Thursday May 13th I woke up still with my ear ache (3-4 days already) and decided there and then that it was time to get some medical help. It was clear that my drops from previous ear episodes weren't having any effect so I got dressed and set off for LAMB Mission hospital in Parbatipur. It's a Christian-funded hospital that is reckoned to be the best there is outside of Dhaka, and I'd met a Kiwi doctor and a few expat nurses at Gill's (the VSO volunteer based in Parbotipur) one Friday a month or so ago.

Anyway, I get ready and head over to the office to tell Aminul, the office boy, where I'm going. As I come to the entrance I cross Jobar who is carrying some clothes. Seeing as I'd given him some washing to do some days before I asked if the clothes were mine and he said they were his. I look a little closer and see a pair of white CK micro-mesh underwear that I bought in Paris for about 25 Euros in 2003! I tell him that that is mine, he says it is his, so I repeat that it is mine and he says OK! The shorts are filthy by the way, and I probably won't wear them again away. But he had stolen them from me! He had taken something from my washing bag and had worn it himself, and hadn't even the intelligence to hide it from me when I met him. I also suspect him of taking a packet if biscuits from my room one day while he was cleaning it. In the end I gave him a filthy look, had a word with Aminul and set off for Plan Bazar to get a rickshaw van to Ranirbandar. Incidently, when I saw Jobar the next day he acted as if nothing had happened - he doesn't understand.

Walking to Plan I went through what it all meant and what to do about it. I was angry, and felt that the theft ws totally inexcusable. I paid him a fair wage for not much work each month, I provided the washing powder for my clothes, and I had even given him a radio some weeks before as he likes listening to songs. For him, as simple and poor as he may be, to steal when in a position of trust was very painful to me. All sorts of thoughts came into my mind, like giving him an ultimatum that if he did it again I'd tell Habib and not pay him. I also thought about how long I really wanted to stay in BRIF if I couldn't protect my possessions, including my dirty washing, short of never letting them out of my sight.

Anyway, I got to Plan, took a rickshaw, then a bus to Saidpur where I changed and got another bus to Parbotipur and then another rickshaw to LAMB. All in all it must have taken 2 hours in the sweltering heat on overcrowded buses for 66 taka there and back. Once at LAMB it was clear straight away that this was a modern and professional hospital, not least by the fleeting glimpses of foreign staff and the smell of a real hospital as per Western standards. After establishing what the admissions system was and paying 253 taka for the pleasure, I sat down in the waiting area to read my paper then dose a while. After what I believe to be less than an hour I was beckoned forward to be shown into an office to see a Bangladeshi doctor. His English was fine, he checked out the ear and said that the inner ear was fine but the outer was inflamed so prescribed some antibiotics for it (they're working fine). He then asked if there was anything else (inspired question!) and I showed him some blisters that had spontaneously occurred on my right upper arm. He asked if I had more so I showed him the 3 others I'd spotted on the right side of my back. His reply was that it looked like herpes! Personally I can't help associating that word with STI's so I asked him to tell me more about it all.

He asked me about where I lived (a brick building), its ventilation (poor as only one big window), the temperature (generally higher than outside) and the dust (quite a lot really). The more we talked the more it bacame clear that my bedroom is, relatively speaking, quite a good breeding ground for bacteria and fungi and so will not help me in my ongoing combat to have normally functioning ears. I instantly thought of the guest room next to my own, and realised that it has windows front and back to generate a draught, is bigger, and has only a small front window which would improve my privacy and security considerably. Changing rooms would also be the perfect time to enact the other change I need to do with Jobar i.e. stop having him clean and start cleaning myself regardless of the additional time and energy it will take. I've yet to discuss all of this with Habib, but I don't see why he should object to changing rooms. The tricky bit will be asking if I can have my clothes washed by the same person that does his (very well I might add) i.e. his Mum!

Back home that night I looked up shingles in Encarta and found that it's a virus, the same one as chicken pox, and the version I had is also known as shingles. Basically, the virus can lie in the body for years before infecting a nerve and causing the skin to blister at the nerve ends. Interestingly, the blisters follow the nerve across the skin, and it's true that the 3 blisters on my back were all in a line which initially made me think that I'd scraped myself against something without apparently remembering. Anyway, the doc said these things tend to go away on there own after 4-5 days (and they are going by the way), and if they don't I should come back for some anti-virals. Again according to Encarta, once you've had shingles you should be immune for life! However, it also mentioned that it can happen to people suffering from weakened immune systems, like the elderly or HIV/AIDS sufferers, and can cause pain through the infected nerve. Thankfully I don't have any of the latter, but I do wonder whether my immune system has been weakened, and if so by what i.e. diet, other bacteria and viruses my body is battling that I don't know about etc.?

Once I'd got home from LAMB and was into my current evening routine of reading newspapers and the 5th Harry Potter, I could look back on what actually turned out to be an OK day despite it's ominous beginnings. There was one moment in the bus back to Ranirbandar that made quite a difference. I was in an overcrowded furnace of a bus surrounded by all these skinny little Bangladeshi men when the bus stops and the driver turns the engine off. Not good. I never did see what happened but I suspect it was a puncture as it only took them 10 minutes to fix it and have us up and running again. While we were sitting there sweating away, the heat worse than before without the air of the bus's movement flowing over the seats, the conversation gently dropped. It was like the hush that falls upon an expectant audience in a theatre when the lights go down. And then, once the chatting had stopped and I could hear nature outside, a slight cool breeze entered stage right and wafted through the bus offering several seconds of blissful relief. It was beautiful - the cool, the quiet, the birdsong outside - everything came together in that one moment to make me forget all the rest and just enjoy life again. OK so it didn't last long, but at least we were soon on our way and getting closer to my ultimate goal of a cold shower and only wearing a pair of shorts for the rest of the day.

Some of you may however think twice about the shower and shorts option once you've looked again at the photo and realised that the animals shown all more or less live in my bedroom on a regular basis. Nice huh?