So this is Christmas, 2010

Hi everyone! Not too much to report here, but I'm enjoying some time off in Dhaka and thought I'd write. I have the Guest House to myself this week, and that's kind of nice!

Of course, people might assume (as I had) that I'd be lonely or depressed or whatever being alone during Christmas, but it's actually been quite nice. I think the MCC retreat we had in Goa, India two weeks ago really helped set the stage for a calm, peaceful Christmas time. If you've never had a "calm, peaceful" Christmas, then you should try one overseas sometime. In Bangladesh, they recognize Christmas and even take some days off work for it, but it's certainly not the big brouhaha of the US.

I had to look up "brouhaha" just now - I want to keep this blog thing as academically pleasing as possible. I had spelled it broo-hah-hah, which is how you say it. But according to Dictionary.com, the correct spelling is brouhaha, which is possibly a corruption from the Hebrew for "blessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)". If so, that would make Christmastime an especially apt moment to experience a Brouhaha, I guess, but I'm enjoying my quiet one nonetheless. For those of you who like words, brouhaha's synonymic cousins are "hullabaloo" and "hubbub"! Use one of them today!!

So in Goa, I felt challenged by God to read one of the Gospels straight through this Christmas. So on Christmas Eve this year, in roughly 2 sittings, I read the Gospel of John. It probably only took a couple of hours, and it gave me a different view reading it straight through like that. One trick I used, in case anyone takes this on as a challenge, was to go by the page numbers for goals rather than by chapters. So in my Bible, John is something like page 73 to page 93, so I decided to read the 1st ten pages in one sitting and then the last ten pages in another. Excellent, excellent, excellent! I don't think I've ever read one of the Gospels straight through. Anyway, here are my main insights:

• Jesus is miraculous! a superhero! incredible!
• Jesus says he is "from Above" many times, thus affirming his Deity
• Jesus is right hard on the religious leaders of His day, calling them at one point "sons of the Devil"
• Jesus says several times that He didn't come to judge the world.
• Jesus says several times that if we ask the Father something in Jesus' name, then it will be granted to us.

This last one troubles me. Frankly, I've tried it and it doesn't seem to work. Which either means that I'm not asking according to "His name" or that He meant something else, or... I don't know.

Anyway, this reading through a book of the Bible in one sitting is an excellent exercise that I would highly recommend. And it takes no longer than watching a movie or 2 hours of "reality" tv. (Have some coffee ready, though, just in case you get a little sleepy.)

On a lighter note, my mom was talking about her Roast Beef w/ trimmings the other day, and my mouth began to water, as it always does. She has the BEST roast beef meal in the entire world!! (It's a fact - it's on the Internet now...) Anyway, I've been without red meat (mostly) for almost 3 months now, so I could almost taste and smell that Roast Beef (I capitalize it when referring to my Mom's Roast Beef, rather than just anyone's old roast beef).

For my own special Christmas lunch, I decided to throw in two packets of Ramen noodles instead of just one. Oh boy!!

The other exciting thing that happened to me over the last week was that on the 23rd I decided to go for a WALK to New Market, the biggest outdoor/indoor market in the country, rather than merely getting a rickshaw or CNG. I had been sitting around the Guest House a lot, and I wanted to get some exercise. New Market is about 5 km (3.1 miles) away, so I set off w/ my best tennis shoes on! (Actually, these are badminton shoes, but they're the closest thing I've got.) So about an hour later, I'm looking around for any sign that I might be close to it, past it, whatever. I had been there once by car (you'll remember the "green dart incident" in the toy store?), so I thought I'd recognize the flyover pedestrian bridge at least. Well, all the flyover pedestrian bridges didn't look quite right, and finally I started asking people. They invariably nodded their heads behind me, so I figured I'd passed it. Well, you can probably guess what had happened. I had set out in exactly the wrong direction and walked 5 km out of town rather than towards town!! So finally i just had to pay a rickshaw driver to take me there. The shopping trip was fruitful, however, as I still had time to buy a hat, a belt, and a pair of scissors. And eat.

Well, that's really all I have for now, so toodle-loo... (this one derives from a French expression for "see you later", so it's not actually English at all, but it's so cute...)

"Watch this!!" (or, "How to part w/ your possessions in two easy steps...")

