Waking up in Thailand: I think I’m gonna like it here!

Tonight I landed in Koh Samui, and while the sun has already been down for a few hours, I can already tell I am in paradise.

It started during my layover in Bangkok (simple luxuries like having soap in the bathrooms, etc.), and before long the song “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here” from Annie kept creeping into my head as I realized where I was.

Thank the lord I was able to find a Lonely Planet Thailand book in the Bangkok airport; my LP Bangladesh wouldn’t have gotten me very far here! After that purchase I had all of a 45-minute flight from BKK to the island to figure out where I was going to go once I got here- nothing like last minute planning! I picked a place called Lucky Mother (ha!), which has a bunch of beach bungalows. I made my way to the hotel, checked in, and had some Thai soup for dinner (still fighting off a cold) in the thatched hut restaurant on the beach.

While I was eating dinner people were setting off fireworks all up and down the beach, and there were a half a dozen different songs playing at any given time from the various bars/restaurants stretching down the beach. But even with all of the commotion, it was absolutely silent compared to Dhaka, Bangladesh. I haven’t heard one person honk their horn yet!

Before I headed back to my room I walked on the beach to check out the local scene. I made my way down to the water and as I went for the usual toe test I had a familiar cringing feeling come over me that I have so often felt while convincing myself to get in the ocean at the Jersey shore (the water is always SO cold!). Once I actually touched the water though I was almost in shock at how warm it was. LP had said the water here is like “bath water” but I knew that had to be an exaggeration… But it wasn’t! The water here is LITERALLY warmer than the majority of showers I had in Bangladesh in the last 3 weeks… Absolute perfection!

Tomorrow I’m waking up and taking a ferry to Koh Tao, a little island north of here that certifies more scuba divers every year than anywhere else in the world. LP says it’s “THE place to lose your scuba virginity”, can’t argue with that! Hopefully the sun and fresh air (neither of which I’ve experienced in the last 3 weeks) will help clear up my sniffles so I can take full advantage of the diving…



I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and actually see what’s around me!

Images of Bangladesh

Loved these kids!



Some more of the kids



Grameen Bank interns: Nick, Srije and I



Village meeting





One of the borrowers with her husband and kids



Outside our branch office




Pouring out of the school to see us...



Playing around with the kids



Harder than it looks.... Especially on a flooded soccer field



I wanted to take her home with me!



Chaos



Daily monsoon



Tara Mosque









The Pink Palace in Old Dhaka



Boat ride in Old Dhaka





Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus- the man!



"The Audacity of Hope" in Bangla... Everyone loves Obama!



Adele and me with some of our street kids outside our hotel



Adele's Bangla eye exam



Anddd Pedro giving Adele something to read during her eye exam



Bangla Taka



Viva Bdesh!

Village Trip: Good thing it wasn't a snake bite!

“The only thing I can’t treat with my first aid kit is a snake bite…” –Srijan

This was one of the first things we remembered after our first village casualty just a few minutes ago. Cathi was standing on our beds while we were preparing our mosquito net for the night. She reached up with the middle of the net right at the exact moment a blade from the fan came wizzing by, slicing into the side of her right wrist. Before we even realized what had happened she fell to the bed with a thump, grabbing her wrist. Our initial reaction was to laugh, as this now marked the third “incident” involving Cathi (the first was when I was trying to fix a clothes line on the roof of the Grameen building we are staying in, when the wooden pole slipped and smacked her in the head, the second was when we were taking pictures of a little boy who had climbed a tree outside our bedroom window to see us, and she hit her head on the bed). But then we saw a slow trickle of blood start to drip down her arm…

The first time she took her hand off her wrist we realized this was much more serious than first imagined. The swelling began almost immediately, making the chasm in her wrist even more apparent. For a few seconds I wondered if the fan blade had actually cut her all the way down to her bone, but I kept that to myself so as not to add to the list of emotions she was already feeling.



Even after all of the bleeding the wound was still dirty from the filthy fan blade. I convinced Cathi that she needed to wash her arm instead of just putting anestheptic on it, so we used my bar of trusty Irish Spring to clean her hands, and bottled water to rinse off her arm until it no longer looked as grimy.

