go trekking with them. so this should be nice, i am definately enjoying the company. but before i go to far into the mountains i am going to enjoy the plethora of chocolate shops in downtown bariloche today. although there are qute a few tourist in town it is pretty easy to avoid them since most of them are in large groups.

i cant post any pictures till i get back because i dont have the cable to connect my camera to the computer. but there are plenty of websites that have many pictures, just look up bariloche argentina.

man i will tell you what, the bus rides are really long and boring for the most part. i havent taken a bus ride less that six hours yet, fortunately the busses are nicer than anything that i have ever seen (the seats are practically beds, they serve coffee and lunch), so i cant complain too much. but now that i am in the Andes i think i am just going to hang out for a little while. it is nice to hang out with people from other countries as well, i think that we counted eight different nationalities at our dinner table last night, myself being the only american. thank god i speak spanish or i would feel like a real idiot among these travellers. but i guarentee you that none of them speak Bangla so ha to all those upity linguist, well not really because bangla is about the most impractical language one could know. anyways we had a massive barbeque last night, actually i have steak every night, it is the national food here. a massive filet cost about three dollars, i end up spending more on beer than i do on my steak (a liter of beer cost about a dollar fifty (in that case maybe i should cut back a little)). but none the less i am having a good time, of course there are those moments where i wished i could be in my comfort zone back home. but i guess that is what it is all about, leaving your comfort zone and experiencing something new (ha, my silly little philosophical quotes are riduculous sometimes), feel free to stop reading at anytime. anyways i will post more after my little trekking expedition, hopefully i wont fall into some crevase on the side of the mountain, but if i do you know i will be having a good time all the while (i live to say that when i know my mother is reading). enshallah i will make it.
until next time
allah hafez

2006-07-13T08:18:00.000-05:00

well, it is getting colder the farther south i go, and the accent more and more difficult to understand. i am in a place called Bahia Blanca, they call it the gateway to patagonia. i will be here tonight and will probably head west en la manana. the bus ride down here was really long, about ten hours mas o menos. but let me tell you, the busses are some of the nicest i have ever seen. they have recliners for seats as well as coffee and juice. the only problem is that they travel really slow. the ride was really boring because we had to travel through las pampas, which is pretty much the equivelent of Oklahoma with really green grass. there are cows everywhere here in las pampas, so as you can imagine the steak is really good. last night i went to the parrilla (grill) for a bite to eat. it was owned by five sisters, they were really sweet and made sure that i wasnt hungry when i left. the place i am staying is really neat, it is an old colonial mansion with fifteen foot cielings and tile floors. it only cost about ten bucks a night (seems a little high, but i guess anything will seem high after bangladesh). on this side of Argentina there arent many tourist, which is nice but there isnt much to do besides just relax. i have a feeling that the andes are going to be quite a bit different, from what i have been told there are quite a few more tourist/backpackers over there. thats okay though, there will just be more people to meet.
it is funny because the only thing that separates me from the argentines is my height and my mexican spanish. it feels wierd not to be stared at in a foriegn country, this place is diametrically opposite from bangladesh. which, believe me is a nice change of pace. but to be honest i dont think that i will ever experience anything quite like bangladesh again, everything seems so tame now and everyone is so mellow.
well anyways, i will update the blog again when i get to the andes.
adios
jack

2006-07-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

here i am again, but this time i am on the other end of the world not the other side. i have come to the conclusion that you can never judge a country by its airport because Buenos Aires is one of the most unbelievable cities i have ever seen in my life. it has some of the most amazing architecture, the best steaks i have ever had and some of the most beautiful women i have seen. let me just say it is a really neat city. it was definately worth the ten and a half hour flight plus some pretty grueling lay overs. tommorrow i am headed down to patagonia, it will be about a nine hour bus ride (the bus is double decker with reclining seats). the weather here is really nice, it is about sixty with a light breeze coming off the atlantic. I am staying in a building that looks about a hundred years old and is adjacent an old catholic church that is about wice that old. the only problem that i have encountered so far is the spanish. it is going to take a few days to the Spainish, no i didnt spell that wrong, they have a very heavy accent here. it sounds like they are from Andaluthia. but oh well, it is great practice to round off my spanish. anyways i am off to the pub and whatever that will entail. will update the blog when i get a chance, hopefully they have the internet in the far reaches of south america, and if not i really dont care.
adios
jack

2006-06-25T11:32:00.000-05:00

well, here we go again, I am preparing for another adventure. my plane leaves on the 10th of July for Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am going down to south america for a couple of weeks, I plan on exploring the whole of the southern cone which is called patagonia. i will probably be down there for roughly a month, skiing, backpacking and anything that comes to mind. Most importantly am going to practice my spanish, first of all i really need the practice, second of all i am going to need it. I recently accepted an invitation from the peace corps to serve in Panama. I will be down there for two years working on water conservation projects. I will be assigned to an indigenous group and will live with them for most of the time that i will be there. i know it is quite a bit different than the whole teaching thing, but i am really interested in the project for several reason, but one of the greatest things about it is the fact that it is an ithmus 70-80 miles wide, so the farthest that i will be from a beach is 35-40 miles. well anyways with me luck because i am gonna need it wandering through south america. I will continue to post once I get going on my trip, so stay tuned because things could get fairly interesting.
shada shoitan no mas

2006-05-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

2006-05-30T19:11:00.000-05:00

2006-05-30T18:53:00.000-05:00

I have more pictures than I can shake a stick at, I cant figure out what order to show them in nor can begin to comment on them right now.

2006-05-29T10:05:00.000-05:00

OOOOOOOHHHHHH Hi speed internet, the following is a tribute to the people who I came to love and respect (well, not all of them) especially the picture of my family and I on my birthday. I hope that who ever still reads this blog enjoys these pictures, they are some of my better ones, there are still a lot more that I have yet to post but I thought that this would be a good start.

Will do my best to post more in the near future, stay tuned for some interesting developments that I will divulge very soon.......

hope you enjoy the pictures

2006-05-29T09:54:00.000-05:00

2006-05-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

2006-05-29T09:20:00.000-05:00

2006-05-21T19:45:00.000-05:00

Well.....I am not really sure where to start this blog, alot has happened since I lost posted anything. I am sure that I have run a lot of people/readers off by my lack of postings, I am hoping that will change in the near future. As for the recent past many things have taken place that that catipulted me from the heart of the sub-continent to an entirely different continent all together. If you read some of the earlier blogs there was that radical group that wanted to.......well let me just say they didnt like us. Well their main commander and his right hand man had been "nabbed by the RAB," shortly after that there came a series of threats from the JMB toward westerners, more specifically our group of workers. They were to be acts of retalliation for the capture of their leaders. Well anyways, that was the last straw for the Peace Corps folks in Washington and they had us out of there in 72 hours, and that was it, my whole experience in Bangladesh came to a screetching halt. That is pretty much it in a nut shell, there are alot of little details that I am not going to draw out. Now I am back in Fayetteville working........ blah. I am pretty sure that won't last long. I will update the blog when I figure out my next adventure.

I will always hope for the best for the people who continue to struggle living in Bangladesh, they have given me a perspective that I will never forget. But most importantly it has opened a new found interest in Asia that will be revisited someday soon......

2006-03-06T03:18:00.000-05:00

2006-03-06T02:18:00.000-05:00

Assalam Walaikum/ Nomos Kar
Apnara Kemon Achen, ami bhalo achi. Amader desher obostha kemon? Bhalo othoba kharap. Protidin ami shuru kharap kobor dekhi, jokhon ei kobor dekhi tokhon amar mon kharap. Kintu ami ki jani? Kichu na, ami ek jon matro, ami kichu korte pari na.

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything, I am sure some people are tired of checking and have given up. Well, nothing has happened that is very significant here. I have been doing a lot of "community integration." The term is really lame but the idea is very important to a successful stint in a country like this. In order to make it here you need two things: good community integration and decent language skills. Without those two things it is possible to make it through the two years, but it is definitely much easier with them. There are various ways in which one can integrate into his community, such as...... singing in front of large crowds (check), making a fool out of ones self in public (check), eating the local food off of the streets (check), living with a local family (check) and most of all being able to wipe ones "ass" with their own hand (check). The second they see you trying to buy toilet paper they will laugh and make fun of you (check). I wasn't sure to how and go about proving that I do indeed use my hand and not toilet paper. I tried everything short of walking in public with a "&^%# stained" hand. But what finally did it was using some one else's toilet (my neighbors...to ensure the rumor spread quickly), because they sure as heck didn't have any "rear wiping" materials. So in the end I have successfully proven to my community that I too partake in the primitive act of...... I don't think that I need to explain anymore. Some of the things that end up making the community happy are really strange, but hey, that is half the fun being silly in a very strange environment.

So, recently I was invited back out to the Hindu village to see their everyday life. It was a bit of a strange invitation but I accepted it none the less. The Hindus have gotten the raw end of the deal in Bangladesh, for subsistence they are forced to live in a small cluster and eek out a living. Although they are extremely poor they are very “sincere and gentle people.” They were really nice to me and they showed me the different ways that they perform their trade (pottery). It is really neat to watch them work because they are sooo good at what they do, they told me that they have been doing this longer than anyone can remember in the village (living history). They took me to the oldest man in the village, how old he was no one was sure but everyone knew that he had been alive much longer than anyone else. I wasn’t sure what to think when I first met him. He basically lives on his haunches, meaning that he is in a perpetual squatting position. As you can see from the picture e just sits like that all day, he waddles around the village in that same position. So as you can imagine, for a person who is 6’4 it would be a little awkward to talk to a man who is squatting on the ground. So I too lowered myself into the “eastern toilet stance” which made it much easier to not understand him. He spoke in some language that I had never heard before, it didn’t even sound like Bangla. So as I sat there and tried to listen to this man babble about god knows what, I noticed that some of the people were laughing discretely. Then one of the women came up to me and said “don’t worry, we don’t understand him either.”

Among other pictures on here, the one with the crowd of men is at my hotel (restaurant). These are the guys that I have tea and lunch with in the afternoon, as well as debate cricket and who would win in a Bush v. Clinton bout (I think you know my answer, an Arkie can always whoop a Texan, ha-ha, just joking for all you Texans out there).

