The Weekend

I had a good weekend. I didn't necessarily do a whole lot, but it was good. For those of you who may be reading this on Sunday morning in Canada, I am not losing it. The weekend in Bangladesh is Friday and Saturday so Sunday is a weekday.

On Friday evening I was asked to speak at my host family's church. The church is held in an apartment on the bottom floor of our building (NOT the aforementioned Genetic Rhyme as my misleading caption lead some people to believe). There are ~15 members. It was my first sermon and it was translated by my host brother Sagar. I kind of like being translated like that when I'm giving a speech/sermon because it gives me a good excuse to choose my words carefully. I say a sentence, it gets rendered into Bangla and in the meantime I can think of my next sentence without any awkward silences. So that was good.

I did a little music exchange with my host brothers. I got a USB thumb drive and put some of my English music on it to give to Sagar (pronounced Sha-gur) and Saikat (pronounced Shoi-kot). Michael Jackson for Sagar, Linkin Park for Saikat, two of my favourite Beatles albums (Abbey Road and Rubber Soul if you must know) and of course "War" by Edwin Starr. They returned the favour with some of their most loved Bangla artists. That was also good.

Last night (Saturday) they had a special meal for me as it was my last supper with them. We had egg soup to start followed by a heaping bowl of chicken biryani and cold Coke for dessert. My host mother Laizu told me straight up that she will know I like her special cooking if I eat a lot. So I obliged. It was my first taste of Coke in Bangladesh and wouldn't you know it tastes the same! That's one of the wonders about Coke: from a tiny village in Africa to a mega city in Asia and everywhere in between you're never far from a cold Coke. And it tastes (pretty much) the same anywhere you go. I'm sure some may be quick to inform me of the evils of giant multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola and their dubious business practices, but I don't care it's still pretty amazing to me. So I said goodbye this morning and said I would try to visit again sometime. All that was good too.

Now I'm at the MCC Guesthouse where I will live once again until I leave for Bogra in October. I have been invited to an Eid party tomorrow night and so today I bought a panjabi, traditional formal dress for men. I promise to upload some pictures when I have them.

Ben