It's not all beer and skittles being a white expat in Bangladesh you know. Sure, people listen to what you have to say in meetings, and you tend to get called "boss" and "sir" a lot, but that's not much of a consolation really (especially the "boss" part which I've always hated for being just too colonial really). Looking like an expat but not actually being a proper one means that you get all the hassles of people wanting money from you without the comforts aforementioned money could afford you. This hasn't really bothered me before, but as the light at the end of my VSO tunnel gets closer and closer so my patience seems to dwindle with each passing day.

Take beggars in the street for example. Sure, they're not as persistent as they are in India, but they're still there at pretty much every corner or set of traffic lights. For a real expat this is a minor inconvenience as all they can do is tap on your window as you wait for the light to change in your air conditioned 4x4. If it's a really big vehicle then some of the physically less able beggars will probably not even reach your window. Meanwhile back in the real world we'll be sitting in a motorised 3-wheel rickshaw with no doors or a small taxi with windows open within easy pawing distance. Personally I don't mind the true sellers by which I mean the ones who can tell you're really not interested in what they're flogging so quickly move on to the next potential customer in the vehicle behind. Even some of the persistent beggars take a hint after a while, but others just don't. The kids are usually the worst as they just find a white person too fascinating for words and stare at you mouth open and eyes round like saucers. It sounds kind of sweet but you soon resent being treated like an animal in a zoo or some sort of living freak show, and on a bad day I will loose my temper and shout at them to go away, which generally they don't.

I think I've mentioned this sort of thing before, but a week or so ago it really struck me just how angry I'd become as a result of living here all these months. I also noticed it when I was back in the UK last summer for a holiday, though at the time I was feeling so run down and, well, lonely really, that I just put the anger with the other negative feelings and left it at that. I'm feeling a little different about it now as I can really sense the end of my time here and so think a lot about moving back to Europe and getting on with life there, preferably a life without unnecessary anger.

My current situation seems to have shades of a self-fulfilling prophecy. For months and months I was able to handle and deal with exactly the same situations with far more patience and restraint. Granted I wasn't living in Dhaka then so wasn't being hassled virtually on a daily basis, but I still had my fair share of staring grotty children even in the middle of nowhere that is BRIF. And now that I'm nearing the end you'd think that I'd be able to just hang in there and make one last effort before heading home. The reality is of course exactly the opposite as I only put up with it before because I had many more months of the same thing ahead of me. To get wound up from the beginning would have meant spending my entire time in a permanent state of agitation, and that wasn't a viable option. Now that I'm only 3 weeks away from going home my tolerance for the way things are is slowly but surely sliding away, hence the anger. Rest assured though that I definitely don't want to keep this anger for any length of time and will become the calm and collected person I always flattered myself that I was.

Nothing much else to add this week - too much to do at work before I finish to calm down yet. Oh and the Lions were just shit on Saturday which really doesn't help a chap's mood much either when it's 40 degrees and you're stuck in a traffic jam going home at the end of the weekend. Grrrrrr