We kept her arm raised, put some ice (yes ice! In this small village apparently there is a freezer) in one of my Ziploc bags that I dumped all of my toiletries out of, and hoped it would stop bleeding. This was about the time I had a chance to call the boys who are staying about 10 km away in the next village over, to ask about Srijan’s trusty first aid kit.

We were really just wondering if they had any Neosporin that we could put on before we bandaged it up. This could help prevent infection as much as possible in a country that sprays antibacterial air freshener into the vents on all of the buses, yet that doesn’t regularly use soap or wash their hands.

Nicholas proceeded to tell me all about his friend’s experience with his travel insurance company, and how we should call our own to ask them what we should do about Cathi’s cut. At that point we really didn’t think that was necessary (ok so I may have made it sound like Cathi’s hand was a tendon away from being severed off her arm) so we arranged to have our Branch Manager drive over to the other village to pick up the Neosporin from the boys.

After a couple rounds of rubbing alcohol and iodine, we bandaged her up and it was time for dinner. The power went out and candles were lit, a nice unintentional romantic first dinner in our village. Shortly after we finished dinner the Center Branch Manager and two of the other women from Grameen came to visit to see how Cathi was doing. Then there was another set of visitors, just to make sure she was ok. Russel, our translator, said everyone had already heard about the incident, even in the next village over because that’s where the boys (and the Neosporin) were!

Earlier this morning, before all of this excitement happened, we took a bus from Dhaka to this remote village about 70 km away. We checked out our new home for the next four days (upstairs from the Grameen center office), and then went back downstairs to observe the tail end of a disbursement meeting of women who were receiving loans that they had applied for the week previous. Then we were told to rest (after all, we had had an extremely tiring day of sitting on a bus for 4+ hours).

After our mandatory rest we walked down into the village center with one of the Center Managers, to visit a village called Pachdona. This was one of the nicest villages we have seen on this trip (i.e., many of the houses were made out of concrete instead of corrugated steel, there were various ponds placed throughout the village, some with ducks swimming in them, and everything generally seemed cleaner and less dusty than just a few steps away back at the village center.



We made our way through the village to meet with a “Struggling Member” success story (a woman who had previously been a beggar, but then after receiving loans from Grameen was able to work her way out of poverty and out of begging). We passed by a few boys who were studying their English lessons (ex. ‘Read: Samyr has the pencil.’) which was quite impressive.

When we ended up at the Struggling Member’s house, we drew another crowd who watched as we conducted our interview of a woman who looked well into her 80’s, yet she guessed she was somewhere between 50-55 years old. Years ago her husband had died, her only child (daughter) had married and had moved away, and she turned to begging to help her meet her basic needs. Other members of her community had taken Grameen loans, and had encouraged her to become involved as well. Six years ago she received her first loan with which she bought chickens, ducks, and biscuits/cookies. Grameen encouraged her to sell things to the people to whom she would have previously begged, so at least she was offering a valuable service. She paid back her loan, then took out a second loan with which she bought a thread spinning machine.

A few years later she became sick as well and could not continue selling the thread she spun, so her daughter moved back to the village to learn the art of spinning as well. She has repaid her second loan, and has now passed on the spinning business to her daughter and granddaughter.



We left this woman’s corrugated steel house, and walked back to the village center, with the town’s children always in our shadows. Our translator, Russel, brought us to the market to get the best cha (tea) in town. The tea man had a cauldron of simmering milk, two kettles of cha, and a canister of white sugar. We sat on a wooden bench in front of the tea man and watched as he put a scoop of sugar in each glass topped with a ladle full of milk. After the milk had melted the sugar, he poured the cha in each glass, and topped the glasses with a piece of film from the top of the milk cauldron. Voila! It felt like the entire population surrounded us and watched as we drank the most incredible tea I have ever had in my life. Two boys who were watching had picked flowers from a local tree and gave me a bouquet of them. After our second helping of cha, the sea of people parted and we made our way back to our village feeling like local celebrities.

This joyous feeling was soon replaced with the adrenaline surrounding Cathi’s fan incident. Only hours before we had all been saying “Do you really think you’re going to need all of those medical supplies for this trip, Srijan??” We soon discovered that yes, we really would need them all, and this was only Day 1!

Stuck in Bogra: "I'd rather get Malaria..."