Hello everyone! Just a quick update to let everyone know that I was robbed the day before yesterday in Dhaka. I'm OK and maybe the word "robbery" is too interactive for what actually happened, but it certainly was the result! I was a on a rickshaw (if you're not sure, Google it!), heading to the bus terminal to catch the inter-city bus to Bogra. I had my larger bag on the floor beside me and my smaller bag on my lap. I even had a hand on it so it wouldn't fall or anything. Well, the "anything" is what happened - two guys on a motorcycle slowed beside us just long enough for the back guy to snatch the backpack off my lap. They sped away as the rickshaw driver and I looked on in shock! You can't catch a motorcycle with a rickshaw, so I quickly had to swallow the fact that my laptop, cell phone, flip video camera, keys, flash drive, dollar store sunglasses (hey, they were my favorite dollar store sunglasses), and around $70 (5,000 taka!) - were gone!! The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye!

Of course, I'm lucky. I wasn't "mugged" in the traditional sense - no harm done to me or the rickshaw driver. It was difficult to see my things speeding away, but as I thought about it on the long trip to Bogra, how important are those things, really? Most of it can be replaced. A few things, like my monthly financial report, the receipts, some documents and video clips are irreplaceable, but all in all I came out of it not too badly. And it made me consider anew just how attached we can be to things. Especially electronic things. (If you're not sure of this, just consider NOT using your computer at all for 48 hours...I think most of us couldn't do it!)

Well, enough of THAT - on to "Watch THIS!!"...

Two days before the robbery, I was in a toy shop, looking for a gift for Piash, the 2-year old and only child at my host family house. We were having a good time looking around at the odd assortment of goodies in the store, including snow globes, greeting cards w/ odd usages of the English language, and even an Eiffel tower w/ a hidden dagger inside! Anyway, I finally found something I thought he might like - a roll-up dart board w/ magnetic darts - the kind that won't hurt anybody or anything. Or so we thought. The store manager encouraged Phil and I to try it out, so we divided up the darts and got to it!! Phil hit the bull's eye on his first shot, so I was pretty bummed and decided to do a trick shot for my last throw. After pronouncing the infamous "Watch this!", I proceeded to throw my last shot underhanded, like I had done so many times growing up.

[I'd like to interject here that while growing up we had a REAL dart board with REAL "kill the kids" type darts, not these silly magnetic things! Our dart board, surrounded by a thousand tiny holes in the wall (mostly the attempts of my two siblings at playing the game...!!), was located in the "ping pong room". The "ping pong room" also housed the washer and dryer, so the ping pong table that my dad made served a double purpose. Come to think of it, so did the ping pong paddles, but that's another story...]

... Since the magnetic dart was rather lightweight, it sailed clear over the top of the dart board towards the back of the store. Apparently, it was NOT as "lightweight" as we thought, though, because it managed to bring two glass shelves filled with the snow globes and ceramic nick-knacks crashing to the floor! There was water, glass, and fake snow everywhere!! We all gasped simultaneously, not sure whether or laugh or cry. The short of it is that, a half-hour and 3,300 taka later, we were freed and could properly have a good laugh about it. As an after note, I've agreed to be more careful in situations involving the phrase "watch this!", but I think Phil still plans to carry plenty of cash with us, just in case! (Thanks for bailing me out, Phil, and for splitting the losses - I owe you one!)

So, all in all, it was an exciting week in Dhaka, with three meetings as well! If anyone would like the exciting details of the meetings, please write me separately. Thanks.

In the meantime, if anybody wants to contribute to the "Larry Jones Robbery & Green Dart Catastrophe Fund", please send a check with "LJR & GDCF" on the memo line to Varina Church of the Nazarene (look it up!). The treasurer there is a good friend of mine and knows how to get the money to me.

(Sorry, no video for this posting! Nor the video I took of Eid, where the goats and cows are slaughtered right in the street. Nor the videos from the host family house... (shaking my head sadly...))

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! --Larry

PS - Bangla lessons are going well: Oi khelnar dokan ajke khub lav koreyeche!

Translation: "That toy store made a good profit today!"

