I made it! I finally moved up to my placement and my home for the next 2 years on Tuesday night after a relaxed drive up from Dhaka courtesy of VSO. I've already gushed about the countryside etc. so I'll spare you all that, but suffice it to say that it all still looks amazingly beautiful. I'm unpacked and I have an office, but I've yet to come to grips with my kitchen. This isn't because there's anything wildly different about it (though getting into the habit of regularly producing boiled filtered water took a while), it's just that I don't use it that much! It remains to be seen whether things will continue in the same way, but basically I eat most meals at my boss' (Habib) house across the road, or out and about when we're in a town. Obviously I'm not complaining about having ready-prepared quality food set in front of me, and when the urge takes me to change from the local rice and curry diet I rustle up a bowl of pasta. One funny thing I'll share is that I cannot find salt and pepper grinders for love nor money. They just don't seem to have them, anywhere! Oh, and on my 1st evening I watched the 3 Stooges on TV with Habib and Rabi... in Bangla.

So, how was this 1st week at work I hear you cry. My initial answer would be "pretty damn good actually" both from a personal and professional point of view. First of all I'll fill you in on what I've been up to as, surprisingly enough, work here cannot be reduced to a simple "another day at the office".

I kicked-off with a presentation Wednesday morning in Dinajpur given by a big American NGO called CARE (who I've mentioned in previous entries) to explain their new project to redefine a development strategy for the North-West of Bangladesh. The meeting was attended by many different local NGO's, and the presentation was given by CARE's Regional Director who was in Bangladesh for a few days. I found the project they talked about really interesting, but the real value of the event was as always the opportunity to network. For example, I met a German lady (sociologist by trade) who heads CARE's Social Development unit that produces research papers on a regular basis - priceless. Being the unknown white face at a meeting hosted and run by Americans, I found it reasonably easy to introduce myself, make some useful contacts and learn more about CARE as an organisation. I should perhaps mention at this point that CARE actually pays 2/3's of my allowance as part of an initiative with VSO to support it's partner NGO's in this part of Bangladesh. As a result, and rightly or wrongly, I consider them to be a "customer" for my work here. I'd rather pay them too much attention than too little at this stage but we'll see how things develop...

The rest of the day, after this apparently classic business event, was a little less structured and predictable. First of all came lunch. The presentation ended around 1pm, and once Habib had said hello and goodbye to his innumerable friends and contacts, we were all pretty peckish. There was quite a group of us (Habib, Rabi, 2 BRIF project coordinators, 2 friends of Habib and me) so we piled into the micro bus and headed into town. After a bit of discussion and looking we settled on an establishment down a little street off a main commercial road. Habib explained he'd chosen it because the food was good, which it certainly was, but you should have seen the kitchen. It was a dark looking backroom with a hand-operated water pump for the washing-up, and several very large metal pots simmering over wood-fired stoves that were little more than hand-made supports over cement and clay-made pits containing the fire. To wash your hands before and after the meal you scooped water out of a large barrel (filled from the pump) and poured it over your hands into a sink which was only for show as it had no taps and the water flowed straight into a hole in the ground underneath. Personally I'd go back in a flash as the food was great and the experience authentic. For those who would struggle with the kitchen, I've heard tell that in India the likelihood of getting food poisoning from a restaurant is directly proportional to the number of stars it has i.e. 5 star means Delhi belly guaranteed.

For the rest of the afternoon we just dropped off people here, picked up people there, went to the only Internet cafe in town, went to someone's house for tea and yet more food etc. etc. until eventually we went home. I actually asked if this was a normal working day but no one seemed able to answer... The golden rule in such circumstances is that the most senior person decides what happens and when, and the others just have to follow and be patient, especially when there is only one vehicle taking you home. I've made a mental note to travel with something to read and be constantly aware of all my shopping needs just in case.