Also I have included some pictures of my class. This is on a Hartal (strike) day so there are fewer students, but this is my hardcore group. They are the ones that come everyday and participate, they are definitely the ones that are improving the most. I really love working with them, they are so eager to learn about everything. There are some days where it just turns into an English medium class, they just come in and we discuss any issues that arise. It doesn’t bother me that much to ditch a lesson plan and just let them steer the class if they are into the topic. As long as they are speaking in English I don’t care what topic we discuss, although some times they can touch on some pretty sensitive issues (domestic and international).

Everyone in the country is really excited right now because the two top leaders for the JMB (locally grown militants) have been captured. It has been the topic of the class for the past few days. Many of the people are saying that the militancy is over, well, I sure hope that they are right. Many of the people here are interested to see the two men publicly executed in order to deter more of their kind. I really don't care what they do with them as long as they don't cause anymore problems.

So anyways I thought it would be nice to post some pictures on the blog today because I have access to some reasonably fast internet.....ha there is no such thing in this place. I hope you like them, and I will try to post more later.

Enshallah aro lichbo, dhorjo dhoron ei "story" shesh hoy na.
Bhalo thaken ebong Allah Hafez

dushto chele signing off

2006-02-12T01:53:00.000-05:00

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.

2006-02-03T22:22:00.000-05:00

This is the picture from that strange healing ceremony slash festival that i wrote about some time ago. Boy was that a strange event.....and so the pictures keep on coming...........

2006-02-03T22:07:00.000-05:00

And the pictures keep on coming........

2006-02-03T21:49:00.000-05:00

So on that last blog I published a couple of pictures from the area in which I live. The women that are standing in a group are from the village, they love it when I come out and play with their kids and eat with them. They always want me to stay and get married in the village but somehow I manage to escape eachtime, now I think that they think it is humorous. Anyways maybe some of these picture will give you an idea of what Kurigram is like. On this blog I have provided a rather gory picture, this is of the sacrifice. I thought it was pretty cool, but I am sure the PETA people would tend to disagree. The next picture is of the kids in my neighborhood area, they are the ones that will be going hungry tonight because their parents livelyhood was destroyed. Many of my friends lost everything that they have because of the government, and believe me they are not happy about it. They were crying at first but now they are really pissed, I have a feeling that someone is going to pay really soon. I just hope it is not me, I asked them to tell me before they went off and did something crazy. I am sure they will, or at least as long as I keep going for tea.....oh wait that was destroyed, my favorite tea stall was torn down as well. Well maybe they will at least let me get out of dodge before the revolution begins. Believe me it is coming soon....and I am about to have front row seats.

Allah Hafez

2006-02-03T21:21:00.000-05:00

I had to come to Dhaka for a training yesterday, but it turns out that the training has been cancelled due to a heightened "security alert." Apparently today and tommorrow is the long march, which is exactly that a march from the four corners of the country that converges on Dhaka. You know.....where i am right now! The government has arrested thousands of opposition leaders over the past two day to try and prevent any anti-government activities or quote "subversive" activities. The last I checked it is not a good idea to arrest the people from the opposition party in a "democracy," but hey what do I know anyway.

As I was leaving Kurigram yesterday morning I saw one of the saddest things. The government has decided that it is going to take possesion of all the land falling on the right hand side of the street (how they decided that I dont know). Let me back up a second.....in Kurigram most of the business owners are squatters, they just set up little tin shacks on the side of the road and sell what ever they have. Many of the shop owners are tradesmen (metal workers, wood workers, etc.), and what they have in those tin shacks is it, there is nothing else as far as money or work is concerned. Also the unemployment rate in Bangladesh is hovering at right about fifty percent, okay with all that said I can continue with my story. So as I was leaving my house yesterday morning I heard some really loud banging down the street. I asked the rickshaw walla what the noise was, he replied "the government is once again beating us farther into the ground and there is nothing we can do about it." As we approached the main area of my neighborhood I noticed that the street was littered with debris. Then I saw men tearing these bamboo and tin shacks down with sledge hammers. They were evicting all the shop owners in my village area as well as other villages because they could not afford to pay the bribe to the local politician. I felt so sick to my stomach seeing the men standing there watching their livelyhood being torn down right infront of thier eyes. There was nothing they could do because there were men with shotguns and teargas launchers ready to use them (believe me they have no reservations about opening up on a crowd). So I think that it is pretty easy to gestimate that there will be another couple thousand people in Kurigram that will be starving now if they wernt already. Pretty sad reality huh.

2006-02-01T03:00:00.000-05:00

2006-02-01T02:24:00.000-05:00

I have been staying really busy the past couple of days/weeks, it is amazing to see how fast the time is starting to fly by. I am finally getting settled into my new apartment, it is pretty nice to have a little more independence now. Even though I have to start cooking for my self for the first time in six months, let me just say that I am a little rusty. It doesn’t really matter in the end because my students invite me for lunch everyday; I am talking about an all out lunch. At least five or six different dishes along with Pulao (the best rice as far as I am concerned), so I really cant complain too much about the eating situation. When I lived with my host family I at lunch there everyday, and if I didn’t they would be worried about me. Or as they would occasionally say to me when I ate lunch with someone else, “ Bai re khabar bhalo na.” Which means, “food from the outside is not good,” which culturally translates into “you need to eat at home because we make the best food.” The cultural translations are definitely taking a little longer than the actua language itself. Speaking of food… we (Kelly and I) had a barbeque with some friends in the community. It was pretty funny to watch, they weren’t quite sure what to think about a hamburger. The stacking technique just was way too foreign for them. It was really fun nonetheless; everyone was so excited to get to eat American food. That and they wanted to see the bideshis cook. Thank god it turned out okay, I realized about half way through that people were just enjoying trying to master our eating techniques. They kept wanting to use a fork because “that is how all Americans eat,” but I had to explain that in America we had all different types of food and ways of eating it. The response was pretty much unanimous… “America shob ache, kichuri er moto” which means America has everything, like jambalaya. This is pretty much the response that I get from most people when I try to explain things about America. Anyways it was a nice barbeque with the community, it would have been way better if I could have gotten a case of PBR from the commissary but I don’t think the local Imam would be too happy about me boozing up the neighborhood. I guess there is always next time………

I went to Dhaka last week for a few days, every time that I go it reminds me of how much I love Kurigram. Dhaka is a freaking zoo; I think that it is one of the nuttiest places I have seen. They have these little death traps called CNG’s, they are these three-wheeled motorized vehicles with a crazy driver chewing pan the whole way. It is a roller coaster ride from start to finish, and it definitely is the most unsafe thing that I have been doing besides being an American in a Muslim country while G.W. is running the show. Kurigram feels so far removed from everything, probably because there is only one bridge to get in and out, and that bridge is shared with the railroad.

Class is going pretty well so far. today we are having a debate on "Arranged Marriages v. Love Marriages. So I guess I will see how that goes, it should be interesting to say the least. Most of the girls went for arranged marriage and the boys went for love marriages. I think that a couple of the students will end up dating after this class, or at least it seems like they will. I think that it is kind of cool, my class provides a forum for people to be outside of the norms of their culture. In other words it is a place where they can talk about taboos and have political discussions without fear of persecution so to speak. Actually, everyday after my English class I teach a short Spanish lesson to about ten students who are interested. It was not my idea, they just were really interested after I told them that I can speak some Spanish. Which was of course followed by a Spanish song, that pretty much sold them on learning Spanish. So now I hear some of my students practicing Spanish with each other, if I could get them to practice their English like they practice Spanish they would be doing much better. Although I must say that I am proud that they are so eager to learn, from what I understand not all the volunteers are having so much success with their class. It is not necessarily the volunteer but more the will of the students. My students do not have any other alternative, there is no English medium school or any competent English teachers for that matter. Or as some of my students say "we have nothing else to do, it is not like I can go get a job." Which is true, there just is no work to be had in this area.

By the way, this is the picture of the village that my family lives in. This is where John Henry is a living legend.

Well that is about it from this side of the planet, maybe my next blog will be a little more interesting...... especially since there was a article published in the Bangla and English newspapers saying that JMB now wants to KILL Peace Corps volunteers, they said that they want us gone...... you know what I say.....NUTS!
Or whatever that guy said at the Battle of the Bulge. Bombs Away.
Signing off for now Bhodmashiallap (hint: this blog basically is "bhodmashiallap")

P.S. please excuse the grammar errors, I only speak correct english between 3:00 and 5:00 Sunday thru Thursday. It is not like i am an english teacher or something......