This weekend 17 of the interns went on a mission to see Bangladesh's oldest Buddhist temple, about 4 hours north west of Dhaka in a city called Bogra.

A long term intern named Miles has been organizing various weekend trips and has the ability to manipulate literally any travel situation to end up in our favor. Just getting 17 people to do anything cohesively is quite a feat, so the fact that this trip even happened was impressive.

On Friday morning we all made our way to the bus station to board a "deluxe" bus (“deluxe” only described the physical state of the bus, which means it had AC which sometimes worked, the Bengali style of driving remained the same).



We arrived in Bogra in the afternoon, loaded into a few rickshaws, and made our way to a hotel where we thought we would stay that night. Little did we know this was the beginning of an entire tour of the city looking for a hotel that could accommodate all 17 of us. About 2.5 hours later we ended up at Bogra Boarding, an incredible establishment known to the locals as a place where men and prostitutes stay on a regular basis. Before we checked in we looked at some of the rooms, the first of which had the thin mattresses folded over and falling off the bed, one of which was topped with a chair. At only $1 a night per person the price was right for even the most parsimonious members of our group. We decided this was the perfect place.

We dropped off our stuff, took all of our valuables with us, and got back in our rickshaws to go on a mission to find the temple we came to see in the first place. Apparently the rickshaw drivers had no idea where they were going, and we had to make a stop or two on the way to ask for directions. Isn’t this was makes this entire town famous to begin with? How could he not know where the temple is?



Well he didn’t know where it was because it doesn’t exist anymore, or at least the place he thought we wanted to go doesn’t. The ruins of this ancient area, however, do exist (which we later realized we walked all around, but since it is now just a big open area covered in grass we had no idea at the time). The temple we were actually trying to see was two hours away and we had to take another bus to get there. We would put that off until tomorrow.



After we got caught in a monsoon, we walked around the local village and ended up played impromptu games with the children (one snap of my hand made another boy snap, which ended up turning into about 20 children eagerly playing Simon Says with me- a game that can transcend any language barrier).



As we walked back out of the village a local man stepped out of his house to talk to Jason and me. He asked where we were from, and when we said America he said “Ahh Barack Obama!” I asked if he liked him and he said “Yes, very much!” and then Jason asked if he liked George Bush too. He said “No, George Bush created lots of quarrel in the world, but Barack Obama is a good man and he can fix it.” Jason and I were both in shock, first, this man was extremely proficient in English, second, he knows all about our politics, and third, he used the word ‘quarrel’?! He ended up giving me his address so I could send him pictures that I had taken in his village that day.



Max, Miles, Alice and I took a CNG (auto rickshaw) back to town (our group of 17 had split into four- 4 people were going home on the midnight bus back to Dhaka, then the remaining 13 of us had split up as well). This was the most comfortable rickshaw yet- we wanted to hire that man to drive us anywhere we would ever have to go again in Bangladesh. Later that night we rallied the troops and all of us walked through the streets of town looking for a place Lonely Planet had recommended, called the Cozy Café. We arrived at the Cozy Café and felt like we stepped right into a swanky lounge in New York City, complete with black leather couches, exposed brick, and blue mood lighting. Also according to LP we completely covered our table with plates of Chinese food, which ended up being absolutely sensational (at this point all Bengali food was pretty much starting to taste the same).



After dinner the 13 of us made our way back to our luxury resort of a hotel, crowded into one of the rooms, and started playing cards. It would have been a long night in Bogra if I hadn’t thrown them in my bag at the last minute… At about 3AM we started losing some people to sleep. Alice was sharing a bed with Ana in our room, and took our key to go to sleep. A few minutes later she walked back into the room where we all were, yet this time she was wearing a look of horror combined with humiliation and comedy all at the same time. She had just dropped our key down the squat toilet, never to be seen again.



I had thought our day had been absolutely hilarious and random already, but this just topped the cake. What else could happen at this point? I asked Santiago to go down to the “front desk” with Alice to ask if they had an extra key for our padlock (this in itself is a laughable request if you had seen where we were staying). The guy downstairs called a buddy from town, who came over with a hammer and a chisel and started wailing his skinny little arms at the padlock. Santi took over for a few good hits, and finally the padlock crashed to the floor. Success!

