In the series "Things out here aren't quite like back home" I've 2 more examples for you this week. First up we have getting onto the Internet.

Back in Paris I could surf either in my living room at home or in the office. Either way it was reliable, cheap and easily accessible. Neither of those options are available to me here, though we did have a dial-up connection in my boss' office for a wee while. Then Bangladesh Telecom helpfully came and "improved" our radio connection and it hasn't worked since. So, to send and receive e-mails I have to trek 2 km across country to the local Plan International office where we are fortunate enough to have free access. My journey goes something like this:

I leave the BRIF campus walking through a collection of mud and straw houses with the villagers staring at me, some smiling and saying hello. A mad old woman mumbles something at me in Bangla as I walk past, and judging by her tone and general demeanor I have no desire to find out more. Everyone I cross on the path or overtake says hello and asks "What is your name?", children sometimes screaming it out at the top of their lungs from several fields away. At the same spot on the path each time a group of small children play a game of linking hands across the path to block me. I spread my arms wide, put my head down and accelerate into them as they giggle and scatter before I reach them. They get their own back by tugging at my trousers and rucksack from behind, so I grab a few by the arms and hoist them into the air. They like that. About midway I walk across a school playing area and half the kids, when on break, stop whatever they're doing and walk towards me saying hello etc. The cheeky ones run up, say something, then run off again. I continue walking on dykes between paddy fields, picking a route between the cows and goats, pegged to the side of the path to graze. Sometimes baby goats let out high-pitched distressed bleats looking for their mother. I walk past ponds where people are bathing and washing clothes. Some contain pairs of water buffalo cooling off in water up to their ears. I envy them. As I finally reach the market area around the office some rickshaw pullers ask if I want to go to Ranirbandar (the nearest "town" where the Dhaka bus stops). The shopkeeper next to the office entrance says hello in a hopeful "What can I sell you?" sort of voice. As I enter the office compound the Plan office guard salutes me and I start praying that the Internet is actually working and I won't have to turn straight round and do it all again in 40 degrees under a blazing sun.

The more alert amongst you may have detected more than 3 differences between the 2 versions. Well done.

Sticking to the hi-tech communications theme we next have phoning someone using a mobile phone. There are several competing mobile networks in Bangladesh, and as always in these situations the levels of coverage of each are far from equal. BRIF gave me my predecessor's old mobile phone and SIM card, and when last in Dhaka I bought some credit. To say that coverage is patchy up here is an understatement, so what they do is build high antenna using long and surprisingly strong bamboo poles. Even with this my phone wasn't picking up enough signal for me to place or receive a call, so Habib suggested raising the antenna by attaching it to a mango tree (see photo). We spent 2 hours Saturday afternoon moving the bamboo pole from it's previous location in front of my bedroom, carrying it round the back of the building through a pond to the mango tree, then pulling and pushing it into place up the tree. It took about 4 guys to get it in place and lashed "securely" to the tree, not to mention getting the cable across the roof and back down to my room so I could use it in privacy. Once we'd finished we admired our handiwork - an antenna a full 10 feet higher than it was previously and surely capable of picking up enough signal to solve my communication problems.

Did it buggery. The bloody thing made absolutely no difference whatsoever. Meanwhile, Habib, who uses a different network, has plenty of signal and can receive and send calls and SMS's internationally from my garden. Guess what I did the next day then? Yep, I got myself a different phone and network provider. The mango tree ariel does look quite impressive though.