2006-01-18T23:31:00.000-05:00

Well it has been five months to the day. I cannot believe how fast it has gone by, at first it felt like time was just creeping, but now it feels like it is slipping away. It seemed like I would be living with a family forever, like the time would never come when I would live alone. Well here it is, I will be moving out in a few weeks. Today I was looking at some pictures that I took on the way to Bangladesh, it seems like that was yesterday. My family is sad that I am leaving, and to be quite honest I am also a little sad to be leaving them. But it is not like I will never see them again, they made me guarantee that I will have lunch at there house at least two or three times a week. I told them to be careful because I might take them up on that offer, anyone who knows me well knows that I can eat someone out of their house. But not here, there are at least three women sitting around cooking all day long just waiting for someone like me to come along so they can make an attempt at filling me up. So anyways, for anyone who has actually kept up with the blog for the past five months I salute you, because you have way more patience than I do. And for anyone who just happened upon the blog, well, god bless you if you have the time to read all this mumbo jumbo that I now call my life. I will continue to post as long as there is Internet, which I don’t see going anywhere any time soon. Although I think it could be debatable as to whether this could be classified as “the” Internet, or just some sub-continental hoax involving phone lines. All right so back to what I originally sat down to write.
For the past few days it has been Eid. I really haven’t ever seen anything like this before; this Eid is called Eid Korbani, which means sacrifice. The people who can afford it buy a cow or goat and sacrifice it to Allah. Well my family got both a cow and a goat. They insisted that I take as many photos as possible as well as try and get some video footage. Well I got both and looking at the pictures and videos after made me feel a little queasy. I thought that I could stomach anything, but the sight of a cow and a goat having its throat slit was a little unsettling. Everyone was really happy and excited so I tried my best to look the same, ha, I am sure my face was a dead give away when the blood started squirting all over the Imam. The insisted that I take part by helping skin and gut the cow, the neighbor did the goat so I couldn’t do the easy one. Fortunately I did okay and didn’t look like an idiot. Well I am sure that I look like an idiot in all their religious festivals but I do my best. They made me go to the Eid gar Mat (the place where they all pray) and sit with them while they pray. It is not like going to church back home where you can kind of blend in, I stuck out like a sore thumb and all of them let me know by turning around and staring at me the whole time. Although I think that I gained a lot of respect in the community for going and participating. It was definitely the talk of the village for the rest of the day, the bideshi wearing a panjabi, that must have been quite a shock for most of them. I think that they appreciate that I am trying to take part in their religious activities, so it wasn’t so bad.
I went out to the village yesterday because I had a lunch invitation from my extended family, mainly an invitation from my poopy (aunt). So I thought I was living in a village atmosphere to begin with, ha, was I wrong. After we (my family and myself) walked for about Allah knows how far we arrived at a series of straw, bamboo and tin houses/huts/structures or whatever you want to call them. I have never seen anything quite like this before, or do I think I will ever see anything like this outside of Kurigram. Immediately upon arrival I was called upon to demonstrate that I in fact knew how to say a few words in Bangla, which was hit to say the least. That gathered quite a crowd of people about half my size, oh yeah; the doors on the huts came up to my chest. So I could see over all of the rooftops which I am sure freaked all of them out, I could tell by the look of amazement on their faces. At this point in my time in Bangladesh I have grown quite fond of freaking people out, I know that sounds a little sadistic but hey, it is fun. The first magic trick that I pulled out of my pocket was my camera, which I am very glad I brought. So of course I put them all inside my camera as they put it. My camera has the little digital screen that previews the pictures, so for a couple of the women it was the first time that they had seen a picture of themselves. I told them that they can personally thank John Henry, so John Henry if you are reading this you are now officially legendary in a small Bangladeshi village outside the middle of now where. When I say legendary I mean it, they told me about a foreign woman who passed through a place near the village fifteen years ago. Since you are the person who made it possible for these women to see themselves for the first time I am sure that your name will be remembered for quite a while. I am sure there will be a few children named after you, ha ha. So after eating more than I have ever eaten in my entire life I wandered through the village with my camera shooting some video. It is really nice to be able to document these experiences, not that I will ever forget them, but it is still nice to have something to remember them with. Hopefully I will be able to post a few of the pictures soon.
Switching gears……… it is getting pretty chilly here at the foot of the Himalayas. Let me tell you something, taking a bucket bath outside in fifty-degree weather is pretty shocking to say the least. They other morning I woke up and my host mother was standing at my door with a bucket of boiling water. I thought I was going to cry when I saw the steam rising from the bucket. Without getting to graphic let me just say it was the best I have felt in a long time. I drug it out as long as I possibly could; it looked like I was on fire with all the steam coming off my body. After the bucket bath I went back to my room and bundled up in my Kashmiri blankets/shawls and slept like a baby. It is amazing how the little things come to feel soooooo gooooood. I don’t think that I will ever take a hot shower for granted again. Even though I get one every two months or so when I go to Dhaka, it just isn’t the same as being in Kurigram and taking a hot bucket bath. Now if I could just get one of these beautiful Bangladeshi women to pour the water over me without me having the obligation of marrying her, I would be on cloud nine. But I think the chances of that are pretty slim, it would be easy to talk them into doing it, it is just that it would be much harder to talk the mob out of lynching me for desecrating one of their women. So I guess I will just scratch that thought.
As far as teaching is concerned I am enjoying it, I am having a hard time assessing the levels of my students. They have this amazing English vocabulary, but they don’t have the ability to use it. Or at least when they do it comes out really weird. It seems the more I teach the more I realize I don’t know, it seems like teaching really defines your knowledge much better than any test. My students sure are putting me to the test right now, thank god I am pretty quick on my feet or else I would be up *&%$ creek without a paddle. Instead of teaching in a really formal manner I try to relate the material to their everyday lives, which is proving interesting to say the least. I have a feeling that I am learning more than they are sometimes, of course I will never admit that to them, or at least not yet. If I could just get the girls to take the burkas away from their face it would make me feel a lot more comfortable. It is really weird having these dark brown eyes staring at me from behind a piece of cloth; it is like something out of national geographic. Sometimes I feel like I am living in a national geographic magazine. I know there is no way they will remove the burkas nor am I going to make any effort to convince them otherwise. I tell them about how American women live but that just seems to arouse the perverted guys in my class if you know what I mean, so I try to keep that to a minimum.
As far as the woman thing goes I have been making some major breakthroughs at home (my host family), I am now allowed in the kitchen. I think that I am the first guy to ever go willingly into the kitchen for anything other than food. I really like sitting in the kitchen with my host mother and drinking tea (it is a bottom glass of milk tea). I tell her about the world and about other cultures, how other people in the world live. I took my pencil and paper in there (the kitchen) the other day and drew a few maps and related them to Bangladesh, and of course the different food that people eat. I think it is the first attempt that anyone has made to teach them anything besides cooking and housework. It kind of makes the men jealous which I think is funny, I tell them that I will be happy to teach them anything they want to know, but it will have to come to the kitchen to hear about it. I feel bad for my mother, she was married off at the age of 12, so she was deprived of any education that she might have had. It is amazing to see how eager she is to learn, so I really enjoy sitting with her, her sister and the servant (a fifteen year old girl) and drinking tea. I see that as teaching just as much as being in the classroom. They are not dumb women like some of the men claim; they just have never been given the opportunity to get an education. Not that I am giving them an education, it is just a breath of fresh air from the smoke filled kitchen. I do the same in the tea stalls outside the home, I go and sit with men and drink more tea. We talk about everything; I love poking at the difficult subjects. I love telling the old men that my Dadi (grandmother) has been to china and many other countries; they just stare at me and then laugh in disbelief. They give me a hard time about president Bush treats the world and I give them a hard time about the way that women are treated here. Then I ask them which is worse, treating people from other countries bad or treating your own family bad. Believe me, it can make for some pretty interesting conversations, but they are always in good spirits. It is great practice for my Bangla, but I still can’t understand the men who don’t have any teeth. That is my language goal; if I can understand the toothless old rural men I will consider myself a decent Bangla speaker. But I really don’t see that happening in the near future considering most Bengalis cant even understand them.
So anyways I guess I better be getting on before this blog gets out of control. This blog is dedicated to the now legendary John Henry and to anyone who has been reading through these increasingly lengthy blogs that are becoming stranger and stranger, kind of like my life and me.
I am the shada shoitan no more; I am now bhodmashiallap. That is my new rural nickname around here, or at least what the people who know me call me or give me hard time about. Take it from me, that one is not in the dictionary…. good luck figuring out what it means.
Bhodmashiallap signing off from some place west of “the west,” but not quite the Far East. See you long time in the tomorrow.

2006-01-15T00:38:00.000-05:00

I took this picture from my back yard in Kurigram, i thought it was kind of cool. Let me tell you something, those lungis that those guys are wearing are soooooo comfortable. I wear one everyday, not in public but around the house. You better believe that i will be wearing one when I come home, they are great for lounging around.

2006-01-15T00:17:00.000-05:00

I would like to thank Ben for posting the pictures. the first picture of me is a little old, it is from about three months ago while I was still living in Gazipur. The other various pictures of people are from different places in the country. the girl posing in the yellow dress was my host sister Ranu, she absolutely loved my camera. the other one of me in front of the Barbie poster is on my birthday. all the people in the building got together to celebrate and decorate the house and that was one of the various decorations. hopefully some of these pictures will put some of me life into perspective, well maybe not in perspective but at least it will give an idea of what it is like. hopefully I will be able to continue to post pictures in the future, I think that some times pictures are worth a thousand words. The picture with this blog is of Rumpa and Amitah my two favorite children, they live out in the village with the rest of my family.

GW: it depends on how conservative or radical you are. most people have one or maybe two wives in separate cities. but in some villages on male will father many children to different mothers. now I am working number six or seven, I have begun to lose count. I am just kidding for everyone out there who doesn't take my humor with a grain of salt.

I am glad to see more people are reading the blog, I will try to not to bore you out of your minds.