We had 13 people and 10 available beds, so I said one of the guys could sleep with me instead of having all of the guys double up. Max ended up winning the honor after an intense game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. I laid out my sleep sack, which is like a big pillow case that you sleep inside of should you ever be staying in a $1/night hotel room and don’t want to catch any diseases just from looking at the beds. But since there were two of us in bed we ended up just sleeping right on top of the sleep sack anyway.

It was about 90 degrees in our room, and in the morning when we woke up our sweat had soaked through my sleep sack and had brought up all of the dirt from our filthy bed. I also woke up to the pleasant surprise of a mysterious series of 13 bug bites in a nice uniform line going from my left elbow up to my bicep. We then noticed that next to our heads was a huge gaping hole in our mosquito net we had slept under, but that was still better than Alice and Ana’s mosquito net that upon initial inspection Alice said "I'd rather get Malaria than use that!" (it was splattered with blood and other various body fluids from past patrons of the hotel).



Santiago was supposed to wake us up at 6:15 so we could get a bus to the temple at 7, but clearly that plan was comical after the night before. We finally woke up around 9:30, but we had already missed the only bus to the temple so we decided to just get some breakfast across the street and figure out how to modify our plan. Right around that time was when we received a phone call from the French girls who were with our group. They had gone to the bus station to get tickets for the ride back, and found out that no buses were running that day because of a CNG (natural gas) strike. This didn't only mean that we wouldn't be able to see the elusive temple, but this also meant we would have one hell of a time trying to figure out how to get back to Dhaka (4-5 hour bus ride away).



We decided to try to get tickets for the train (9 hour ride). We were able to get tickets for the 1:00pm train, and in the mean time an employee at the station let us sit in a sweet room with couches and a table (I think he put us in there because we were creating too much of a scene being outside while hundreds of local people surrounded us). Once the train came all 13 of us packed into a cabin that had two bench seats and two pull down platforms (beds?) for the long haul.



Miles came up with the idea of riding on top of the train (Slumdog Millionaire style), so at one of the stops all the boys ran off the train and up onto a little footbridge that crossed overtop of the train. When the train started moving the boys jumped off the bridge and onto the train! Almost immediately after they landed the train came to a halt and the next thing we saw they were sprinting back to our car.



We were all laughing at their attempt until we came to the next stop where we were greated by heavily armed militia men wearing turbans and automatic guns on their backs. We watched out the window as they walked back and forth outside of the train, getting on and off (looking for stupid foreigners??). They took a big mysterious wrapped up bundle from off the train and brought it outside to examine, but when they opened it up there was only a stack of folded up fabric. At that point we realized they were probably just doing drug control instead of looking to create drama with unsuspecting foreigners. In the meantime though this was the only time since I've been in Bangladesh that I've been completely freaked out about our personal safety.



Finally we arrived in Dhaka around 9:30, all piled into taxis and CNG's, and attempted to make our way back to the Grand Prince Hotel (which seemed like a resort after our accommodations the night before). We got stuck in probably every traffic jam ever known to Bangladesh, but made it back an hour or so later just in time for a fabulous shower and clean bed. Perfection!

Moral Dilemmas

What do you do when the starving children your parents always used to convince you to finish your dinner are right outside your door in Bangladesh?

Tonight I had dinner with a few girls I just met, and this very question was raised as we sat around the table looking at our boxed up leftovers. We argued for giving the food to the kids (it's not like they chose to be born into poverty after all), and against (if we gave them the food it would be reinforcing their begging behavior and further decrease the likelihood that they would be encouraged by their parents to go to school). We brought up the extremes (what if the child was literally about to die from hunger? Then would we feel obligated to give then our food? But if they are going to perish, us giving them food on one occasion would only delay the inevitable and would be a temporary bandaid covering up society's failure to help the most vulnerable among us). I held to my idea that a better idea to help our inner moral qualms surrounding this issue is to try to think of a more sustainable solution to help reduce their poverty.

Although I could see both sides, I knew that giving the children our food would just perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty (even though it would certainly make us feel better in the mean time). Yet at last, as I stood up to leave the table, I caved in and said to give our leftovers to the kids. After all, how can you look into their sad, yearning eyes day after day and even attempt to ignore their struggle? Even though it only helps fill their bellies for only one night, it helps us buy more time until we can come up with a better solution.

