Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Events in Between...

So, I realize that I'm a little late on this post, as Christmas is now only 7 days away... but I'm writing about Thanksgiving anyway!

This year I ended up being invited to four different Thanksgiving dinners.  My roommate and I's original plan was to dinner hop, pacing ourselves, eating just a little at each place: appetizers at one place, small dinner at the next, seconds at the next, and dessert at the last... Seemed like a great idea in theory; however, our plan failed.  The first dinner was so delicious and the company so lovely, we had no motivation to leave!  It was really great!

Beautiful table setting filled with delicious food!

Mmmm... right before I devoured all of it.

Fun people!!

Now... on to Christmas!  Things in Dhaka, have been much more festive than I ever imagined it would be!  So far, we've had holiday parties, Christmas picnics, Christmas music, secret santa week at school, parties at school, Love Actually, Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Muppet Christmas Carol, etc...  Even Christmas lights!!  Haha... ok, so they're not Christmas lights... Luckily for us, it is wedding season in Bangladesh!  As a tradition (at least with the wealthy Bangladeshis that live in our neighborhood), families cover their entire home or apartment building, as well as the entire street, with lights.  This past weekend, there were at least four weddings within a few streets of each other.  A few nights ago, we went out, walked around, and pretended they were all up for Christmas! 

Roomie Love <3

I'm sad I won't be home for Christmas this year and miss my family a lot, but it will help somewhat that I will be in Malaysia on a beach somewhere.  My roommate, Kajori, and I are meeting a friend of hers there.  We'll be there from the 23rd until the 3rd.  I am excited to spend a week with such fun girls!  Finally, I'll leave you our sweet Intern Christmas card!  MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

UN Day

Today was United Nations Day and school!  Everyone dresses up in their national dress or cultural clothing.  There's a parade of nations, kind of like entering for the Olympics, where you march around the futbol (soccer) field behind your flag and banner.  After that, there was a performance with singing and dancing from different countries.  Even the new US Ambassador to Bangladesh came to speak!  It's always so great to see everyone dressed up.  AISD is SO diverse and that's hard to forget when you see over 60 countries represented!  It's a beautiful thing!  I was a little upset though because the US walks in second to last, with Bangladesh being the final country, so we don't get to watch everyone else!  Haha, luckily my co-teacher is Canadian so she got lots of good pictures I hope!

After the official UN Day festivities, grade 5 went to one classroom where we had cupcakes and a sing-a-long!  One of the other grade 5 teachers, Lloyd played guitar and we sang "Wave Your Flag" from the world cup, and "We are the World."  We also watched this amazing speech a 12 year old girl gave to the United Nations about 15 years ago, and talked about ways we can make a difference.  She was amazing.  You should definitely watch.  Powerful stuff.  6 minutes of your life NOT wasted:

Each student and teacher made their own flag to add, so this represents grade 5's diversity!

It was also really interesting to see how students identify themselves.  So many students have two nationalities, or their parents are different nationalities, or they've lived in a third country for most of their life, or they were born in a certain country.  They have such a different view of their nationality, heritage, culture, than I've ever understood.  Even their definition, understanding of "home" is so different.  Interesting to see and talk to students about things like this. 

One event really upset me however.  On the way to find where the United States group was gathering, I found one of my Kindergarten students in tears.  He was crying because he's Palestinian and he couldn't find the Palestine group.  I grabbed his hand and told him I'd help him find it.  We walked around for a while before I realized that there was no Palestine group, no flag.  The UN doesn't recognize it as a country.  Mohammed was so sad and just didn't understand.  "But where's the Palestine flag?  Why isn't there one?  Everyone else has their flag and gets to walk with their country!..."  I told him he could just hold my hand and walk with me and the United States.  We also found his sister in third grade and she joined us.  I told him everyone would still see his flag and outfit, he would still be able to be proud of himself and get to march and see all the other flags.  He cheered up a bit and was back to his smiley self pretty quickly... but wow, what a harsh reality for a 5 year-old.