2006-01-10T12:32:00.000-05:00

2006-01-02T01:29:00.000-05:00

Well I made it through another month; time is really starting to fly. The past five months have gone by faster than I could have ever imagined. I think everyone can agree with the saying that time flies when you are having fun. The holidays were nice, but at the same time they were hard. It was hard being around people that I barely knew I am so accustomed to spending the holidays with people that I am close to. After this year I will definitely never take the holidays for granted again. I think it took a pretty big toll on everyone in the group, but now that they are over I think everyone will start to feel a little better.
There is an exodus of people leaving the country (Peace Corps Volunteers), we have already lost 30% of the people from my group. That is a pretty high number. This bombing stuff is really freaking people out; I think people are more worried about the problems on the horizon. For some strange reason I feel that I need to stick it out, I feel a little sense of pride for staying. It seems like someone new is leaving week, the more people that go the more people want to go. For me the more people that go the more I want to stay. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but to be quite honest not much does make sense in this place. I feel that over the past months that I have made a commitment to be here.
I don’t know what I would do if I left, I think that I would miss this place. I have developed a love hate relationship with this country. I would miss the old men that I have tea with every afternoon, the little kids who run after me while I am riding my bike. I would miss the crazy man who follows me around in the market, the guys that I play soccer and cricket with. But most of all I would miss the adventure, to wake up to a place that is nothing like anything I will ever experience again, and then one morning wake up and call that place home. That right there is one of the most unique feelings one can experience. It is a feeling that cannot be bought, or had by any means other than the actual experience itself.
My language is starting to come around; I am able now to deal with people that used to drive me crazy. The language barrier was the hardest part of the past five months, but now I am completely immersed in the language. No one in my family speaks English; no one at work speaks English. The only person that I speak English with is Kelly and the people from my office. But I really don’t see them a whole lot, so I am forced to constantly speak Bangla. Believe me I am not complaining, I heard the other volunteers Bangla while I was in Dhaka and it made me feel good. I am almost on par with some of the people who have been here for fifteen months. I made a conscious effort to learn to read and write the language, which is really starting to pay off. I can know read the busses when they are coming, I can read the signs. I know that those are small things in the scheme of things, but they have helped me in so many ways. When people see me write my name in Bangla it draws a small crowd, and they love to correct me. This is okay as long as it is the right correction; believe me that can be a problem in a society that is hardly educated.
The whole thing with the president was pretty cool. We actually didn’t get to meet him because there was a massive security blanket surrounding him. They gave the VIP seats in the front, and they acknowledged us on several occasions. It was pretty funny, everyone that spoke at the convention had to say a few things to us about how we were safe. I wasn’t sure who I was more scared of, the terrorist or the four guys at the door holding sub-machine guns. There was one guy sitting in the back of a Toyota pickup truck holding a grenade launcher. Grenade launchers freak me out, I saw a guy with one of those trying to control a crowd outside the jail/police station in Kurigram. Needless to say there was some heavy security at the event. We were on national TV on a couple of stations. It was funny to have the cameras right in our faces as we were sitting there. When we arrived at the event there was a massive contingent of women wearing the traditional blue saris (when the president is at an event the women must wear blue saris). I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I walked through the gate behind the security. There had to have been at least one hundred women (my age) standing there waiting to greet us. I wish I could have gotten some pictures, but they wouldn’t let us take anything with us. Oh well, I had a good time none the less, even though I didn’t get any picture I will probably never forget it.
The other day I missed my normal bus to Kurigram on my way back from Dhaka. The guys at the bus station desk are really nice, they know me pretty well because I travel to and from Dhaka on the same bus every time. They said that there was only one more bus going to Kurigram that day, and I could not stay another day in Dhaka. So I told them to just give me a ticket for the 10 o’clock bus, they told me I might want to just stay in Dhaka for another day, that it would not be in my best interest to take the 10 o’clock bus. Being hard headed like I am I told them it was no big deal, that I could handle any of the buses. Wrong move, I should have stayed in Dhaka. That was the craziest bus ride I have ever taken in my life. When the bus pulled up it looked like the mobile home that Randy Quaid drove in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, it had death mobile written all over. They gave me the seat behind the driver, so I had a front row ticket to my roller coaster ride. As I was sitting there behind the Pan (beethi nut combined with calcium carbonate and some other stuff that I have never seen before) chewing bus driver looking through the spider web of a windshield, I began to think that it was quite possible that we wouldn’t make it to our destination. The bus driver was jacked up on Pan and god knows what else, there was a guy hanging out the door of the bus screaming at the people to get out of the way because the bus wasn’t stopping for animals or people. The baby and her mother next to me were sick and throwing up out the window across my lap, I would have moved if there was room, but the bus was packed like a sardine can. On the roof there were about fifty people free loading, along with a few people hanging from the ladder on the back. None of the meters worked on the dash, except for the tape player that was blaring Hindi music. The roads we took……… I don’t think that I need to elaborate, just use your imagination, if there was an express bus to hell this was it and it is on that highway (to hell). On the way we had to stop for three tanks that were blocking the road. That was the first time that I have ever seen a tank in real life, much less on that was manned and moving. There were a couple of trucks of men wearing all black fatigues and black headbands that hung down to their waist. They were holding AK-47s and sub machine guns, their captain got on the bus and said that they were conducting military “drills.” But since we were there and all he might as well go ahead and search the bus, some drills huh. So anyways after about a half hour dealing with them we were back on our way we made our way back to the main road so we could avoid more military “drills.” We stopped at this restaurant along the road, of course everyone on the bus wanted to by my lunch so they could watch me eat with my hand. Even though it should have been me buying everyone on the bus lunch, I accepted the offer as not to dishonor anyone’s gesture. I felt like a lion at the zoo during feeding time, everyone wanted to see the bideshi eat. Oh well, it was a free lunch and some really good Bangla practice so I really can’t complain about that. All in all the bus ride took over eight hours as well as every bit of my patience and wear with all. But that is just it; I wouldn’t trade these kinds of experiences for any thing. Experiences like this are priceless to me, but I will admit sometimes they are pretty trying at the time.
The other night I was standing out in the middle of a rice paddy talking to my mom on the phone. I go out there because that is where I get the best reception. It was a pitch-black night with all the stars out and no moon. When I turned my little flash light on there was a layer of fog on the ground covering my feet, so as you can imagine it was a little creepy. While I was standing there talking I heard a couple of men approach in the darkness, they stopped about twenty feet away and started to talk about me. I couldn’t understand everything that they were saying but I heard my name a couple of times. I knew that I wasn’t in too much danger because I knew everyone in my para (neighborhood/village) and I knew that they would help me if I called for it. They men started shining their flash light on me, I couldn’t see them because of the light, then they called me over to where they were after I hung up the phone. When I got over there one of the men pulled out police identification and said that I should come with him. This is where I wish I could speak really good Bangla because I misinterpreted what he said. I thought he meant I was in trouble and it made me really nervous, although I hadn’t done anything to get myself in trouble. So I went with him back toward my house, which made me think that we were going to my house. He went by my house and then he turned down an alley with a dim glow and a faint noise coming from end of the alley. Believe me I didn’t want to go down the alley, but in the end I reluctantly agreed to follow him. As we got closer to the end I could make out voices singing and the light was beginning to flicker. When I got to the end it opened up into a large circle people standing in the middle of this slum, they were all singing in some language that I couldn’t understand. In the middle of the circle there was an old woman sitting on a wood plank bed wrapped in blankets. Then about ten people emerged from the circle dressed in traditional clothes and one of them was playing a violin type instrument, they began to dance in circles around the old woman while singing a song. I asked the guy who had brought to this place what in the world it was. As it turns out, it was an ancient Hindu song and dance used to heal people with paralysis. The old woman in the middle was paralyzed on the left side of her body, so they were doing a seven-day song and dance to heal her. I seriously doubt that she will be healed but it was pretty cool to see. The best part is that I went back to my house and got my camera, so I got some really neat video footage as well as some good pictures. I had never seen anything like that before; I think things like that are more common in Kurigram because it is so rural and so close to India. After seeing that it made me feel really good that they invited me to see it. They said that they had never shown a foreigner that before, but to be honest I don’t think that many foreigners would have ventured down that dark alley. I was just lucky that they had good intentions. I feel like my para is beginning to accept me as part of their community, and believe me that is a good feeling because it is not easy to do. The Peace Corps always told me that it is really hard for us to accept the new culture (Bengali), but I beg to differ. I think that it is harder for the locals to accept me as a foreigner/stranger, because I am so much different than they are. So gaining their acceptance is a really good feeling and makes it worth being here. Now if I can just avoid those damn terrorists I should be okay, the people in my para said that they wouldn’t let anything happen to me no matter how bad the terrorism situation becomes. I guess we will see about that in the coming days/months. They said that they wouldn’t let any strangers come around the neighborhood, so I guess that I am not the stranger here anymore.
Well I guess this blog is getting a little out of hand as far as length is concerned. I could really go on and on, but I will refrain from boring the heck out of whoever takes the time to look at this. So anyways I hope all is well back in the good old US of A, I hope that our god forsaken president doesn’t run our beloved country any farther into the ground before I get back. Well that is all from this side of the world.
The stranger no more signing off,
Shada shoitan

2005-12-26T06:41:00.000-05:00

And then God created high speed internet, but he forgot about Bangladesh. I am in Dhaka using the internet (dial up), it feels like high speed internet compared to what I am used to. I don’t even have to bring a book to use this internet, now all I need is a good magazine. I hope everyone had a nice white Christmas, we had a some snow on the ground. No wait that was the ashes from the burning trash. it was cold last night so a bunch of people gathered up trash and burned it, it almost smelled like chestnuts roasting over an open fire. I am sorry if I am freaking people out about the situation here, I am just calling it like I see it. I will try and steer clear of the morbid blogs from now on. I will try to focus on the happy things that are going on. For instance, my host family said that i get to participate in the sacrifice of animals on Korbani Eid (January 13th or 14^th), this is exciting. I think they are going to get me my own goat to sacrifice, I plan on getting some good video footage of this event. I have never sacrificed an goat before, I have witnessed it though, it is a pretty wild experience. I don’t know many people that have done that back home, so this should be one for the books.

The girl that lives next door keeps bringing me food, it is starting to make me a little nervous. I just cant say no, the food is soooooo good. She brings me fresh bread like foods in the morning and rice pudding in the evening, this is about two or three times a week. So sat down with her, her family and my family and explained that my mother has already arranged my marriage back home, and that the dowry has already been paid so there is nothing that I can do. they completely understood, so now they all want to buy clothes for my wife to be. I told them to hold off on buying the clothes, I told them to wait until it was time for me to leave. I cant even imagine trying to explain that to an American family, they would think I was a wacko. I still get the food, but it is not under the pretense that I will marry her, now it is because I am a son in the family.

Besides goat sacrifices and arranged marriages things are going alright for me, in a few days I am going to meet the president. I am not sure what that will amount to but it should interesting. it will probably consist of him being in awe of how tall I am and then him asking me if I am married, which will prompt me to give him the previously stated answer.

I am going to start something called the question of the month, this will be the weirdest question that I have received over the past month. Although i have been asked this question before, it is definitely the best for this month.

My host mother asked me this: “Who is your mothers favorite Professional wrestler in the WWF?”

My answer of course was “Rick Flair,” and for your information my host mothers is “The Rock”

(this was while we were watching wrestling as a family, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t real and that my mother doesn’t watch wrestling.)