Muddy Casualties, Success Stories, and Bloody Bananas

We woke up early today just in time to see the century's last "full" solar eclipse from the rooftop terrace at our hotel, then rushed over to Grameen Bank to start our journey for our first Village visit. Six interns piled into a van, accompanied by our Grameen coordinator, Rafique, who also helped tremendously with translating all day as we talked to villagers. After a nail biting 3 hour ride from the city center to the rural outskirts, and stopping twice (once for directions and once just to see Rafique's long lost friend), we finally arrived at Amdala. We made it into the Branch Manager's office just in time to escape a torrential downpour outside (the first time we've actually seen it rain here even though it's technically their Monsoon season). We learned from the Branch Manager that he is in charge of 84 separate centers, made up of 623 groups, which are then made up of 2,925 total borrowers (people who have taken loans from Grameen Bank). We waited for the rain to let up a little bit then got back in the van for a little drive further down the road. When the van stopped we were all warned to be careful because the path we would be walking on was slippery and muddy because of the storm. As we began our walk to the village we began attracting curious children and adults alike, who began following us on our muddy trek. Half way through our walk one of the girls had already fallen in the mud (TWICE!), and another one had lost her flip flop as a result of a battle with a sticky puddle. When the one girl fell in the mud I had to do all I could not to laugh my butt off, especially because our journey wasn't over yet and bad karma would surely move my name right to the top on the list of following mud victims. However, one of the village children who had been following us started laughing and pointing at her as she lay helpless in the mud... I found this absolutely hilarious to say the least. This little girl and her adorable friend ended up staying by my side the entire visit, and by the time we left they were the first Bangladeshis that had captured a piece of my heart.
While we were walking, the General Manager turned around and told me "You are a very strong woman" which I think had something to do with the fact that I was one of the only people who hadn't faced any type of casualty with the mud so far. As we neared the village center we heard clapping and cheering, and it turned out that all of the women who were members of that village's Grameen branch were together in their meeting place welcoming us with a standing ovation! We were ushered into their meeting area, given seats up front facing the assembly of women, and the meeting promptly started. The women took turns depositing their money to the Branch Manager, who then counted their money and recorded it in their log. We were able to ask some of the women questions (How long have you been a member of Grameen Bank? Who was the first borrower from this group? What did you use your first loans for? Do all of your children go to school? etc.), and then they had a turn to ask us questions (Are you married? Where are you from? Are your parents still alive? How many siblings do you have? After university are you going to get a job or get married first? etc.).

Then we met the first borrower of the village (23 years ago!), we saw one of the houses that was built by a couple who had received a housing loan from Grameen, and met a "success couple" (or a man and woman who had successfully worked their way out of poverty through the microloans made possible by Grameen). It was all quite impressive to see the real life results of microlending.
As we made our way back to the van all of the villagers kept asking us in Bengali to come back to visit them (specifically after we were done with school and had jobs and were married). We learned to say "Acha, acha!" (a combination of "Yes" and "See you again soon" type of response) which they got a big kick out of. We made our way back (the path was a bit more dried out by this point), saying "Donobad" ("Thank you") over and over, so appreciative of their hospitality and willingness to share their lives with us.
We stopped at the General Manager's office again for a pit stop and a miniature banana break (complete with more tea of course). This was my first experience with quite an interesting phenomena of a "squat toilet". I have been finding great humor in so many of these experiences throughout the day, so of course I had to stop and laugh at the situation as soon as I saw it and thought about the logistics. After that ordeal I went to open the door but the sliding lock was stuck! Again, I laughed at the prospect of being stuck in a Bangladeshi squat toilet stall, but finally was able to slide the rusty lock over to get me out of there.

I went back to the main room, grabbed a mini banana, and then noticed the end was covered in blood. Gross! Then I realized it was my blood, and on further inspection saw I had sliced my finger open on the rusty lock in the bathroom. Probably the first thing every international travel guide book tells you NOT to do is to cut yourself with a rusty nail (or in this case, a lock). I tried to not make a big deal out of it but the General Manager was profusely apologetic and insisted on cleaning it up and putting a bandaid on it. It ended up throbbing a bit for the next hour or so, and I continued to think about how we take the small things for granted (like soap and water to wash a bloody finger). Glad I got my tetanus booster :)

Tomorrow we may get to meet (Nobel Peace Prize Winner) Professor Muhammad Yunus! It may just be a short photo op, but it would still be a great chance to be in the presence of someone who has created and propelled such an incredible movement of microlending around the world. To be continued!

