Final Days in Darjeeling

Days 4 & 5 went very well here, so I have less to write! The sun finally made an appearance yesterday morning, and it felt great! I started off the day walking to the Japanese Peace Pagoda - a lovely walk along narrow roads and huge cedar trees! The Peace Pagoda is a very nice place, complete w/ Buddhist drumming and a gleaming white monument with various frescoes around it. The Indian tourists there were pretty obnoxious - I was tempted to flip them off at one point, but I refrained. After all, we were at the Peace Pagoda...

Next I asked directions to the Rock Garden, and a young teenage boy was heading that way anyway. Well, not all the way there, but enough to show me the way! I paid him 20 rupees for his efforts, and proceeded down, down, down to the Rock Garden waterfalls. After several switchbacks, a dubious short cut, and one muddy sneaker, I made it to the falls! These are the ones that everyone said was too far to walk to. I don't think it took me more than two hours, but it did take a toll on my knees! So instead of hiking back up the 1500 feet (elevation) and 5 miles or so to Darjeeling, I decided to chat up the momo guy at the waterfall (momo is a popular Tibetan dish that you can find almost anywhere here - kind of like a dumpling). He took pity on me and talked to a couple of the drivers (local guys that have to put up with driving the obnoxious Indian tourists around from place to place), and walllah! It only cost me 100 rupees (about $2) to get a ride back to the top! More proof that it's not WHAT you know, but WHETHER or not you're willing to eat the local food!

Oh I forgot to mention that the main falls were definitely nice, but I got to see two MORE waterfalls by simply jumping the rail where you're not supposed to and taking a scary little trail further up! Beautiful - and no injuries to report!!

Well, back in Darjeeling, I rested my legs and had a wonderful South Indian meal delivered to my room. Well, once I had switched hotels for the third time, that is - four hotels in all this week!). The last two have been wonderful, though, and I can't complain.

Today also started off with some sun - I was down to my t-shirt in no time, just like yesterday! In fact, if I ever come back to Darjeeling, I'm coming in the summer time. I just can't stand the cold! So today I went in search of the Bhutia Temple, but it was locked up when I got there. Nice views from the courtyard, though. But the best part of the day was the unmarked trail I found! After continuing on from the Temple, with only a vague idea of the direction I wanted to go, I stumbled upon a beautiful, mid-ridge, lateral trail with jungle on one side and nice views on the other! It was the "day trek" I'd been looking for!! After a few miles, it came out near the entrance to the zoo. Who knew?? This trail's not listed in the guide books. I asked a local guy about it and he said it's called "Love Rd.". Perhaps because it's kind of isolated? I don't know, but I sure loved it!!

On the way back to Darjeeling, I had some local food from a hole-in-the-wall place (2nd time today!), and briefly walked through Lloyd's Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were OK, but nothing special. Then several switchbacks and staircases back up to my hotel! All in all, a good day!

Tomorrow I leave for Siliguri and the overnight bus to Dhaka. I should arrive there early Monday morning.

Thanks, all, for reading these entries. I've certainly enjoyed writing them!

--Larry

3rd Day Darjeeling

or, "How to Improve Your Life w/ Plastic!"

Well, things have improved! Mostly because I finally did what I threatened all along: I whipped out my Visa card!

Before I even got out of bed this morning at The Heritage, I could tell it was another hugely cloudy day. When the sun himself wakes you up, he commands a certain amount of attention; especially if your curtains don't completely cover windows. But the milky white light entering the room had such little force, I just rolled over. But by 8:00 I couldn't sleep anymore. I had to get up. First to the bathroom - still no water, not hot, not cold, nothing. Couldn't even brush my teeth...

So after breakfast, with rain coming down and a misplaced rain jacket, I set off in search of a new hotel. I kind of like looking around at the hotels, but it gets tedious after awhile, especially in the rain. I managed to buy an umbrella, though, and kept hoofing it up the many stairs of Darjeeling. (For those of you who haven't been here or heard about it, the whole town sits on the western slope of a steep ridge. We're not talking about 5-6 stories from the bottom to the top; we're talking about street after street of 5-6 story buildings, each sitting on top of the next!) Anyway, I finally settled on a US$ 40 a night place. That may sound inexpensive to Americans, but it's pretty fancy by local standards. I now have consistent hot water, a room heater, a view (of about 20 ft. to where the cloud still hangs low over Darjeeling), and, unbelievably, in-room Internet! Plus they have a nice restaurant downstairs that's not too expensive, and I can eat there OR have it delivered to the room.

So I'm good - thanks to all who have been thinking or praying about me! The only downside is that my new room at the "Hotel Shangri-La" is only available for 2 nights, and he doesn't have any more! My little piece of paradise may be short-lived!!