2005-12-24T02:00:00.000-05:00

I thought that I would post this information that I found on the state departments website. It looks as though the US is starting to take an interest in the situation at hand, this along with a couple of articles that have been in the papers recently lead me to believe that these guys (JMB) are starting to make some international noise. I am in Dhaka for the next week so I will be able to catch up on emails and post some good blogs that I have not been able to post in Kurigram.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman

This information is current as of today, Sat Dec 24 2005 12:52:54 GMT+0600 (Central Asia Standard Time).
Bangladesh
December 21, 2005
This Public Announcement is being issued to alert U.S. citizens to recent events related to the security situation in Bangladesh. Those residing in or traveling to Bangladesh are urged to use extra care and precaution while in the country. This Public Announcement expires on March 21, 2006.
An outlawed Islamist terrorist organization, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), has taken responsibility for a series of bombings and suicide attacks in Bangladesh since August against a variety of targets. The half-dozen attacks have focused on the judicial system and local government institutions, killed approximately 30 Bangladeshis, and wounded nearly 200. JMB leaflets found at attack sites and sent to local media call for the implementation of strict Islamic law in Bangladesh, justify the use of indiscriminate suicide attacks, and condemn Western social and political concepts as un-Islamic. They also identify the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom as enemies of Islam. Newspapers and Bangladeshi non-governmental organizations, including several which receive funding from the United States Government, have received threats purportedly from JMB.
JMB's introduction of suicide bombers to Bangladesh in November represented a significant escalation in its campaign of violence. JMB has also demonstrated an ability to adapt its methods and targets to defeat police counter-measures. It is unclear how the arrest of several senior JMB figures in December, and the recovery of several large arms caches, will affect JMB’s ability to mount future attacks. Thus far, no American citizens have been killed or wounded in these attacks.
JMB threats receive wide coverage in the local media. On December 10, several newspapers reported that the JMB had threatened to attack women, Muslim and non-Muslim, who failed to adopt Islamic dress.
The Embassy advises all Americans in or traveling to Bangladesh to take extra care and precaution while going out in public and to be cognizant of the current situation. American citizens in Bangladesh should remain vigilant, especially if visiting courts or municipal government offices.

Merry freaking Christmas

2005-12-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

Well I have something fairly interesting for this posting. Yesterday I received an invitation from the president of Bangladesh to attend the national youth day celebration in Dhaka. This should be a rather interesting experience. There are only two of us going, the other person has to speak, thank god it is not me. But I have a sick feeling that they are going to ask me to speak. They always want the foreigners to speak if we are there. I hope they dont ask me to sing a song, that will be really embarrassing. Another thing that kind of worries me is the proximity to a high level figurehead in the government. The country is way too unstable for me to be hanging out with a guy that has a death warrant. Oh well we will see what happens.
I am selecting students for my class right now. I have four guys applying that are from Madrassas, which are the fundamentalist Islamic schools. They all have long beards and look like Ossama Bin Laden. They have really good grades and speak a little English. I think I am going to except them based solely on their fundamentalist religious views. It is going to be really touchy ground but I think I want to work with these youth. They are the ones that need this more than the poorest of the poor. They are extremely misguided by the imams that are preaching this jihad stuff. They really need some outside perspective; I think that I am the person to give it to them. They are the same age as us, 22-25, it is so sad how badly they are brainwashed. I hope it doesn’t backfire on me; it very well could in these trying days of this country. I am not sure how am going to go about it but I will just start by teaching them a little English. Maybe teach them some geography, show them that there is much more to this world than just the villages of rural Bangladesh.
I will try to post again after my meeting with the president to let everyone knopw how it went.
shada shoitan signing off.

2005-12-12T02:30:00.000-05:00

I am not sure when this will be posted, but I figured I would start it now. Things here are starting to get a little out of control. The political situation here is deteriorating really fast; it is disintegrating right in front of my eyes. This is all leading up to the elections that are still eleven months away. The Mujahadeen here have stepped up their campaign for Islamic rule. Since my last posting they have created a lot of problems. Over the past week and a half there have been five or six suicide bombing throughout the country. Two of them were in the city of Gazipur where I just spent the last three months living. One of them was about twelve hours after I walked by the very spot it happened. I was visiting my old family in Gazipur for a day and left that night, the next morning is when it took place. Three days ago the girl that lives in my city Kelly was down in the market where we shop. She said that people started panicking and running in all directions, they had found a time bomb planted on the side of the road. It turns out that a small child had been toying with it when someone noticed that it was ticking. The “authorities” said that it would have caused a lot of damage and loss of life if it had gone off, for Kelly that was a little close for comfort. People are finding these bombs planted all over the country, under busses (in my bus station in Dhaka), in government buildings and schools. Schools!! These guys have no mercy. They plant them in schools because they are not teaching strictly from the Koran. They are threatening to kill teachers that do not comply with their conditions. Yesterday twin suicide bombers detonated outside a cultural academy. These guys are nuts, this the first time that they are actually resorting to suicide tactics. It is really scaring the general population bad. All the Bengalis are very nervous right now, which in turn makes me a little nervous. There have been no direct threats to Americans as of yet, but these guys are getting pretty bold. The more press coverage they get the more threats they issue. The U.S. doesn’t seem to be too concerned with the situation, especially seeing how Bangladesh doesn’t have any resources to offer (they don’t even have naturally occurring rock). So much for the war on terror, more like the War for Natural Resources (and terrorist if you have them). I think the U.S. will just pawn this problem off on India and let them deal with it.
Anyways aside from the bleak outlook on the situation I am trying to enjoy myself as much as possible. I have been trying to play soccer and cricket almost everyday, we play a game of cricket to warm up and then we play a game of soccer. I forgot how much I love soccer, it is now becoming one of my favorite games to play and watch. It was really hard to get games together back home, but here everyone just congregates at the same time after prayer and we play. It is really funny to listen to them argue, and believe me it is to no end when it comes to gatherings of Bangladeshi men. It is a great release for the stressful days, with all this crazy stuff going I have to have somewhere to vent. Sports is a great middle ground for people who are really different, all the cultural differences go to the side. Cricket is the best it is like batting practice. They just pitch me the ball to no end, they love it when I bat. I can just try and hit the ball as hard as I can, it feels really good, and you know people pay for this stuff in America (batting cages).
I have also been looking for a house, I have found one I like so no starts the haggling process. He wants 38 dollars a month for rent without utilities (10 dollars). I have since convinced him to include the utilities, which would bring my total rent to $38. It is on the edge of town surrounded by rice patties. It is a two-bedroom one-bath apartment on the second floor. It is decent inside, all concrete, eastern toilet and a roof with a nice view. Most of all it is about the privacy, something that is really hard to come by in this country. That is something that I really took for granted back home. This country has so many people that they are always in your face, and I mean IN my face. These people have no concept of personal space it is all point blank. Anyways, living in a house alone will hopefully provide that privacy. I have been living with a Bangladeshi family for over four months now; it is starting to take its toll. It would be hard for me to live at home for four months in the states, let alone with a family I barely know. Although I will miss the three hot meals a day, there is no shortage of food living with these families.
It is really nice weather here right now, it is seventy and sunny every single day. The monsoon season ended and now it is shit (winter), it feels really nice. It hasn’t rained for at least one month solid. Everyone here is bundled up in their winter jackets freezing and I am wearing a thin long sleeve shirt riding my bike. They think that I am crazy; they remind everyday that I am going to freeze if I don’t wear a jacket.
My class starts really soon, I am in the interview process right now. I have about one hundred applicants that I have to whittle down to thirty. Even though I wrote on my advertisement that I would not take any bribes, still everyday they try. Corruption was a huge problem at my institution before I came, but now they have a new deputy director that is trying to clean up their image. The students are in disbelief when I won’t accept their bribes. This one of those issues that I will not budge on, no matter how much they push. This is one of the ways they keep the poor people down; the poorer population cannot afford the bribes. So the people with the money get into all the classes. I tell the applying students that it does not matter how much money you have or who your father is, your ability to speak English is what is going to get you into this class.

Anyways, hope all is well back home. until next time. bombs away

shada shoitan

2005-11-22T22:46:00.000-05:00

Well this is my first posting from Kurigram, I am adjusting fairly well to the new city. In the beginning it is always more difficult because I have to introduce myself to all the new people. It will probably take about a month or a month and a half to feel comfortable. The people here are much nicer than the people in Gazipur, they are much friendlier. I am not sure why that is but it sure is nice. I am not saying that everyone is great but the people are just much mellower here. For the first few weeks I will be meeting all the important people of the city, such as the mayor and the chief of police. They all want me to come play tennis with them; I am not so good at tennis so maybe they will feel good beating an American. As it turns out the military installation here (Bangladesh Rifles Border Security) has a basketball team that is supposed to be fairly competitive. They play other military bases around the country. They have requested that I work out with them, I guess they suppose since I am tall that I must be able to play basketball. That should be quite the experience; they seem to be nice people. I am not sure what the PEACE Corps in Dhaka will think about me playing for a MILITARY team, oh well, I will play anyways. There are a lot of things going on here; there are a lot of NGOs that are looking for help. I have been doing a little work with a Swiss NGO called Chinamukul Bangladesh. It is really neat place; they do flood relief, education and many other good things. It is nice to finally start doing some work and seeing some tangible results. I have been asked to write/ edit their annual report; we will see how that works out.