The Pursuit of "Happyness" in Bangladesh

Transcribed from a journal I wrote during my layover in Doha, Qatar:

Many people in my life know that the end of 2007 also marked the end of my engagement with my (now) ex-fiance. Since then I feel like I have done a pretty darn good job of healing emotionally, mentally, etc. I have rekindled old friendships and have had plenty of laughs with old friends and new. I have gone on adventures to different parts of the globe, many with my Mom which have been an absolute blast. I have held an admirable job and have played a huge roll in the success of a little girl with autism as she continued to learn and grow.

Each and every one of these experiences has been fantastic, and some even life changing. Yet while they have made me happy for the time being, I feel like they have only scratched the surface of coming close to what true, intrinsic happiness feels like. The kind that makes your soul smile, knowing that you are fulfilling your life's purpose. Instead I feel like my heart has been sort of in a state of being permanently even-keeled.

Side note: As I write this I am sitting in the airport in Doha, Qatar, with the book "Eat, Pray, Love" in my lap. I am only 76 pages into this book and I have already drawn about a million parallels between me and the author, Liz Gilbert. Her writing has already made me experience every possible emotion that you could ever want from a good book: from laughing out loud to even getting tears in my eyes. Eat, Pray, Love has immediately become one of my top three favorite books of all time- I highly recommend you read it if you haven't already!

I am en route to Dhaka, Bangladesh, the most poverty stricken country on our huge planet.



While I will officially be interning at Grameen Bank, I will unofficially be on a path of self exploration and (hopefully) discovery. I hope the extreme setting will help jolt my senses into a state of true, deep, raw feeling. I want to know what it feels like to be drunk with elation, so high on life it leaves you delirious and exhausted. (But to be able to achieve that state maybe I need to see the other extreme first?) While the words "happiness" and "Bangladesh" aren't usually spoken in the same breath, anyone would agree that Bangladesh is a land of extremes. And I feel like I need to be submerged in the extreme to jump start my journey. I want to stop thinking with my head and start feeling with my heart, and let those feelings guide me through this next chapter of my life.

I've never been able to verbalize my reasoning for this trip until now, and I honestly think "Eat, Pray, Love" played a huge role in helping me articulate what has been going through my head. So to everyone I know who scratched their heads and thought I was crazy for choosing to go to Bangladesh, I hope this helps.

Bangladesh Adventure: Communication Breakdown

Tomorrow is the first day of the next chapter of my life.

At 11:35pm I will be flying out of JFK to Dhaka, Bangladesh, with a short layover in Doha, Qatar. A day and a half later (Monday morning at 8:25am) I should arrive in Dhaka, where I will be picked up by the Grand Prince Hotel (3 stars for only $12/night!). After checking into the hotel I will make my way over to Grameen Bank, a micro-lending bank that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for reducing poverty in Bangladesh by 20%.

Side note: Grameen gives loans to individuals who use the money to work their way out of poverty (e.g., through small business operations), and then repay the money to the bank. The money can then be given in the form of another loan to another person in need, and the cycle of lending continues. Their default rate is 97% I believe, which means that 97% of all loans made by Grameen to the impoverished people of Bangladesh are repaid. Pretty incredible statistic considering that the majority of Bangladeshis live on less than $1 a day!

A few months ago I applied for a 3-week internship position at Grameen Bank so I could learn more about micro-lending in one of the most challenged developing countries in the world. I was excited to learn that my application was accepted, and I would have the opportunity to be part of such an accredited and productive organization. I booked my flight, went to the Bangladesh Consulate in New York City to get my visa (quite the adventure in itself), and started looking at hotels.

And then the communication breakdown began. All of my correspondence with Grameen Bank's Training Program has been through emails (including everything from my application to their acceptance offer). About two weeks ago I emailed Grameen just to re-confirm that I was actually coming to Bangladesh, and would be arriving on July 20th. No response. I emailed them again. No response, again. Hmph. I decided to call them (maybe they got washed away in a cyclone or something? this is their rainy season). On two different occasions I called three different numbers and no one picked up...