Yay My grade 5 class!  We were representing Norway, S. Korea, Greenland, Denmark, UK (and Scotland obviously), America, Morroco, Philippines, Canada, India, Switzerland, France, and Bangladesh.

Nathan, one of my 5th graders, wore his UVA shirt!  He's from NOVA!

Aren't they beautiful?

Brother and sister!  They have a brand new baby brother too!

Farthest on the left is one of the boys I tutor and that's his little brother in the matching outfit.  Natasha is one of my kindergartners and that's her big brother.  Representing Pakistan!

Ruuuuuuubbbbby

More Kindergartners

My other tutee and his little sister, also a KG (They're from NOVA too!).  How sweet are these two?!  Nicest kids ever.

Mohammed and his sister

Me and my buddy Mohammed

America!! Heck Yeah!!  (Mohammad took this)

Fellow Americans behind me in the parade!

All the flags representing students at this school!

Eid Mubarak!

There have been a few changes in Dhaka these past few days, mainly the appearance of hundreds of thousands of cows... everywhere.  They import them from all over Aisa, a lot from India and Nepal.  This is mainly due to a holiday tomorrow, Eid al-Adha.  It's the second Eid Muslims celebrate, the first celebrating the end of Ramadan.  This Eid, is also known as the Festival of the Sacrifice because each family makes a sacrifice: a HUGE cow if your family can afford it, or a smaller cow or a goat if you can't.  It's how families show off their wealth.  Apparently it's "the Bigger the Better!" and believe me, there are some monster cows just tied up on the street (and in the garages) in my neighborhood!  Actually, I can here a goat bleating from next door as I write this (I don't think he's very happy.  Maybe he knows his fate?)  I asked my friends' driver how much cows sold for and he said about 40,000 taka or $500 minimum, but there was one in the news paper that sold for 800,000 taka, over $10,000!! Once they've make the sacrifice after sunrise tomorrow morning, each family will keep 1/3 of the beef, give 1/3 to family and friends, and give 1/3 to the poor.  Many families travel to their home villages to be with family, so actually, Dhaka's pretty quiet compared to what it usually is like.  That being said, millions of cows and goats will be sacrificed tomorrow in Dhaka alone!  Apparently, it's typical to walk upon random cow parts, cow heads, blood in the streets and men wearing white, covered in blood tomorrow... maybe I'll sleep in...  Friday, a few friends and I just walked around a local neighborhood, Bashundara, to check out the cow-filled streets and the cow auction.  Pretty cool.  It reminded me of the fair/stock sale back in Virginia actually.  (Is it weird that cows seem to make me a bit homesick?)  Well cows and goats of Dhaka, enjoy your final few remaining hours of life!

So many cows!  It was like this down street after street!

So sad.  They'll all be dead soon :/

They give the cows necklaces and masks and other shiny things!

This one is crying blood tears  :(

Matchy-matchy cows

5K Blog!

Well, I've made the move from Kindergarten to Grade 5!  I'm still in a bit of shock!  They are so independent, it's great!  The first day I was in the classroom, they worked on a piece of writing quietly for a whole hour!  After having to change activities with the kindergartners every 5-15 minutes, that was an amazing thing to watch!  Already Nadine is not hesitating to get me involved in the classroom, introduce activities, lead lessons!  I'll start out by planning and teaching the next math unit and gradually pick up responsibility from there!  I'm busy already!  I can tell I'm going to learn a lot from her.  I'm sure I'll have more to share about the class later, but here's a link to the 5K Blog.  They are super active, working and commenting on it almost every night!  The current blog is my introduction!  Enjoy!


http://5kittoswitzer.wordpress.com/

Glitterball 2011!!

Glitterball is a huge party that happens every fall in Dhaka.  You attend with a table of 10 people, design themes and costumes for the people at your table, and some tables design skits to perform in front of everyone!  People wait overnight in line to get tickets months before the event.  I was lucky enough to have someone think of me before I got here, and reserve a ticket for my roommates and I!