I really don’t know what is going to happen to this country. It seems to be spiraling out of control politically and socially. These factors are coming to head; I am not sure how long it can hold out. There is a massive radical Islamic surge in the rural areas and is moving into the cities. They are beginning to gain influence in all levels of the society. It is making me a little nervous, mainly because I hear about it from the people themselves. Just the other day suicide bombers killed two judges; it has sparked massive demonstrations throughout the country. Most of the demonstrations end in violence, they consist basically of two crowds that converge on each other and then hurl insults at until it turns physical. The other day I was riding my bike, when I turned left onto the main street there was a massive crowd coming my way. They were all yelling and wearing yellow sashes and headscarves, signifying their party allegiance. I quickly turned and went to the right to escape, because I sure didn’t want to be in their way. About one hundred meters down the road I came across another crowd coming from the opposite direction. They were all wearing red scarves. The two groups were marching towards each other, god only knows why. So I quickly turned down the only possible street, I went down that street a little ways. After about two hundred meters there was the RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) and riot police coming to get in between the converging crowds. So there I was stuck in the middle of this demonstration. I figured that it was safest to try and pass the police and take the long way home. I stopped on the side of the road and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible (I am a freaking giant and white), they passed carrying their crowd control sticks and pump action shotguns, as a matter of fact they smiled at me as they passed. This place is freaking nuts! This is taking place in Kurigram, one of the smallest places in Bangladesh; I don’t even want to know what the big cities are like. Tomorrow in Dhaka there is a massive Awami League (opposition party) rally to contest the current government’s policy. Last year at this rally there were 5 high ranking officials killed by grenade attacks and two hundred injured, that wasn’t even an election year. The ruling party has conducted raids to arrest members of the opposition party so they cannot contest the BNP (ruling party), and they have called for a nation wide transportation hartal (strike). Then we have the Bangladesh Mujahadeen (Fundamentalist Islamic Party) who hates every one and wants to establish an Islamic state, they have vowed to assassinate anyone who opposes them. These are the suicide bombers, that just great we have suicide bombers that makes me feel REAL secure. These are the guys who are killing the judges and threatening to cause problems at the rallies. For the longest time I thought we had problems in the states with our political system, ha, as you can guess my opinion has since changed. I am not saying we don’t have problems, but our problems are a lot different than here. My personal safety doesn’t really feel threatened, they like me here for the most part (as long as I am for Clinton and not Bush). They really hate that guy here; Bush is really causing problems for Americans abroad. When people hear American they immediately think Bush. It is the same as meeting a German and asking them if they support Hitler and his actions. Americans are becoming synonymous with Bush; some people have a hard time differentiating between Bush and me. Which makes for some really difficult conversations, usually I just claim I don’t speak Bangla even though I can. So I guess I will see what happens in the coming months leading up to the election. .

It is unbelievable how many kids there are running around this place, they are everywhere. The little ones that run around naked are the funniest; they wear little strings around their waist, which means they are not homeless or parentless. For the longest time I thought they were leashes or collars or something. But they really mean that they are someone’s child and not just an abandoned orphan. I see a lot of children that don’t have anything around their waist, which is really sad. You can also tell the economic status of a child’s family by their hair. If the child has a shaved head it means that they are really poor. They do this because the lice is really bad in the poor areas, the more hair they have the better off their family is. When I say poor I mean really, really poor, their father probably a rickshaw Walla and he might only make a dollar a day, and that is on a good day. The other day gave a rickshaw Walla a week’s salary after he gave me a ride. I felt so bad having all this money in my pocket (a few dollars) and he probably couldn’t feed his family. He broke down and gave me a big hug, and then he said a prayer for me. My family scolded me for doing this because they said he was of the lower class. I told them that I should have given him more, if I would have given him more if I had it in my pocket. Now every time I leave the house in the morning he is their waiting for me to give me a ride. He charges me the same as all the other Bangladeshis, he doesn’t ask for more than the ride is worth. Every now and then I drive him around in his rickshaw, it kills all the other Bangladeshis to see me (an upper class person) driving a rickshaw. I love the look on their face when I go by, but the look on the Walla’s face as an American is driving him around is worth a million dollars. I love smashing those ideas that they have of us (Americans). They think that we are high and mighty people, that we rule the world (which we do). I am one of the only Americans that they will ever meet, so now hopefully when they think of an American they will think of me instead of George Bush. I like showing the Bangladeshis that we are human and really not any better than they are. It is the little things like that that make it worth being here.

2005-11-06T05:45:00.000-05:00

Eid Mubarak
Well I just returned from the Eid celebration, it was the most amazing experience I have had yet. Not the actual celebration but the events surrounding it. Or better said the strange situations that I found myself in. First I must lay some ground work, Eid is the largest Muslim holiday by far and away. It is the close of Ramadan, which makes it an incredibly important day. I was invited to my families home village, let me stress the word "village." This place is well beyond the beaten path, for Bangladesh that is pretty remote. It is probably safe to say that as many as 70% of the people have never left the village, as for the women it is probably closer to 95%. So most of these peoples only access to the outside world/information comes from two places: the state run media and word of mouth. It is safe to say that 98% of the people in the village have never met a white foriegner in person. So now that some ground work has been laid I can tell my story.
My uncle Dhali (who is the rich person in the family) sent his personal car and driver to take us out to the village. After about an hour of some of the craziest driving I have ever experienced we turned off the pavement..........when I say we turned off the pavement I mean we turned off the cart path. So we turned onto this little dirt path, you know like a hiking trail. I felt like I was surveying out in the most remote part of Madison county. We drove down that trail for about ten or fifteen kilometers. Then we arrived in the village, as we were going through the village people started to crowd along the side of the path to see the Bideshi. When the car stopped because it was not feesible to go another inch, the people started to really crowd around the car. All the men over forty had long beards and all the women had their heads covered. Everyone was staring at me in disbelief while I was still sitting in the car, and then it happened, I got out of the car and stood up. All I heard was oohs and aahs, I was by far and away the biggest person any of them had ever seen. I kept hearing "gacher moto, boro gach," this means "like a tree, huge tree." I couldnt help but laugh, which was good because it let them see that I was actually human. So anyways after a little crowd control by my family went to my room, which I got all to myself. My family then proceeded to explain that I was the first foriegner that any of these people had ever seen, so please dont feel uncomfortable if people ask some strange questions, or just act strange all together. I recieved an invitation to go take tea in the Bazaar ( one tea stall, a pharmacy and a pirated movie store, you know the essentials). So we went down to the tea stall, there were probably about sixty or seventy people there to meet me. I was ushered to the front of the crowd and they sat me down, I was promptly served some of the best milk tea I have ever had. They broke out the private stash of tea for me. At this point the leaders of the village came to me with prepared questions, I cant help but feel like I am in Star Wars and meeting the Ewoks (about the same size ratio). First question: Are you married? -No, Second Question: When will you marry? -I dont know, Third Question: Are you interested to marry one of our Bangladeshi women? -No, Fourth Question: So why did you come here then?............... They sure know how make you feel akward in a hurry. On Eid day it was pretty cool, it is kind of like Christmas. All the parents give cloths and presents to their children, and the parents recieve nothing from the kids. I recieved a new shirt and a Panjabi, the Panjabi is really cool. It is made with some really nice fabrics. On the actual day the people wake up in the morning and eat shamai (fried vermacelli, coconut, sugar and milk) which is reeeally good. After that everyone has a bucket bath, a kind of ritual cleaning. After that everyone puts on their new clothes and the men go to the Eid Ga, which is a large field where everyone gathers and prays. I didnt actually go out there in the field but they (the entire village) asked me to come observe. It was about two thousand men all dressed in white listening to the Imam sing verses from the Koran, it was really interesting to see. After that it turned into a sort of trick or treating type of thing. Everyone goes around and eats food at everyone elses house, usually sweet breads then rice and beef then rice and chicken and then shamai in that order every time. So we did that about six times, it blew hometown buffet out of the water. I was stuffed by about four oclock, so then we went home to eat more. It is the custom to serve food to people even if they dont want it. They will actually pile the food on your plate even though your hand is covering it. It is crazy! I must say I really enjoyed it thoroughly, it was one of the cooler experiences I have had yet.
This are just a few examples of what it is like to visit a small Bangladeshi village. A number of other things happened but it would take forever to explain. It is impossible to put something into words, it just seems to lose its luster.
I am going to Kurigram tommorrow. My time is Gazipur is over, it is kind of sad, I know my host family is really depressed. Every where I go with them now I am introduced as a member of the family and not a guest. It is pretty neat and a little strange at the same time. The ask me everyday how I will be able to survive without them, it is kind of humorous. Now I have to start all over with a new host family that I have met only one time, they were nice people but they were really strange. I am sure it will be okay, it is only for three months. If the past three months were any indicator then it will go by really fast. Besides now I get to start doing what I came here for, although I get a one month vacation. Not that I will be traveling, but it is just time to relax and get accustomed to the new place. So it should give me a chance to hone some of my Bangla and just take it easy, something that I have not been able to do since I arrived. Sorry about the length this blog, it is just that I am not sure when a I will post again. I have a new saying to leave you with, "I know this, you Americans are maximum large, I know this, Americans are also heavy sexy, I know this is because of your good weather." I definately have my work cut out for me. Anyways, signing off from the Far side of the World,

2005-10-31T03:31:00.000-05:00

well i guess that I am officially a volunteer now. We did our swearing in ceremony yesterday in the American Embassy. Our embassy is really nice, it is like a fortress. I guess now I can get started on what I came here to do, after three long months. It is pretty exciting as well as nerve racking, because now I have to go out and hack it in the back woods of Bangladesh. This is going to be a real test.
Glad to know that people are reading this, it makes it worth while to sit in the hot internet cafe. We were given a weekend in Dhaka for fun, we were all left up to our own devices. It was pretty fun to wander around one of the largest cities in south asia. This place is pretty wild, you can really fill all of your hearts desires in a place like this. Even though it is still Muslim, you wouldnt know it walking around the city. Sometimes though it is a little nerve racking to wander around Dhake at night. Some of the people are pretty scary looking or at least they are people that I am not interested to talk to. In some places the beggars are really bad, I mean bad, it really makes you feel bad inside when there is a little boy leading his father around asking for money. The thing is though is that his father was blind and missing both of his arms. The problem is that if you give one person the money they all want money.
As far as packages go I know that sara sent a package some time ago but it still hasnt arrived, but who knows. Right now it is like christmas time, it is insane in the post offices. Anyways moms package made it here now problem, it wasnt even opened. I even had a hard time opening it.
Update on the elephants, they have found a certain plant that the elephants cross. So now they are trying to surround some of the villages with this plant. Who knows how well it works, it really sounds like the elephants like the wine, so I dint think that there is much you can do to stop them.
One more thing, I took my first hot shower in three months, it felt so nice. After that I ate a pizza and then had an ice cream cone. And then I had a cold beer, and then slept in the air conditioning. It was amazing how much I enjoyed the things that I took for granted back home.

shada shoitan signing off.