Mosquito Maintenance

I'm with a host family now, and the mosquitoes may be a problem. I mean the mosquitoes in my room - not in the common area, of course, as I expect to get munched on while I'm dining, watching TV (emphasis on the "watching", and not necessarily understanding), chatting w/ the fam, etc. Speaking of the family, I believe there are some nine occupants in this house, which brings to mind the Brady Bunch or Hollywood Squares! (You can now safely guess my age. ) But they're never there at the same time, so I can't be entirely sure if the information I've been given is correct. People come and go, eat and watch TV, read the paper and prepare food, play with or (mostly) scold Piash, the brilliant but naughty two-year-old who sits in my lap in the common area or sneaks into my room to mess w/ my stuff. And it's not that I have a lot of stuff there at the house, but having a two-year-old around makes it seem like a lot more!

Anywho, he's given me an idea, that cute little Piash. What I need to do... (hey, did you notice that I used both italics AND bold on the word "need"? Would you like to know why?? I find that italics by itself just doesn't cut it, but adding bold to italics really grabs you!!) So what i need to do is visit each room at 3:00 am and figure out just who really sleeps in that house! And it would even be helpful to figure out who sleeps w/ whom, as I'm still not sure who the marrieds and who the singles are! So I've calculated that this would actually work (to sneak around at 3 in the morning), but the risk of having host family members wake up to a 6'2" white guy slowly opening a creaky door and peering through the mosquito net to see who's in there....well, that might be too much for some of them!! So I'm going to have to continue w/ the current methodology; which, though cumbersome, doesn't lead to any heart attacks.

Ah, mosquito nets...and this was the point I was starting to make. Mosquitoes are numerous and ever-persistent here. They remind me a bit of deodorant or anti-perspirant, only in a negative way. As I climbed into bed last night, I had my little battery-operated lamp with me in order to read some. As I started to read, I noticed a small, black form fly under the lamp. Sure enough, a mosquito had gotten inside the net!! As anyone knows who has ever used a mosquito net, you have to kill that one mosquito or it can surely mess up your whole night's sleep! So I watched it - they're awfully difficult to kill in mid-air - as it flew over to the side of the bed where the net rises towards the ceiling. It found a nice spot to land...in the middle of perhaps TEN other mosquitoes!!! Aughhhhh!

I just spent ten minutes looking up "mosquitos" online because the spell checker at blogspot.com doesn't like it. It prefers "mosquitoes". But two different dictionaries, including the formidable Merriam-Webster, suggest that I can use either one!! So on to the mosquitos... (stupid blogspot)

So then I did a dumb thing, I guess. I still felt like I needed to kill that one little mosquito that had flown under my lamp, so I forcefully whacked the side of the net! Well, I may have gotten him (I don't remember), but all of a sudden I had a swarm inside the net! I was surrounded! So I slipped out of the mosquito net, looking back at it, and wondered how in the world it got its name! More like "Mosquito Apartment Complex where dinner is served nightly at 10 pm"!! I guess they wouldn't sell as many that way, but it would be a major achievement for truthful advertising.

Anyway, I bunched up the net, trapping them all inside, and thought to myself, "Now, how long IS the average life span of a mosquito??" But I figured it would take them at least 24 hours to die, so I turned on the overhead fan (another way to keep the mosquitos at bay), bundled up (it's starting to get pretty cool at night here), and went to sleep!

I just looked up "mosquito life span" on the Internet. I shouldn't have. It's not good (for humans, anyway), and you learn other things about mosquitos that you really didn't want to know! It looks like I may be buying some bug spray on the way home tonight... :(

Larry

Moon Verified - Eid to begin on 17th

On the front page of today's paper, a small article declared that the National Moon Sighting Committee has verified the "Zilhaj" moon over Bangladesh, indicating that one of the biggest Muslim holidays of the year, Eid-ul-Azha, can start on Nov. 17 (next Wed, as predicted).

And I thought WE had a LOT of committees in North America...

Anyway, if you're interested in learning more about Eid-ul-Azha, sometimes called the "Festival of Sacrifice", look it up on Wikipedia or any other online source. Interestingly, the holiday marks Abraham's obedience and willingness to sacrifice his son, though Christians and Muslims differ on which son was offered up for sacrifice!