So, I am off to Bangladesh tomorrow to do an internship at an organization that may or may not even be expecting me. I figure there are three possible outcomes:

1. I get to Grameen, they do know I am supposed to be there, and everything goes smoothly.
2. I get to Grameen, they have no idea I am supposed to be there, but make the most out of an extra person there to help and my internship continues unscathed.
3. I get to Grameen, they have no idea I am supposed to be there, and turn me away (can't see them turning away free help, but weirder things have happened).

No matter what ends up happening, it will be my final decision whether I stay in Dhaka for the entire three weeks. I have repeatedly assured my family and friends (and will continue until I get on the plane tomorrow night), that if I get to Dhaka and things are "not okay" I will simply consider it a learning experience, and continue the adventure in a different location (Nepal? Bhutan? Thailand?).

Until then, wish me luck!

Canoes and Cucumbers in San Blas

This blog covers the last few days since we were in the San Blas Islands...

At 4:40am on Wednesday we woke up to meet the guy driving the jeep to the islands outside of our hostel. We were told the ride would take about 4 hours, which was great because we would still get to the islands in time for a full day of sun! What we weren't told is that the reason it took so long to get there was because we stopped at a fruit stand, a supermercado, and a little road-side restaurant for breakfast on the way. So the eight of us (four guys from Argentina, a couple from Wyoming, and Amanda and I) crowded into a sweet jeep for the long haul. I was comfortable in the front seat (bonus!) while Amanda smushed into the first of two bench seats with three of the Argentinian boys... She was asleep within a few minutes (of course!) so I don't think the crowded quarters bothered her too much. Our driver made a quick turn to get on an unpaved road and head into the jungle and Amanda's head literally ricocheted off the window and onto the shoulder of one of the boys! Needless to say, that was all the ice breaker the rest of us needed.

The next time Amanda opened her eyes we were driving through a river! I had been looking forward to this part of the drive, and when I saw the size of the river I wasn't disappointed. We continued to drive through the jungle (sometimes upwards of at least 70mph), stopped at a passport checkpoint or two where we had to pay an entrance fee into the Kuna Yala region, and finally arrived at the "port". Amanda used every minute while we waited for our boat to recover from the ride (she slept to keep herself from getting too car sick). I was fine though and happy that our transportation adventure was almost over for the day... Little did I know!

A half hour or so later a little motor boat came down the river to pick us up. Twelve of us crowded into this boat (the 4 Argentinian boys, 3 Argentinian girls that had come in another car, the 2 kids from Wyoming, a guy from Israel, and us) ready for what we expected to be about a 40-50 minute boat ride to the islands (or so we were told). Once the river emptied out into the ocean we were greeted by strong head wings and waves that continuously crashed over the sides of our little boat. The water was so salty it burned our faces every time it splashed over the boat! After 45 minutes we were at an island with a Kuna village, where we stopped to pick up some gas and yet another passenger, a Swiss guy named Matias. Another hour later of crashing waves, salt water burns, and low moral, we actually began approaching one of the islands instead of cruising past as we had with the last 50 or so islands along the way. This was Isla Robinson, the main island in the group where we were headed. We dropped of Matias and the WY couple, and then began drifting out to sea once more. Only this time, our engine wouldn't start. Doh!

A guy in a little dugout canoe came to our rescue and towed us back to Robinson, where some minor engine alterations were performed, and then we were off to Isla Pelicano- our final destination! 20 minutes or so later we finally arrived at Pelicano (about 6 hours of traveling in total)... And let me just say, it was worth the wait!


Our entire island consisted of about 10 thatched roof bungalows with bamboo walls, about a dozen hammocks, and a hundred or so palm trees. You could walk around the entire perimeter of the island in less than two minutes, and from the very center you could see ocean in every direction. There were mountains off in the distance in one direction, and in every other direction the horizon was speckled with islands. It was absolute paradise.