2005-10-27T01:20:00.000-05:00

so i am not sure whether people are still reading this or I am doing this for personal satisfaction, either way I will continue to post. todays is particularly strange, it is by far the strangest thing that I have heard in a long time. The best part about this story is that it is entirely true. in the northeasten part of bangladesh on the bangladeshi side of the border with india there are still many indigenous tribes that still practice many of their old rituals. one of their past times is making wine, how they make it i do not know. when they make it though, about the same time every year it emits a strong smell, not a bad one, but a smell none the less. okay, now we go to the indian side of the border where many elephants live. every year the elephants are drawn out of the mountians of india by the smell of the wine being made. the elephants come in herds to where they are making this wine in the villages. this is where it gets interesting. the herds proceed to enter the villages at night or the evening and drink the wine. apparently they they keep the wine in large vats, so the elephants all crowd around these vats and drink the wine. well, when they have drank their fill (most of the wine) they then proceed to roam around the countryside trampling villages and stomping everything in their path. they do this for a couple of days until the alcohol is gone and then they return to the mountians in india. this is a huge deal in that area, they cannot figure out a way to stop the elephants from coming and drinking the wine. the elephants have even shaped their migratory patterns around this. this is the craziest thing i have heard since being here. drunken elehants carousing the countryside. this sounds a lot like arkansas football game. anyways maybe that wasnt as funny as it seemed to me, but i laughed for quite some time at that one.

anyways that was kind of silly, but i thought it would be interesting to share.

people are really starting to get worried about this avian flu virus, it is getting worse or at least spreading through asia. our doctors are really worried, which makes me think it could be a fairly serious dilema. if it hits bangladesh i am sure that we will be evacuated to signapore or thailand. i would rather it didnt happen because it would be an epidemic here. the population is really dense which does not bode well when contaigious diseases are involved. but it would be nice to visit signapore for a few months. i am not going to worry to much, it is freakin bangladesh. if i worried about everything that goes on here i would go crazy! aside from the fact that this country is on the verge of an epidemic, in political chaos, and a massie upsurge in islamic fundamentalism and recruitment, things are going okay for me. at least as long as i stay indoors hahaha. so anyways signing off from the most screwed up place in the world.
the suspect shada shoitan

2005-10-14T08:44:00.000-05:00

This picture on the left is one that I find very interesting. If you notice on the left hand side there are two white dots, well the bottom one is a crecent moon and the top one is a star. Interestingly enough it is the main symbol for Islam. This alignment signals the start of Ramadan. When Ramadan starts is entirely based on the sighting of the moon. So anyways I know that I have seen this in the states, but it has never carried the same meaning.

2005-10-14T01:59:00.000-05:00

Today is my day off, so I am here trying to put some more pictures on my blog. It seemed to be successful yesterday, we will see how it goes today. Some days it is really easy to make it to the internet cafe, some days it just seems like there are not enough hours in the day. I realize that most of my pictures do not involve people, but it makes me a little uncomfortable to pull out a piece of equipment that cost as mush as some peoples homes. So anyways I try to be alittle discreet about the way I use my camera. The sun sets are by far and away the most beautiful I have ever seen, every night it is fantastic. Like this first picture, I took this when I went on a boat ride with some friends. This picture was taken right before the motor broke down. So I was sitting there watching the sun go down with the realization that we were about ten miles from home and it was about to get dark. It took the guy about an hour to fix the motor in the dark, and then we went about our way. So we navigated this river in the dark, well there was moonlight so it was kind of light. The animals that come out at night in the river are pretty freaky looking in the dark. Despite my intuition I swam anyways, people thought I was crazy. It inspired about four other people to jump in, out of all five of us only one got sick. So it worked out pretty well.
The picture on the left is of the Bazaar downtown. It is pretty wild, in the picture it is fairly calm. But on some days it is nuts. Especially when they are doing construction, because everytime that they start to tear up the road it rains, hard hard hard. So the whole thing will turn into mud in the matter of about twenty minutes. I how I love sweet Bangladesh.
The third picture, if it loads, is of some housing on the side of the river. They are real living conditions, things that I would have never experienced in the states. These are really interesting people to talk to, their lives are so simple it is beautiful. Sometimes they invite me in for tea, it is a real experience sitting and enjoying a conversation with them. It is great practice for my Bangla. Most people in our group are ekind of leary of these things, health and safety being the primary concerns. But I figure that I am living in Bangladesh, I might as well not hold anything back. Besides, if gain the respect of the common people then it will make my stay much easier.

2005-10-13T06:43:00.000-05:00

So if these pictures actually load it will be amazing. I know that people have been wanting to see a little of what it looks like here. The first picture is the river /canal near my house. It is about two blocks away, this is the prefered method for fishing here. It is really cool to watch them fish, it is really amazing how many fish are in these rivers. It would blow any anglers mind back home. I have seen these nets come up half full in one scoop, which is enough to feed several families. I really think that Americans might be the only people in the world that use a rod and reel. The second picture is from my roof at sunset. This is my neighborhood, it is really beautiful, anyways if this works I will post more.
well here I am again, my weekly saga continues. I am not sure wether you all are interested in this next blog but I will post it none the less. I got a hold of some Indian wiskey, woah, that stuff is no joke. It is really rough, those Indians are freaking animals, I dont see how they can drink that stuff on a regular basis. It is basically bathtub gin type of stuff. The thing is they dont know the alchohol content, I can tell you now, it is not low. So anyways you dont have to worry about me becoming an alchoholic. Besides it is not exactly the best thing to be in a Muslim society.
On to bigger fish, this is a little off topic, but.......
I met the person that I will be staying with in Kurigram, not actually living with but will be my counterpart. I am not sure how to go about explaining this one, so I will do my best.......she, um, well is tall with long blond hair and well she is...alright never mind somehow that just wasnt going to come out right. Needless to say I am excited to get started in Kurigram. Besides the fact that there is severe flooding and a massive dihorrea outbreak, things are looking up in the area ;-)
I am going up there this week for about a week, it will be nice to escape Gazipur and all the chaotic things that come with it. It will also be cooler up there because it is literally at the foot of the Himalayas, so I will get those nice cool nights and breezy days.
Right now there is a 20 year guy sitting across from me wearing a eighties glittery purple disco shirt with little shimmering things on it. He is sitting there trying to look tough for the girl that is sitting next to me, who happens to be American. It is really funny, because she is laughing at him (quietly) because his shirt is so funny looking, and he thinks that she likes him because she is smiling. So he is sitting here trying to impress her with his shirt (and mullet), I love this country. The whole concept of gender and their roles is so far from what we know it is crazy. If I have said this before forgive me, but I will say it again. The men wear ankle length skirts, they hold hands and they touch eachother in ways that would make the men in San Fransisco cringe. As a matter of fact I think that is why we had our staging in San Fran, it was for preparation. Not that any of it is really bad, it is just different. That has been the most difficult thing for most people in our group, they ask why for everything. The sooner you just realize that is the way it is no matter how strange it may seem, the sooner all of it will make sense. Everyday I am amazed by this culture and the ways that they say that our culture is crazy, not in a bad way. But everyday I am approached with the question "In America it is free sex, right?" So I reply everytime with the same answer, "NO." Then comes the Bengali reasoning, "I thought you lived in a free country?"......"Yes of course I do."........."So isnt the sex free?"........"NO"......."Do you pay a dowry?"......"NO"......"Then it is free sex!... So they walk away from the conversation thinking that they just tought me something about my own culture. I deal with these conversations on a daily basis. Sometimes it is really humorous, sometimes it is very serious. Sometimes when they voice their support for 9/11 I just walk away, and that drives them nuts, because they lost their chance to voice their opinion to an American. For the most part people are very nice about conversation because for some people they will never meet another American in their life. But by the same token people take that opportunity to really try and ream me, but as you can see by their logic that those conversations are not to difficult to navigate. So anyways, I guess I better be moving on. Keep those Islamist militants mad GW, it makes my life a lot easier, haha.Until heavy long time in the tomorrow.
shada bideshi signing off.

2005-10-07T03:20:00.000-05:00

well here I am again, I have made it through another week. Still not married even though there are a couple girls who are insisting that Bangladeshi women are good people. that i cannot argue with, but, getting married to them is a whole different ball game. there are a few guys in the group that will definately take home a wife, but you can count me out. oh well, things could be worse. Like another bombing, oh wait that happened earlier this week. Down in Chittagong a group called the Jamataal Mujahadeen Jihad group (sounds like something in Iraq, hmmm think there are any conections, oops did i say that) bombed three court proceedings in an attempt to kill the judges. The reason is the crazy part, they want to enforce strict muslim law, you know the cutting off of the heads and hands. Now you see why i am not willing to mess around with the women here, i will let you guess what happens to the perpetrator of that crime. Anyways they were unsuccessful in killing the judges but they happened to kill a couple of bystandards. A crowd actually caught one of the guys who threw the bomb and then proceeded to beat him to death. That is pretty common around here, mob justice that is. Everyday someone is lynched or beaten to death by a mob, usuallly it is for a pretty good reason. once again you can see why it is a good idea not to mess with the women. So it really doesnt bother me as long as i am not the victim. you really see some crazy stuff around here, although now people are mellowing out a little. Ramadan started yesterday so now everyone just sits around and complains about how hungry they are. anyways hopefully the world doesnt fall apart at the seams. it is interesting, when living in a place like this it really doesnt feel like the world is as desperate as it seems whileliving in the states. if that makes any sense whatsoever. it think it has alot to do with the media bombardment in the states, anyways maybe i am dilusional, but i think there is a grain of truth to that. my point being, i am living in one of the worst/most unsafe countries in the world, yet when i was living in the states i felt much more of an immediate danger. time will tell.
it is now shit here (shit actually means winter). i just had to throw that one out there. there are a host of other really crude words that do not translate really well. or at least when i hear them in a sentence i wonder what they are getting at. the language thing is really picking up, or at least i can understand what the heck they are saying to me when i am trying to bargain for a twenty five cent pineapple. sometimes i feel bad when i bargain here because it is already so freaking cheap. but when i dont bargain the store owners are disappointed because they did not get to hassle the bideshi(foriegner).
along the lines of our futbol game, we lost 2-1. oh well, it was really fun and it was a huge hit all over town. before the game me and a friend rented a rickshaw (three wheeled bicycle) and a huge speaker system and rode it around town announcing the game. it was by far and away the funniest thing i have ever done in my entire life. the people lined both sides of the street and cheered for me while i was speaking bangla, it was hilarious. we caused several wrecks and work stopped while i was miking (that is what they call it here). usually it is only the communist party that does it, so i think they enjoyed the change of pace. anyways needless to say if i was a rockstar before now i am a demigod, that is probably the funniest part. so anyways we had maybe a thousand people turn out for the game, along with the RAB (rapid action batallion) these are the guys that carry around shotguns and put down political unrest. they were there to support us, you know the PEACE corps.

pictures are really hard to post, sorry, thats third world internet for you, i really didnt even think that there would be internet here. maybe i will find a place that i can do so, but i wouldnt hold your breath.

ben good luck with your deal, "so your tellin me theres a chance"
charlie there are two heavy metal rockers in my group, they are trying to form a metal night for the local youth. slayer, MESSUGGAH! you know you might actually have a niche in this organization :) there is actually a metal scene in dhaka, it is pretty funny. i saw a group of teenagers walking down the street trying to look tough, they were far from it. there were four of them , one was wearing a slayer tshirt, one with a metallica shirt, one with a mega death shirt, and get this the one in the middle was wearing a bon jovi tshirt. it was the funniest thing i think i have seen here yet. our media reaches the third world in the strangest of ways.
shada shoitan signing off.
see you heavy long time in the tommorrow, as long as i dont kill one of these men in the iternet cafe for touching my thigh.

