Jeni as a Bangladeshi

It’s fun to take pictures in this place because everything is so alive here - raw, uncut, and incredibly colorful. It is also incredibly contradictory - commercial centers and tall buildings stand next to crumbling houses, chauffeured sedans share the road with peddlers (and sometimes herds of goats), families with servants neighbor the homeless on the corner block.

Within the blink of an eye, it’s already been two weeks here in Dhaka. I’ve situated myself here relatively well, although I’ve gotten to recognize that being in a foreign country to visit as a shortterm traveler is vastly different from actually establishing a lifestyle. When the rain is causing the streets to flood, I still had to find a way to get to work. A couple of nights ago, our electricity went out while I was doing some work, and I found myself downstairs where there was light, drawing process flows with a pencil and paper. Today, while washing some lychees, I noticed that they were infested with little worms, and ended up having to chew on some leftover bread while watching the rain.

But the rain eventually stopped. I walked to the market and stocked up on food. Then I went to a small bookstore (that sells various selections of books in English, but more importantly, carries a few copies of each week’s Economist) to read my favorite subscription poke fun of world events with its usual witty and dry British humor. And in the evening, I met up with a friend for dinner - we made plans to take a trip in a few weeks, but still have to finalize on the destination (Nepal: 1-hr flight;  India: 1-hr flight; Thailand: 2-hr flight, etc. - it’s as long as a commute to work!)

So yes, I’m settling in decently well. Even so, here are a few things I am missing:

* consistent broadband internet connection
* clean, paved, *dry* streets
* being able to wear shorts in 100 degree weather
* going up and down Hudson River Parkway on my bike
* a quality cup of espresso
* New York bagels (my god, do I miss those bagels)
* extremely long Sunday mornings at Pan Latin, surrounded by magazines and newspapers I can’t finish reading
* and most importantly, family and friends, who used to be just a domestic phone call away - although, I just installed Skype (screenname jeni.q.yang), let me know if you’re also dork enough to have it

Note: if you’re interested in seeing more pictures, I’ve been posting them at another site with more storage space that my friend is hosting for me (thanks Navid - I now have no excuse for being lazy with uploading). I’ve ambitiously created folders there to store some pictures from the past couple of… years. For now, please ignore the fact that the majority of them are mostly empty

http://www.leangreeneatingmachine.com