Thursday I got down to work, though admittedly not when I thought I would. The plan was for Rabi and I to go to Saidpur (another large town nearby) for some shopping and to open a bank account. Rabi, who lives in Saidpur but actually sleeps at BRIF most nights, also needed to get some clothes and say hello to his family. For those of you who didn't fully grasp that last sentence I'll try again. Rabi stays at BRIF most nights i.e. where he works during the day, and he eats with his boss most if not all meals. Imagine sleeping at your office and eating with your boss at his/her home all the time! Anyway, in the end we didn't go until the evening (and what a long drawn out expedition that was...) as we spent the entire morning compiling a summary list in Excel of all the candidates that had applied for 3 posts advertised in a paper a week or so ago. It was truly mind-numbing and made me realise that I will need to actively manage the line between "doing" and "advising" at all times, though in this instance I did teach some Excel skills along the way. That said, I had a great meeting in the afternoon as I'll now explain.

I asked Habib and Rabi to set aside 2-3 hours for us to talk about what I'm going to do during my 2 years, and they duly obliged. To start with I asked them to take 10-15 minutes to list all the things they want to change about the organisation and their personal skills, a wish list if you prefer. Once they'd done that we spent the next 2 hours discussing and summarising the points they'd identified so as to give me an initial idea of where they, the organisation's leader and his assistant, see room for improvement. It was a very productive and open discussion, and I've now got plenty of material for the next few days to analyse and structure it all before identifying what needs to be done next. The idea then would be for us to draw up jointly a set of objectives for me and our project over the next 2 years. Well, that's the theory anyway! I should also mention that we held our meeting sitting outside in the sunshine drinking ginger tea and eating chocolate biscuits. Beautiful!

Next came Friday, which is the weekend, so I had a quick Bangla lesson in the morning with a young lad who teaches English at a local school and who happens to be Habib's cousin. It turns out that the Bangla we learnt in Dhaka bears very little relation to the Bangla people actually speak. Imagine being taught the Queen's english and then living with people who only speak Cockney rhyming slang and you'll not be far off, well sort of... Anyway, he taught (or re-taught) me some basic things, but not being a trained language teacher I can't expect him to give me structured lessons. As always, and now that I'm actually starting to work at it, being immersed in the culture and language means I'm picking up words and expressions daily. It soooo nice to be able to understand the odd word or phrase, though I'm a long way from holding anything approaching a conversation that goes beyond "my country is called Wales" or "how much are those bananas?". The main event Friday though was the arrival of another volunteer who will be staying until mid-January. His name is Peter, comes from Australia and is a stone mason by trade. What I find amazing is that Peter has chosen Bangladesh as his 1st ever foreign destination after 26 years down under. Talk about taking the tough option eh?

Saturday (back to work) we had the monthly coordination meeting with all the different project coordinators. Obviously I hadn't prepared a damn thing (well, what could I prepare?!), and to be brutally honest I'd forgotten about the whole thing until one of the project coordinators popped his head round the door and told me they'd be starting in 10 minutes. The meeting was in Bangla so I concentrated on understanding the meeting's structure and general content, which in actual fact is probably what I should have been doing anyway. The agenda was defined by the project managers when they arrived in the morning, so Habib, the organisation's Executive Director, discovered it as the meeting progressed. I gave a short speech about who I was, why I'm here and fielded a few questions about my education and professional experience. They gave me a "welcome to the BRIF family" round of applause which was actually quite touching. I must be going soft in my old age... At the end of the meeting Habib shared experiences from his recent trip to the Philippines and Malaysia, including a meeting with some Chinese businessmen looking to expand a tinned vegetable operation into Bangladesh for the Indian market. This is of interest to BRIF as our region produces loads of veg and is right on India's doorstep. To cut a long story marginally shorter, Habib returned from his travels with some samples, including Malaysian-produced baked beans. So, back at our meeting he produces these beans and suggests trying them at lunch. It was then realised that I was the only person in the room who knew how to cook baked beans (well, apart from Peter) and had the technology to open the tin (definitely alone on that one).

Another golden moment on Saturday was, while Peter and I were waiting for Habib outside the office, a group of local kids came up and asked us for a song. In the end (and after I'd reminded Peter the AUSTRALIAN of how the 1st verse goes) we plumped for Waltzing Matilda which they seemed to love. This place is so unlike home, and that's really why it's so challenging and why I like it so much.