2005-10-02T01:10:00.000-05:00

So I found out where I will be posted for the next two years, was I surprised. It is a small town called Kurigram, it is sixty miles south of Bhutan and one hundred miles east of Nepal. It is about ten miles from the Indian border, ha. Talk about remote, it is way up north. It is also the poorest district in all of Bangladesh, but that is something that I dont quite understand yet. It is like comparing death with death, it is all poor, in this country I dont see how they can differentiate. But I guess they do. It turns out that this area is the one of the strongholds against the current government, I guess it is safer under the wing of the dragon (hopefully). It was the heart of the resistence against Pakistan in the 70's, and now they still represent the resistence against whatever??? So the political situation up there should be really interesting, if it can be called that. I find it interesting that I have gone from the most affluent nation in the world to quite possibly the poorest nation in the world, and in that nation I am going to the poorest place. Oh sweet irony. It should be a really good experience. IT is really beautiful in the area, I visited the area last month, it is really rural. If such a place can exisit in a country of 144 million people all stuffed into a place roughly the size of Iowa.
Anyways, Karen my email is jacksonjtaylor@yahoo.com
I have not recieved any packages, but who knows about that stuff. This is one of the only places in the world that Fedex will not guarentee delivery, so what does that say about the public mail system.
And shada shoitan means the "white devil." I learned that one pretty quick,
"ami shada shoitan na" -- I am not the white devil, clutch statement in a Muslim society.
Until heavy long time in the tommorrow, shada shoitan signing off.

2005-09-20T06:41:00.000-05:00

Well I finished todays class. My students are across the spectrum, from the almost fluent students all the way down to the non English speakers. It is okay, I think I can handle it. They all seem really excited to learn, maybe it is just that they are getting to hang out with an American, which seems to be quite the popular thing to do around here. I was completely apalled by their grading system here, and I hope you will be too. It goes as follows: +A=100-85, A=84-75, -A=74-60, B=59-49, C=48-40, D=39-30, 29-0 is failing. Most of the students here make B's, which as you can see is not exactly overachieving. At first when I asked them what kind of grades they make in school I was pretty impressed, but know I understand. When I told them that I was using the American grading scale they were terrified, it was pretty humorous. I think that I they make a valid effort to participate and come to class then I will pass them. My host brother just took his HSC examination (Higher Secondary College), he recieved an A. He was in the top percent of his school. Only fifty percent of the students passed the exam (refer to the above scale, D being passing), so it is a pretty sad situation. Here unlike our country the person who does well on their examination must buy gifts for all his or her friends. So Al-amin bought twenty kilograms of misti (milk and sugar balls, the national sweet), it was insane.
On another note I went to a massive party near the Hindu temple, which is a couple hundred years old. The party was really crazy there were about a thousand people there. When they realized that I was there with my brother they got really excited. Immediately they person in charge of the party went and got a goat and a cow, then procceded to sacrifice the animals for me. IT was a bloddy mess but everyone was really happy. It was one of those wierd cultural situations were I was at a loss for words, not that my Bangla would have helped. That was the first time that I have ever seen an animal ritualistically sacrificed, for me the honorary guest. But the ultimate irony was that they sacrificed a cow in front of a Hindu temple, talk about cultural insensitivity. A lot of the other volunteers tell me I am crazy for getting into some of these situations, I tell them that this is what it is all about, this is the fun stuff.
At the moment I am trying to get over a pretty bad ear infection. I think I had some water trapped in my ear from showering and then I slept on it, because the next day my ear hurt really bad. Then I got a pretty nasty fever the next day, but they medical office gave me some antibiotics. It feels really strange just calling the doctor and they see you immediately and they give you the medicine you need right there on the spot. They seem to be pretty careful about our health, they have a really hard job keeping us all healthy. This is one of the toughest countries to live in healthwise, as well as psychologically. The program here has lost several volunteers due to mental problems that arise. I am already insane for coming here so I don't think I have anything to worry about. Just about everyone in our group is getting some sort of sickness, some worse than others. I am the only one out of 56 people who have not gotten diharea(however you spell it), knock on wood. Instead I am the only one who has gotten an ear infection. Considering this is a country where they dont use toliet paper, I will take the ear infection any day. That would be some pretty traumatizing business having the backdoor trots and only being able to use your hand. I am sure I will get it before long, but I am holding out as long as possible. The actual statistic is, 500% of volunteers get dihare, so everyone gets it a couple of times. I have recieved about sixteen shot so far, I have no idea what some of them are. They are making us take something called Mephequin, it is for the malaria. It has a lot of side effects, such as, euphoria, lucid dreams, depression, hair loss among other things. But the most prevelent are the lucid dreams, I wake in the middle of the night sitting in my chair having no idea where I am at, what time it is or whether I am still dreaming or not. It is pretty wild, it happens to me about four or five times a week. oh well.
By the way, before I started this blog I was regularly recieving emails, but now I dont recieve any. So either people have lost interest, which is entirely possible, or now they see it unnecessary to send emails. It was really nice to hear from people, but now I receive nothing. I know that people want to hear about what goes on here, but believe it or not I am really interested to know how things are back home. It is always a good day for me when I see something that is sent from home, sometimes it kind of feels like a one way street. Anyways, I am not trying to complain it just would be nice to hear from people once and a while. Dont be embarassed to post on the blog, if so just send me an email that way I dont feel like a dancing bear. Although I did recieve the b-day cards from uncle bill, aunt connnie and grandma, thank you very much. I never thought I would be so excited to recieve a card. Bill I will save the toliet paper for the rougher days, I am sure I can stretch it out a couple of months ;)
Ramadan starts in two weeks, I was thinking I might try and observe it and see what it is like fasting with my family. It will be an interesting experience to say the least.
Until next time, shada shoitan signing off.

2005-09-14T05:49:00.000-05:00

well i found another internet cafe, which entails a room with three computers that are all questionable at best. only one of them works at a time, the internet speed is a little less than dial up back in the states. i think i fixed the blog so that you all can post comments now.
well it is still hot and i am not married yet believe it or not. for all of you english majors i know my spelling has been less than good, but you must understand the keyboards that i am using. the humidity is pretty bad here so it does a number on electronics.
i heard that arkansas lost to vanderbilt, what in the world is going on, i guess it really doesnt matter. not much i can do here, not much i could do there either, my ulcers will never end. they are not much better than the bangladeshi national cricket team, it is a national tragedy every time they lose, which is every time they play. by the way, i am awesome at cricket. it is pretty funny, they handed me a bat that was three times larger than a baseball bat and pitched the ball slower because i am a foriegner, ha. i creamed the ball four straight times, it was hilarious. then they began to pitch faster which only made the ball fly farther. needless to say my prior baseball experience has earned me a lot of respect in my nieghborhood.
until next time, which could be heavy too long in the tommorow (as some of the bangladeshis tell me).
jackson

2005-09-10T05:36:00.000-05:00

well, we played the bangladeshis in a big soccer game yesterday. it has turned into quite a weekly affair, there were at least two or three hundred people on hand to watch. this people are really competetive, this is there one chance to beat america at something. they won three to one, but the best part is that a girl scored our only goal, which was really demoralizing for them. so really we won the game, because it was the first time any of the men had played a girl in anything, much less had they been scored on by a girl. it was definately a moral victory. it was a real interesting experience that is for sure. it was really nice to see them humbled, before the game they said that the girls couldnt play. not that they were not allowed to play, it was that they did not have the ability to compete with the men, ha. so anyways i thought that was a nice little story for the books, i am sure there will be plenty of those in the future.

2005-09-08T05:48:00.000-05:00

well this is my first attemt at a web blog, we will see how it works out. everything is going pretty smooth over here, despite random bombings and massive protests, everything seems to be pretty normal. the weather is unbelievably hot and humid, and it rains like you wouldnt believe. i know understand what a monsoon rain is really like, i have never seen it rain so hard in my life.
next week i will begin teaching my first class, it is a little nerve racking, but i am sure i will do fine. it will be an english class, but the students are taught english is school everyday, so i figured that i would make it a little interesting. so the class that i will be teaching will be a world geography class, beacause it is unreal how bad their geograpgy skills are. it will be an english class with a main theme of world geography. we will see how it goes.
i am pretty much a rock star over here, which i am sure will get old after a while. everywhere i go people approach me and want to touch me and talk to me. i am invited to everyones house and i am asked if i will marry their daughters (which is usually the first question out of their mouths, are you married?). i will do my best to stay unmarried, which shouldnt be hard considering i only get a dollar fifty a day. maybe i will just say that i am married so that it will end that conversation pretty quick. besides dodging terrorist, floods, prospective wives and bats (which are massive) things are okay after one month in bangladesh. hope they stay that way.
from the other side of the world,
jackson