As I think I mentioned last week I finally changed rooms on Saturday. Habib had promised we'd sort it out once I'd got back from Dhaka (more on that later) and sure enough the caretaker (arch pant thief) and I got the job down in the morning. I'm actually really pleased about it as my new room is cooler and drier, but above all it's bigger! There was something quite satisfying about being able to reorganise everything as I transferred furniture and possessions into my new quarters, and with the extra space I was able to make it all look and feel much more comfortable. I'm particularly pleased with my "home entertainment" corner which comprises a colour TV and portable speaker set that I can plug into my laptop for DVD's or my iPod for music. Habib, who had sworn my old room was the biggest, readily admitted his mistake when I showed him the end result. The only draw back is the squat toilet, but I must have been one of the few volunteers in Bangladesh to have had a western toilet in the first place.

My new room also faces a completely different direction to the other one (which is just next door by the way) and backs onto a pond. It was quite funny listening to the frogs croaking on my first night, and rather bizarely it reminded me of the sound effects they used on Scooby Doo cartoons for swamps. At the risk of becoming ferociously British for a moment by talking about the weather, the pond in question has filled up enormously in the last 2 weeks with all the rain we've had. I'm no expert but I don't think we're technically in the rainy season yet which is characterised by hot humid conditions all day until finally the rain comes late afternoon to offer some relief for a few hours. What we've had here are actually huge storms that last for hours, mostly at night, and dump an extraordinary amount of water in the process. They are also quite violent as in addition to the phone tower that went for a burton a few weeks ago we lost a power line this week. As luck would have it it was the line that feeds my room (amongst others) so when I got back to BRIF Friday evening I was without light and an electric fan. It's been repaired since though, and it's odd that these storms only seem to happen while I'm in Dhaka...

Speaking of Dhaka, what was I doing there? Well, things at work are building nicely, with 2 workshops on consecutive Saturdays starting next weekend. The objective of these sessions is to share and discuss the conclusions of my assessment before prioritising what we do next. In actual fact we'll define priorities with management at the first workshop then tell the staff about it at the second. Doesn't sound very participatory from the staff's point of view I know, but it was felt necessary to avoid having a list of priorities like "More motorbikes" or "English training for all" as opposed to "Define a Long Term Strategic Plan" or "Improve financial management systems". I think you can detect the subtle difference in level between the 2, and having done workshops with all concerned I'm convinced our approach is the right one. Getting back to Dhaka though, the point of these workshops is also to talk about how we're going to address the priorities set. Often, and this isn't a criticism, there is a tendancy to assume donors will be able to provide everything that the organisation requires. This sort of approach isn't entirely dissimilar to the French one at business meetings where the really nasty tasks always get given to the one person who's not in the room. So, in an attempt to preempt just this sort of reaction I arranged meetings with our 2 biggest and closest donors, Plan International and CARE, to update them on progress and ask for concrete proposals of support. They've been making all the right noises since I arrived at BRIF about wanting to support my work and the organisation's development, but for the moment we've never really talked turkey. Now that the assessment is basically done I could go to them with a shopping list and ask them to respond one way or the other. I got good reactions from both organisations so I'm hopeful we'll get some help in the not too distant future with developing our financial and HR systems and skills.

Another interesting work event in the coming week is a quarterly meeting with CARE for all the VSO-CARE Initiative volunteers to discuss progress. In reality, we had the meeting last month, but there's a consultant visiting from the UK at the moment and CARE wanted to share our work with her while she's here. Apparently, she works for a firm called INTRAC who are quite well known in development circles and works on organisational capacity building and partnership issues. The meeting will give me the opportunity to do my 6 month report, but above all I'm looking forward to finding out more about what this consultant does and her firm. I don't know of many UK firms that do organisational consulting work in the development field, especially internationally, so with my future in mind I'll be asking this lady a few quesitons given half a chance!

Before winding this up for another week and getting back to my countdown to coming home (less than a month now!!), I'm sure you heard about what happened to the newly appointed British High Commissioner to Bangladesh this week. For those who missed it, the new High Commissioner is actually Bangladeshi in origin and emmigrated to the UK in 1970. He's a muslim, and had a bomb thrown at his stomach as he left the mosque after Friday prayers. Fortunately he only sustained injuries to his legs, but 2 persons did die. I still don't know what the attack was about, but it has had repurcussions for British citizens in Bangladesh who are currently asked to avoid crowds and not draw attention to themselves. Rest assured I have not seen or felt anything at all that could be described as threatening, and even during the Iraq war in 2003 westerners were not in any danger in my part of the country which is traditionally more religiously tolerant than the South East around Chittagong for example. VSO take this sort of thing very seriously, and I was informed of the new security advice immediately by the Country Director who will keep us all informed of any developments. My basic message is don't worry, and if you weren't worrying before then keep up the good work!