I'm in Dhaka next week for meetings, so I'll experience the Eid there. They say that the streets are full of slaughtered animals during these two days - not the most pleasant of sights/smells - but still an important religious holiday for Muslims the world over.

--Larry

Eating out solo!!

Well, I just ate out for the very first time BY MYSELF! Up until now, I've always been w/ other people who did the ordering, etc.

So I went to a little dive near the Bogra office and ordered Naan and Dhal (that's flat bread, kind of like you'd get at an Indian restaurant, and lentil/potato curry with plenty of kick!!). What i actually got was bread, curry, cucumbers, and a fried egg! Well, close enough...especially since I LIKE the cucumber and fried egg!! Anyway, i ate all this, plus a small glass of milky, sweet tea and asked for the bill. Are you ready??? (...drumroll...) about $ 0.45 (30 Taka). Sweet!!

(Now I wait a few hours to calculate the "real" cost....just kidding!!)

Well...((burp))

First Weekend in Bogra - Durga Puja Festival

Well, I survived my first weekend in Bogra, where I'll be studying Bangla, the official language of Bangladesh! Apparently I got here to Bogra just in time for a big Hindu celebration called Durga Puja (Background story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja). Durga is a war goddess w/ 10 arms and is featured in the video clip below. Hindus only represent around 10% of Bangladesh's population, but this is one of their biggest yearly festivals. We were invited to join in the festivities by one of the Bogra office employees. When we got to his house, we were treated to all kinds of sweets, chick-pea dahl, naan (bread), etc. It was a great time and a wonderful cultural opportunity.

So tomorrow the language teacher arrives and I start learning Bangla. Please pray for me that this old brain will accept yet another language into it! And that I'll learn as much as possible about the language and culture before heading to my assignment in Mymensingh. Thanks all!

To Bogra

I got SO MAD last night at my computer that I'm ready to switch to a MAC! I'm not just saying that - I'm totally ready.

A simple thing that always worked before: getting on Yahoo Games server to play chess with my daughter, Miranda. It kept saying that I had an "old version of the client in my cache" blah blah blah. I'm actually savvy enough to know what that means (how would your average user know??), so I proceeded to automatically and then manually clear IE's cache. But nothing worked. Same message, time after time after time. I even went so far as to uninstall and reinstall Java and Flash. No luck. I tried Firefox instead of IE. Nope. In fact, now it won't load Yahoo Games at all, much less take you to the individual game rooms.

I had been waiting several days to talk to the girls and play chess. I was SO frustrated w/ my Dell, Windows and Internet Explorer not working (Yahoo Games doesn't work on Chrome), that I went to bed early. It was one of those days where it's so bad that you just shut your eyes to make it stop!

Oh, did I mention that I used to own my own computer business, and that people called on ME to fix THEIR computers??? Don't bother calling anymore - I'll be on a Mac!

You know, this brings up an interesting point, or lack thereof. For my Christian friends who believe that God is in all the little details of our lives, I could easily determine that this is God's way of telling me that it's time to switch! And if that's true, then wouldn't it follow that God is in favor of Macs in general and that we should all be using them??

Or, if you're more like me (less like yourself?) and you are more in line with the (still Christian) view that "the rain falls on the just and unjust alike", then I guess we'd conclude that I just had a bad day and that God doesn't really care what kind of computer I use.

Either way, I'm pretty p.o.-ed at Microsoft right now...and it's not the first time. Goodbye, Mr. Gates - I'm in search of a real computer! Imagine, as someone posted recently at PC World, that your car ran on Windows - would we stand for a blue screen of death on the day of the big meeting? Would we still buy the car if the A/C and radio only worked if they were turned on in the right order?? Sheeeesh.

I've gotta go - today's going to be an adventure! I'm travelling to Bogra for language study. 5 hours on a nice bus, bad roads. Probably more like 7 hours from door to door! Oh, and this is my NEXT-TO-LAST MOVE in the suitcases!! Yeah!! It's Bogra for 3 months and then on to my assignment in Mymensingh.... se Deus quiser! (God willing and the creek don't rise - loose translation)

Larry Jones

(posting from *GULP* a Windows machine...possibly for the last time!!)

