apnar nam ki? : what is your name? (the one question I can easily answer)

Bengali language class, tour of the office, out shopping for clothes and another yummy dinner happened today. It doesn’t sound like too much I guess but it sure wore me out!

The Bengali class was really hard. It started last week, se we began on lesson 6 today. Fortunately, the teacher didn’t call on me, as I could only understand what was going on because of the English spoken asking questions. The class is from 8 to 10 every morning during the week. In Bangladesh, the work week is Sunday to Thursday and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. This being Monday, it was the second day of the week. We have a break halfway through for tea- I tried tea with milk in it for the first time today and surprise! It’s delicious. The organization that runs the classes is a Christian one, and it was interesting to meet the other 20 people who are taking classes there. They’re from many different countries but I met fellow Americans and even an engineer! I stayed an hour after class and my teacher taught me lesson one, which was helpful, but I’ve got a long way to go. A long charging-through-molasses way to go to stick all the fun and interesting new sounds in brain so I can repeat them and hopefully communicate.

Then it was off to the CRWRC’s office for a tour. The office used to be an apartment and has a good amount of space. There are many people coming and going, and so Nancy and Kohima want to use the space more effectively. You can only image how excited I was to think about figuring out how to maximize the potential of the space. It was wonderful after scrambling this morning with Bengali to think about something that I could use my creative juices for. Guess I should use those creative juices to figure out how to learn Bengali effectively.

After the office visit I went back to the apartment and had lunch (delicious, again) with Deb and her niece Crista. Deb works in another part of Bangladesh and Crista is visiting her for the summer. We went shopping the afternoon for shalwar kame (three piece clothing: soft baggy pants, tunic and wrap). We walked most the way but took a short rickshaw ride. It was a little bumpy and squished, and kind of weird to have someone on a bicycle towing me around. While we walked though the city, we walked on the side of the road. Anytime you hear a beep behind you, it means a rickshaw or car is coming by very close—so squeeze towards the edge of the road. Everyone who drives on the road must be used to the craziness, but I can’t imagine driving.
The stores we went to had all sorts of brilliant colors and some really intense embroidery and decoration. We must have gone to 10 different shops to look for clothes. I bought two sets of ready-made shalmar kame and bought material for two more to be made. I’m wearing borrowed clothes now and they’re really comfortable and flowy which makes the heat much more bearable. We passed some construction crews making new buildings. The buildings look similar to the ones in US cities, but the methods are different. There was a 30-story building with bamboo scalfolding. Bamboo! The bamboo is strong, but each piece is a curved which makes it look precarious. I forgot my camera and hopefully I’ll do better in the very near future.
Time to tackle my Bengali homework and smoosh some new knowledge in my head.