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(Entry by Erika)

Last night, after a supper of delicious baked honey garlic carrots, grilled chicken, and potatoes at Daniel and Amber’s flat, I crashed in the room me and Cheri are staying in. I fell asleep at 7:30 after a very long nap-less day. Cheri woke me up at 6:30 but folks had been awake since 3:30 due to messed up jet-lagged systems. We walked until we saw a bunch of rickshaws, men watching us expectantly. Me and Cheri and Nicco squished in, and off we bumped. We stopped a short distance from the Kawan Bazaar, a huge, noisy market. We pushed our way through the crowd, smells never smelled before wafting their way to our nostrils, causing Nicholas to hold his nose in disgust. Men shouted around us, rickshaws rang their bells, buses and cars and cngs constantly honking. Bangalis squatted beside heaping baskets of vegetables, the next man over selling chickens. We stopped at a little street restaurant and got dal and naan, dim curry, and spicy fried eggs. Then we came back to the flat until lunch, where we went to the clinic and ate lunch that Josna, a member lady, had prepared for us. Dal, baht (rice), egg curry, chicken, and coke. We walked back to the flat and then left in Trav’s van to go fabric shopping (Cherith bargains in fluent Bangla; very entertaining) and to get strawberries. Beggars followed us very persistently all the way back to the van. The driving is extremely crazy. Over here you drive on the left side of the van and the left side of the road. We drove two and a half miles and took an hour to do so. Buses and rickshaws, people and vans. We never felt like Travis didn’t know what he was doing but it was really intense. Motor cycles scraped the sides, buses came with 6 inches of us, Bangalis peered in at us and Travis and Cheryl rolled down the windows and talked to them. So many times I wish I knew Bangla. We came back to the flat and lounged around and did strawberries. We kids went up to the roof and had a lot of fun and tonight we are going to have a very light supper. This country intrigues me, with its hazy red sun and its tall waving palm trees, the noise of the city and the mosques and deafening prayer calls, the thick air, the colorful, beautiful clothes, the greenery on the balconies, the smell: foreign and strange, the people sleeping on the streets in thin blankets, the dark skinned, bare chested grinning little boys with big brown eyes, the old pitiful beggars, and the narrow streets lined with pretty little flowers and climbing green vines. I don’t know if I could ever describe it to you, but I love it already.