There were actually 3 tables of 10 in our group, so 30 people, mostly teachers from the school (and Father Tom, the local Catholic priest).  There were at least 4 other tables of AISD teachers, but each planned and dressed seperate of one another.  Our group decided to perform a Bollywood flash mob dance as our skit!  My roommate and I, along with two other ladies, did the choreography and taught everyone the dance!  We decided to all wear black and silver, but with a Bengali or Indian flare, so everyone designed their own outfits!  We looked so good when we were all together!!  Other tables' costumes included:  Alice and Wonderland, Dogs, Biker gangs, 20s people, Ballerinas, Amy Winehouse, Jailbirds, Desperate Housewives/Gardeners, Electrical sockets, etc etc etc.... There were 500 people there!  We had such a good night!  Our dance didn't win, or make the top 3 (We were robbed! Haha!), but none of us cared about winning and just enjoyed ourselves!  Check out pictures of our group and even a video below!! See if you can find me!  I'm all the way on the right side of the screen near the front.  I'm the first one to dance even though someone is standing right in front of me.  (Sorry about Rich's butt in front of the camera for a while!  He moves after a bit.)

The whole group!  Don't we look great!?

Obligatory elevator shot with the gang!

Housemate picture!  Konrad, Kajori and I!

Shipment

Yay!  My shipment finally arrived (after having been packed up at my apartment in Charlottesville July 18th)!  I was getting super jealous and pouty because my roommates, and everyone else at the school it seemed, had already gotten theirs!  There were a few things in my shipment that would have been very helpful on my Nepal trip, but oh well.  I arrived back in Dhaka on Saturday night, got my shipment on Sunday night. 

My favorite part of the whole thing was this story... When I got home, the trucks were already waiting outside for me.  I flagged them down, "Hi everyone!  This is my stuff!  I'm here now!  You can bring it upstairs!" etc...  The man in charge walks up to me and says, "Hello maadam.  You are Ms. DePoy? *looking a little confused* You are looking very slim."  "Oh, well... thanks."  "It's just that you are looking fat in the picture they gave us, but now you are looking very slim."  Bahahaha... Oh Bangladeshis... so honest.

But my room is looking very homey now.  And our house is coming together!  Much brighter than the original white everything and tacky couches we started with at the beginning of the year.  You can look back at one of my first posts for the Before shots.

All my stuff!  Doesn't look like that much stuff when it's all boxed up.

Tia, loving the new setup.  What a cutie!

I think she loved this huge pile of paper even more though.  She played in and around this pile for hours.

Starting to come together!  Just need to hang some pictures!

Namaste

Namaste everyone!  That was one of my favorite things about Nepal... placing your hands together in front of you as if you're praying and saying "Namaste" instead of Hello.  Even little kids running frantically around villages, would suddenly stop, smile, "Namaste!" and then continue on with their original speed.

Nepal is BEAUTIFUL!  Well, the capital city, Kathmandu, is just as dirty and polluted as Dhaka, but with fewer people (although people in Kathmandu didn't seem to believe me), and even worse road conditions.  One of its redeeming qualities is that it has many beautiful Hindu and Buddhist temples and stupas scattered throughout its streets and hillsides.

So, my trip... There are many reasons I chose to visit Nepal.  First, EVERYONE I've talked to in this region when asking for travel advice says I need to see Nepal.  That it would be shameful if I didn't during my time here in Bangladesh.  Second, flights to Kathmandu are cheeeap (and I'm on an intern salary)!  Third, I miss mountains!  Bangladesh is SOooo flat and watery.  Most of the main city of Dhaka used to be water or rice patties and has been reclaimed by pulling sand from the ocean.

I set off on a Friday afternoon with my roommate Kondrad to the Dhaka airport.  We were on the same flight although we weren't traveling in Nepal together.  We were lucky so many other teachers were on our flight that day, because it was delayed by about five hours, so we killed time by chasing little MayaLou (3 years old) around the airport!  After arriving in Kathmandu around 10 at night, my car just took me to the hotel and I crashed.  Up early for a domestic flight to a smaller city called Pohkara.  That flight was nice, a small airplane, like one you'd take from Charlottesville to DC, and you could see all the mountains below you.