Oh, I booked a ticket on the "Toy Train" (it's real) for tomorrow at 1:30pm, so I'll let you know how that goes. All for now,

Larry

More fun in Darjeeling...

(Second in a series of blogs on traveling to Darjeeling...the first entry appears below this one. Thanks.)

"These are the voyages of Larry Jones, Captain of the Starship Rent-a-Surprise! His five day mission to explore strange new hotels, catch a glimpse of Mt. Everest, and possibly have a hot shower!" (start the music...)

Well, what can I say, the fun continues. Last night I had a nice meal out across town, but everything's pretty close here. Then, on the way back, I decided to stop in a local dive for a couple rounds of coca-cola. The place was shutting down at 10pm, which I thought was kind of weird. I mean, this is a big tourist destination, right? So I finished my conversation with a young Nepali guy with perfect English whose dream in life is to get a soccer scholarship to a Christian, American university.

I walked back to the hotel and was surprised at how few people were on the street. Darjeeling was really deserted! But that was nothing compared my surprise at finding my hotel totally locked up for the evening! And I don't mean the door knob was locked - I mean they had a pull down steel garage door thingie attached to the sidewalk! Unbelievable (and it kinda makes me re-think my definition of a "hotel"). But anyway, what could i do? I banged on the steel door, making an awful racket. No answer. I flashed my cell phone light up at the windows closest to the office - no response. I banged on the door a couple more times. Still nothing.

So I'm thinking...sheesh, I'm going to have to find another hotel room even though all my stuff is in this one and I've already paid for it! So I start down the street but then remember that my bladder is yelling pretty loud (cokes will do that to you), so I stop behind a dump truck to relieve myself. The street was deserted and it was pretty dark, so who cares, right?

Then I continue down the street and on the other side is a young guy outside of another hotel. I ask him if he has any vacancies. He says no. No surprise there - it is, after all, after 10 pm by this point. So he looks at me like "what's wrong"? So I proceed to explain the situation. He said "hold on" and after about 5 minutes, re-appeared w/ a cell phone. Shortly after that, another young guy comes out on the street from the other side. The first guy tells me I should follow this new guy, and I'm thinking "ok...here's where Larry gets mugged and left in an alley til morning", but it was actually one of the workers from my hotel (whew!!). He led me through a back door, up 3 flights of stairs, and I was finally home sweet home!

This morning I asked the front desk guy what time they close the front door. He said "oh, 9:30" as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world! So now I know. In fact, as I'm writing this, I realize I need be back "home" pretty soon!

Oh, the electricity came on today! I was at the zoo when it happened (nice zoo, by the way), so I was really pumped to finally get my hot shower when I got back. So I get back to my room, turn on the hot water device, wait a half hour or so to let the water heat up, and then...there's no water. I figured I was doing it wrong, so I went down to the front desk, where they informed me that Yes, we have electricity but that now there's no water! Sometimes, you can't catch a break, you know? But the guy was nice and offered to heat up some water for me (luckily, I already had half a bucket of cold water in the bathroom from when I arrived). I don't know where he got the water from, and I don't care! Even a hot bucket bath felt pretty good after 2 days without.

They assure me there will be hot water from the tap (and shower) tomorrow. It's like Mt. Everest at this point, though: I'll believe it when I see it!

--Larry

From Dhaka to Darjeeling

I was so proud of myself - 10 minutes early to my bus departure time. (I'm not as early for things I used to be.) I figured the 8 pm bus would be late leaving anyway - they often are. So there I sat in the Shyamoli bus stand, waiting for the big "AC" bus to India. Well, after awhile, someone advised me to get on a small, local bus that had been sitting outside for awhile. That was kind of weird, but I supposed that passengers were being herded from different smaller bus stands to one of the larger stands from which the International bus would depart. This was kind of true, but I soon discovered that the 8 pm bus to the Indian/Bangladeshi border had already left! It was scheduled for 8 pm alright, but from the main terminal! I suppose I got a little angry at Shyamoli management at this stage, for not informing me that I should be at the Kalampur station by 8 pm, not my local Asad Gate station.

They shrugged their shoulders and said, "no problem, sit down" (the word "please" hasn't quite entered the English lexicon in Bangladesh yet). Then, to my horro, they proceeded to call the bus to have it turn around! I could just imagine walking down the aisle, people glaring at me for making everyone over an hour late! So I had my second little chat with Shyamoli management. Fortunately, either the bus didn't get the message or the driver refused to turn around - I'm not sure. But after an hour and a half, another bus going to the border appeared, and I was given a seat on that one. Whew! No angry stares, Bangla cursing, etc., and I was on my way!