We "checked in" with the guy who ran the island, an albino Kuna named Namacio. The Kuna people have the second highest rate of albinism in the world, and when an albino baby is born they are said to have special powers. In Namacio's case I believe he was given Isla Pelicano because of his special ranking in the community. He showed us to our hut, which had a sand floor and an incredible view of the ocean from the space where there would have been a door. Then we had the rest of the day to explore the island (that didn't take too long!), go snorkeling and swimming, and lounge in hammocks. While exploring the island we met up with the rest of the Israeli guys (Hov, the guy on our boat, had gone back to the mainland to get supplies for their Passover dinner), who were in the process of cracking open a coconut. We made friends over shared coconut milk, and then another guy who worked on the island showed us how he could use a machete to delicately shave off the last pieces of shell so we could eat the inside as well. Yum!

Later we went snorkeling and almost immediately found huge red and orange starfish- they were incredible! We snorkeled around the entire island and saw tons of colorful coral, tropical fish, anemones, a sand dollar (which I broke when I tried to pick up... whoops), sea cucumbers (gross!) and even a couple sea urchins. We later discovered that the area we found the sea cucumber was right around the same area as where the island's only bathroom emptied into the ocean... We had a good laugh about that, all the while hoping that what we snorkeled past was actually a sea cucumber (see picture above if you're still confused).

Our two meals on Pelicano consisted of rice, lentils, and fried chicken (for lunch) and a fish tail (?) for dinner. By this time we knew almost everyone on the island, and decided we could recruit them to create our very own Panama picture (credit due to Sam for coming up with the idea!). Everyone looked at us like we were a little crazy at first, but went along with the crazy Americans anyway. The picture was a great success, and I promised everyone I would sent it along to them as soon as we got back to the states on Friday. After an incredible sunset and two huge island bonfires, Amanda and I introduced the card game Mojo to our new friends, which we all played well into the darkness (it must have been at least 10pm by then!). Finally Amanda and I had to get to sleep since we had a flight to catch in the morning, which meant we had to leave our island at 4am on yet another boat ride.


In the morning we woke up and loaded into a little dugout canoe (not like the "luxury" motor boat we had the day before). The guy driving us to the airport unhooked the boat from whatever had been keeping it at the shore, and we began drifting into the pitch black. To our surprise, and as a repeat from yesterday, the motor wouldn't start. For the next 5 or 10 minutes we continued drifting, listening to the repetitive attempts at our boatman trying to start the engine... Finally one attempt sounded a little more promising, and the next pull was a success! Amanda and I exchanged relieved glances, and laughed about how this had barely phased us after our transportation mishaps the last few days. For the next hour we followed the moon towards the Carti Islands, which was fine until the moon completely disappeared behind the clouds. It was at that exact moment I thought a compass would have been nice! I turned around to see what was going on, and saw our boatman turning back and forth, straining to see anything in any direction. Quite promising indeed. Finally the moon came back out and we were off again following the light.

We arrived at the Carti airport at around 6:20am, and watched the beautiful sunrise over the ocean. We walked down a dirt path to the airport, which consisted of one 10x15' room which apparently was currently under construction. They asked us which flight we were on, and when we told them they asked us to write our names on a list of passengers for that flight (the only documentation saying which flight we would be on). Then they checked our passports with flashlights (there was no electricity in the room) against the names we had written down... And voila! We were through airport security.

Outside the room was an "al fresco" waiting area which consisted of cinder block benches on a concrete slab. While making our way outside we were stopped by another airport worker, who asked us to write our names on yet another list, and include our weight this time around. While Amanda worked her way through motion sickness (again!), I watched the sunrise and observed the endless variety of people that were loitering around the outside of the airport. Suddenly a jeep came speeding down the runway with military guys hanging off of each side, complete with machine guns on their backs. There was lots of commotion as they pulled up to the airport, but it ended up that they were just delivering some boxes of "goods" and then they hung around chatting and laughing with the people waiting for their flights.

Our Aeroperlas plane was the first to come (there were two flights arriving at the airport that day). They opened the emergency exit door (which had steps on the inside of it), and everyone that had arrived with the plane hopped off. It was our turn to take the 30 minute flight back to Panama City. We jumped on the plane with our backpacks, picked our seats right by the exit doors, and watched as the airport worker outside the plane repeatedly tried to slam the exit door shut behind us. After about five good slams the door finally stayed closed, and we were off! We figured the flight was short enough that even if the door flew open we could just hold on for the rest of the way... We made it to Panama City without a hitch, and had the rest of the day to explore downtown and the Canal.

To be continued!