Pohkara is a beautiful town.  It's in a valley so you're surrounded by mountains and lakes.  It's very touristy though, lots of trekking shops, Internet cafes, bars, and restaurants.  It's the base for a lot of trekkers.  The Annapurna mountains are a popular range for trekking.  I spent the day here walking around doing some shopping got some Mo-mo's and a beer.  I also took a boat out on the water and went to the Hindu temple in the middle of the lake.  Interesting little island.  The rest of the evening I simply relaxed and got my pack ready for hiking, rented a sleeping bag and walking stick.  I also met my guide, Lakpa, who arrived by bus that evening to talk about the trek, when we would wake up, and begin the trek the next day.  I'll also mention here that Dasain, the biggest Hindu festival of the year, was happening this week, the 8th day of which everyone.... everyone... sacrifices a goat to the gods.  I passed THOUSANDS of goats being herded into the city the day I was leaving the city...

View from my hotel in Pohkara

Phewa Tal

There's a temple on the little island

Here it is up close.  You ring the bells to let the gods know that you are there and making a sacrifice.

Delicious Mo-Mo's and a beer on a beautiful afternoon!

I'm not kidding... thousands of goats.

We drove an hour to the village Naya Pul to begin our trek.  I trekked for five days and four nights, staying in guesthouses, which are basically a kind of hostel.  My room was usually by bed and nothing else.  The nice ones had real walls, but many were just plyboard.  They had restaurants where you could buy water, soda, beer, and Nepali food.  I had lots of Dahl Baaht, mo-mo's, fried noodles/rice, soups, and for breakfast, eggs and chapati, a type of flat floury bread, a lot like a tortilla... but different.  They all have a shared toilet, and you can pay a little extra for a hot shower. Those were nice on mainly two of the nights where it got SO cold!  I was at 3,000+ meters, which is about 10,000 feet!  I was thankful to have thought to rent a sleeping bag!  The crappy blankets the guesthouses provided would not have been enough (nor were they awesomely clean or unsmelly).  The views during this trek were amazing.  After the first day, I could almost always see snow capped mountains, looming above me from 7,000-8,000+ meters (over 25,000 feet).  It was so peaceful and quiet on the trail.  Every now and then, other travelers would pass you, or you'd pass them, and say hi, namaste, ni hao, or whatever... but no horns, or busy streets, or construction, or yelling!  And no one watching my every move... *aaahhhhhhhhh*

Nepali porters carry everything up and down the mountains balancing the weight on their foreheads.

Momos with a delicious sour, spicy rubarb-type sauce

Lakpa and I at the highest altitude point of the trek

What a way to wake up everyday.  Wish I could eat breakfast here EVERY morning.

Tibetan prayer flags

Trail + Waterfall = Awesome

They build these makeshift swings for during festivals.  I asked if I could play too!!

Just gorgeous!

Yummy Daal Baaht!

Back in Kathmandu, I had a full day to explore the city.  First, I met two other families from the school, the Denhartighs and the Birdwells, teachers from the school (my previous airport buddies), for breakfast.  It was nice to see some familiar faces!  The rest of the day, I simply walked around, looking at temples and stupas, and haggling with street vendors (bought a wall hanging, a painting, and some earrings for myself!).  I'm getting much better at bargaining, although I'm still paying more than I should I'm sure.  By dinner time, Konrad (who had taken a bus instead of flying) was back in Kathmandu so we met up for dinner.  The next day, the two of us walked around a bit, doing some book shopping, then we headed back to the airport and back to Home Sweet Dhaka!

There were monkeys living all over this one temple!

Buddha eyes on the Stupa.  There are also prayer wheels around this one that you walk around, spin the wheels and repeat the mantra, or prayer.

There always seemed to be some random cows wandering around.  It is a Hindu country after all.