The trip to the border was uneventful - besides being bounced up and down because I was in the last row of seats, the voyage was pleasant enough. They even gave each passenger bottled water and a snack box: a small fried thingie, what I thought was a sandwich (but halfway through I realized it was just two pieces of white bread), a round sweet of some kind, and a hard-boiled egg. When you're hungry, as I almost always am, you take your chances. No harm done this time, I'm happy to report!

At the border, we had to wait about 2 hours for the Customs to open. In my case, this time was spent reading, snacking, chatting up some tourists from Bhutan who had come all the way to Dhaka to shop for cheap goods, observing goats, cows and small children, avoiding beggars but occasionally helping them out, etc. Once the border opened, we all walked down the road and filed through the Bangladeshi border post (where I had to pay an additional Tk 300 because I didn't realize I was supposed to bring BOTH copies of my departure tax - "live and learn", which, by the way, would also make a good title for this blog). Then we walked down some more pavement, filed through the Indian entry point, then the Indian pre-screen for Customs, then Indian Customs, then back to the pre-screen guy for a signature...oh, and one other little office for a stamp and a signature. The Indians have the bureaucracy thing down pat: it only took a couple of hours to do all this! But it wasn't all bad - in between official stamps and signatures, there was time for chatting or being chatted at (an English school medium headmaster cornered me about three times - his English wasn't that great, but he considered it a great honor to talk to someone "from the American side" - all I could say was "Dang, ya'll, it's the same freakin' English they got on the other side uh the pond", but I'm not sure he understood what I meant. Anyway, lots of smiling all around... By the way, if you go, the customs offices and officers are all housed in quaint little tin sheds - don't expect fancy buildings at the border!

I couldn't wait to get going again. After a nice little naan, deem & cha (bread, egg and tea) breakfast, we were on our way to Siliguri. Oh I didn't mention that several people offered to exchange my Taka into Rupees back at the border, but I deftly denied their advances, considering their exchange rates low and my chances high of doing better in Siliguri or Darjeeling!

Little did I know that no one wants Bangladesh Taka in India!! In fact, I only had 130 Rupees with me that Brad Reimer (visiting from Winnipeg) had given me in exchange for some purchases he made. 130 Rupees is less than $3.00. I managed to get a rickshaw from the place I had lunch (on my Visa card) to the Jeep stand for Darjeeling. That cost me 50 Rupees (R$) and I soon realized that I didn't have enough left to get to Darjeeling. I saw a nearby hotel and very fortunately, the owner allowed me to change what little US Dollars I had with me for Rupees. I had brought all my US Dollars with me, just in case, but it only amounted to $29. They wanted $100 minimum to do an exchange, but finally agreed to take $25, and I walked away with the much-needed Rupees. I'm sure I got a bad exchange rate, but what could I do?

So the ride up (and I do mean UP) to Darjeeling took forever, and once again I was bouncing around in the back seat! I wasn't alone, though. The "Jeep" was what I would call a Land Rover (though perhaps it was in fact a very large Jeep). In any case, it had been refitted in the back to store people instead of goods, which were placed up on top of the vehicle instead. In my estimation, the front, middle and back benches would comfortably accomodate 3 people each. Nine people in a Land Rover (Jeep?) is a pretty good haul, I think. We began our trip with 12.

Along the way, the driver stopped in a small town and picked up two more. For some reason (?!), they decided to put 5 on the front bench and 5 on the back. The driver actually sat on somebody's lap while he drove! I'm not sure if he shifted the gears himself, or if it was a joint effort, but we made it up the mountain in about three hours. It was SO cold in that Jeep - for some reason (?!), people would put on more layers of clothing, but NOT roll the windows up all the way. Could be a Tibetan thing (the local population is a mix of mountain-based, Asian people and Indians). I asked the girl in front of me to roll up her window (shortly after she put on a thick sweater), which she did, but it rolled back down part-way on the very bumpy road. It's possible the locals know more than I do... Later, I closed another one across from me when nobody was looking. Still, it was COLD, and Darjeeling is COLD. Be forewarned.

So we rolled into town about 7pm but it felt much later to me because of the long day, the long trip, etc. I was going on 24 hours since leaving Dhaka. I started looking for a hotel in the dark - for some reason I had expected people from the hotels to meet the incoming cars at the bus stand, but no one did. I think I read that piece of "information" somewhere. Anyway, asking some locals, I soon found the Hotel Seven Seventeen, which enjoys a good reputation in the Lonely Planet guide book. They said they'd check on a room and why don't I eat something in the restaurant. The Chicken Butter Masala was excellent, as was the hot tea! And they found me a room. It was more than I wanted to pay (R$ 1200) but I settled in, figuring that it was late and I could look around more the next day with the benefit of light and heat!