Dkaha Streets

Dhaka - Day 5 or so

So I decide to go out to the market for the first time by myself. No, i don't know much Bangla yet, making the outing a little bit scary. But hey, you can't just stay in the Guest House the whole time, right? So I get my phrasebook and map in the back pocket. My cell phone in the left front pocket. My video camera in the right front pocket. I've got money, keys, everything I need. I take a deep breath, walk to the front of the flat, and....open the bathroom door instead of the front door to go outside!! Aughhhhh!

Yeah, like I'm going to find my way back to the flat after the market!!

This first video is a typical street scene from Dhaka, but if your sound is turned up, you can also hear the Muslim Call to Prayer from the Minaret (tower) down the street:

Here's a local market, outside:

And inside, where they sell quite a variety of fish:

Not much to say to tonight - mostly, I just wanted to get these videos posted. I'm in Dhaka for some orientation, which is going splendidly! I'm really enjoying my time here so far! On Wed or Thu of this week, I'll travel to Bogra (about 5 hours by bus), where I'll spend 3 moths in Language Study. Then, finally, I get to settle down in Mymensingh, where I should be for the next 3 years or so. (It'll be nice to finally get OUT of these suitcases!!)

Feel free to comment below or drop me a line sometime! --Larry

Updates and Train Stations

UPDATE: Visa approved and obtained - Bangladesh, here I come!! (Mon night departure from Richmond...)

Train Stations

Well, another Joneser moment.... I recently had an hour layover in Philadelphia's 30th street train station. So after a quick lunch and a check of my email, I was off to the bathroom before catching the next train.

The first stall I went in was small, so I left my big rolling suitcase and carry-on just outside the door. I don't like to do that. You never know who's looking for easy opportunities in these places. But I also had to pee.

So I go in and soon realize that there's no toilet paper to wipe off the seat (yes, I like to sit down and pee most of the time instead of standing up - I don't know why). Anyway, I look under the divider and the handicapped stall next to mine is empty. So I quickly exit the skinny stall, grab my large suitcase, and head for the bigger stall, which I'm thinking is GREAT because I can put my bags inside w/ me!

The only thing is - I had forgotten that I had already unzipped my jeans in the first stall, so when I got to grabbing the luggage, twisting around, finding the handle, .... my pants had fallen nearly to the floor. So there I am, my hands full w/ luggage trying to get the handicapped stall door open...with my pants around my knees! A guy in a suit was coming in the bathroom - I couldn't even look him in the eye! I just shuffled into the new stall and breathed a sigh of relief as I locked the door behind me. Why me, O Lord??

Still crazy after all these...

Just an update that MCC has been approved to work in Bangladesh (never mind that they've already been working there for the past 40 years!) Now, they say they just have to audit/approved MCC's programming and then they can issue Visas. Still no timeline though.

So I'll be moving my stuff again soon (the renters of this house return Oct. 1) and looking for a warmer jacket!

I did manage to finish up one of my projects at Ten Thousand Villages, just today. That felt really good - now they're talking about using me in the Accounting Dep't, so we'll see...

Staying busy but also bored, in Akron, PA --Larry

Many of you who wish to follow my journey to Bangladesh may be surprised to find out that thus far, I have only traveled five hours north of Richmond, VA! As it turns out, the Bangladeshi government didn't share my enthusiasm for entering their country! Nor, it seems, for many others waiting for work Visas. So I'm waiting patiently (some days not so patiently) for them to come around and let me begin the process of entry: a 20+ hour plane ride, language learning, cultural adaptation, a memory upgrade (well, we can always dream)! Anyway, once the word comes down that the Visa has been approved, then it's only a matter of a week or so to get it stamped in my Passport, and off I'll go....!

In the meantime, MCC (Mennonite Central Committee - www.mcc.org) is providing housing, food and work while I wait. Currently, I'm working on two computer projects, one for MCC's IT Department and one for Ten Thousand Villages' (www.tenthousandvillages.com) IT Department. And I do some odd jobs (more precise would be to say "occasional jobs", I guess) for the Asia department as well as some airport runs! And I'm getting my feet wet with Bengali (Bangla), taking two lessons a week from a Bengali Doctor that lives in the area. So, all in all, I'm keeping pretty busy!

Here's a clip from the basement (aka - computer graveyard) of Ten Thousand Villages corporate office: