So here we are. 13/10/08

So here we are. Finally. After so many, many weeks of waiting, we landed in Zia International Airport at 6am local time. And now, as I sit here in our living room, I feel I need to take some time to process everything that’s happened today.

The flight was fine. In fact, it became positively enjoyable when I realized that BA gives out free alcohol. Every person who asked ‘how long are you going to Bangladesh for?’ gave us a wary look when we chirpily told them, as if we might well be escapees from an insane asylum. Although this didn’t seem to bode particularly well, most people also showered us with praise for what we were doing.

So it was with mixed apprehensions, and sleep-deprived dazedness that we landed in Bangladesh. A word about that – as the plane descended, it appeared we would be landing in an extremely misty pond. There appeared to be no area of dry land large enough to park a car on, let alone a bloody plane. Thankfully, by some twist of fate (or perhaps engineering genius), the airport is built so as not to flood. The minute we touched down, the windows misted over – telling us scarily quickly that, even though it was only dawn, the temperature was already climbing outside.

Laura, Ollie, Megan and I met up with Hanny, a short-term volunteer from the Netherlands, in customs; and after what Ollie described as a ‘pleasingly thorough’ wait at customs (they painstakingly entered data from several different forms, one finger at a time, then ignored most of what we’d put anyway), we made it to arrivals. A little VSO flag, held by Marufa, greeted us. Immediately, we, plus Keith and Trish, two American volunteers, were whisked from the heaving, sweaty forecourt of the airport, into the blissfully icy confines of our VSO minibus.

After a slow, horn-filled journey, dodging pedestrians, beggars and rickshaws going the wrong way up one-way streets, much reminiscent of travels in India and Nepal, we were deposited at our swanky apartment. For the next month, I will reside in the Induction Flat, a couple of minutes walk from the VSO Bangladesh programme offices, along with Megan, Ollie, Trish and two Filipina volunteers, Carifel and Judy. My spacious, airy room has two massive four poster beds with day-glo mossie nets separating them from the rest of the world. The window beside my bed looks down onto a scrubby little courtyard and a huge coconut tree. I still can’t get over the fact that I can see coconuts from my bed! That’s one thing I love already about the ‘desh: it’s so green. Everywhere you look, there’re plants and trees swarming up from the grimmest of holes, in search of the sun.

To cut a long story short – a long story about our first meal of rice and daal, about being greeted so warmly by the programme office staff, about receiving our first month’s pay in a fat envelope – we have made it here, and I love it already. I’ll finish this entry with just a taste of the things I have learned already:

1. Everything takes so much longer here. We made tea last night, which involved boiling water over a small gas ring to put through the filter, then reboiling filtered water for the tea itself. Perhaps a little long-winded, but we WILL be healthy! Luckily, we have Firoja, who cleans the flat and filters water for us. Although this makes me feel like a lazy git, I’m not complaining.
2. No-one goes to bed here. Ever. I woke up a lot last night, but there was never any silence. Even at 2am, kids were screaming, grown-ups shouting, horns a-hooting. Apparently, they do later on, but I’m not so sure.