Well, at least it was light the next day! Darjeeling seems to be having a cold spell with heavy fog. So no scenery, no warmth, even in the middle of the day, but I had bigger issues to attend to. Namely, no money. You see, I brought LOTS of Taka to Darjeeling believing that I could exchange it here. Finding out yesterday that no one wanted to exchange them was a major letdown. And my backup plan, getting a cash advance against my Visa card, was also problematic. I've never used it that way before, so I don't have a PIN number! Finally, about 11:00 this morning, I walked into an exchange place that was interested in Bangladeshi Taka! I didn't get the best exchange rate in the world (lost about $40 over what the Taka would be worth in Dhaka), but at least I can stay here the rest of the week!! And I found a small, clean room up the street at "The Heritage" for only R$ 500 a night! So those are the highlights of my trip so far!

Did I mention that it's COLD here?? And the Internet and heating systems are decidedly spotty, and unusual. Top it off with an almost 24 hour power outage due to a power line post falling over. But I'm making it. If we can get a little sun here tomorrow, I'm planning on visiting the zoo and some Buddhist temples. If not, I'll probably try the local Bollywood cinema and more tea stalls!

Pictures coming after this great adventure concludes at the end of the week!

--Larry

Tidbits

I haven't had much to say for awhile, but occasionally I'll write down a snippet or two. So here they are, in no particular order, just like the original Nabisco Tid-Bits, which, in case you've forgotten or weren't born in time for endless shows like Cliffhangers or Police Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man (how much would he be worth TODAY??), here's a photo.

I liked these snacks a lot when I was a kid, which might explain why I still like Cheeze-Its today! In any case, here's some nice little tidbits, served up fresh:


Let the Religions of the World COLLIDE!!

Yesterday, I was frequenting my favorite little Tk 25.00 eatery (that's about .40 cents, you'll remember), enjoying dahl and ruti and deem and all that...when, to my delight, a cell phone goes off across the room. Normally this doesn't delight me, nor the ensuing, often loud, one-sided conversation that takes place! But yesterday the older, Muslim gentleman waited a bit to answer his phone....and graced us all with his latest ringtone, We Wish You a Merry Christmas!!


Victory!

No, Bangladesh didn't win the Cricket World Cup this year. India did. Personally, I find cricket more exciting than baseball!! I know for many of you, that's not saying too much. But for some of you, that's saying a lot...maybe. Anyway, back to my Victory! story:

The toilet in the bathroom at the far end of the 3rd floor all-in-one guest house - conference room - dining room of the Job Creation office in Mymensingh - is aptly named "Victory" (and so's the sink)! I like that. I've won a few battles in there myself!!

Speaking of odd names, there's a bakery in Dhaka with the name "Decent Bakery". Every time I pass by, I think to myself, couldn't they try a little harder??

But i like bathroom fixtures with the name "Victory".

Now if I can just find an oven with the name "Pointless"...


Job Creation Update

As most of you know, I'm in charge of the Job Creation office here in Mymensingh. My favorite parts of the job, so far, are leading staff meetings, motivating our team to have an entrepreneurial spirit, and considering/implementing new ideas or new sales opportunities. We've had a few such opportunities in just the past two weeks!

First, Rafique and Shahadat (engineer & marketer) found a buyer near Dhaka for recycled cotton thread. We've had a large spinning mill sitting mostly idle for several years, and this should help "jump start" it! We're anticipating 10-15 new jobs there for local women by the end of the month!!

Second, we were able to meet with a nationally-recognized designer who used to work with Aarong, the huge, local handicraft chain. He thinks that our new pineapple/cotton fabrics will very much interest them. If so, we would hire an additional 20-30 workers at the Mill by next year! This one will take more time to set up, but the rewards could be very good.

Third, Deepa and I (she runs the Sacred Mark handmade soap enterprise) met with representatives from the Danish Embassy, who are interested in teaming us up with a Danish soap maker to be able to sell soap there as well as in Europe. If this happens, Sacred Mark would explode overnight (hopefully in a good way)!

Finally, the Pobitra program (which helps ex-sex workers to find new livelihoods) recently graduated 17 producers. We have taken them all in at the Job Creation program to make soap, bedspreads, Christmas ornaments and stockings, etc. We have been able to do this through increased sales at Sacred Mark soap (mostly to Japan and Canada) as well as other export orders.

So my job is a mix of cheerleader, visionary (trying to keep us all on track or consider new products), approver (signing things), and occasionally the "meanie" supervisor!! I love it...most of the time!


Well, that's all the Tidbits I have for now! Next time, we'll try some Doo-Dads (another of my favorites...)!

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!"