Hello!!!!
October 21, 2007
Ok I am back from the big Bang(ladesh). It has been a busy couple of days. I am about ready to throw everything out the window and say “poo on you work and stuff”…but not quite yet. I can’t throw in the towel that easily. I’m not even dead yet. It’s not like me do give up that easily…lets face it I wouldn’t have done even a tenth of what I have done in my life if I had let fear and frustration take the helm.
Some deep thoughts by me in Bangladesh:
I was thinking after talking to someone and feeling down on myself: If I can rationally say to myself, “Jodi, you are being irrational,” I am in fact not being irrational. I think it then must be “the world” that has become sub-rational. When I say the aforementioned quote to myself, it is not me being over sensitive or overreacting but others being undersensative or underacting. HAVE A HEART YOU COLD COLD PEOPLE!
[As I rode the train out of Dhaka]
Sometimes I feel…bad. I have so much and always want more. I don’t live in a slum, my house isn’t made of garbage strung together, I have plumbing and for the most part electricity. They seem a group possibly forgotten by God. I know this isn’t true… but it still makes you wander why I am well fed and on a train and not in their shoes…feet. I am obsessed with consumption; food, goods, natural resources. I allowed myself to feel justified when I splurge every once in a while. AM I ??? I realize complete self-denial is not the answer, but limiting what I spend on me is good; also consuming fewer resources. My goodness there is a lot of trash everywhere. I hope this idea sticks in my mind.
Police in Bangladesh carry big sticks…not club or guns…actual sticks like from trees…crazy.
I left Bangladesh on Id-Ul-Fitr (the end of the fasting month of Ramadan for the Muslim community). It was great, like Christmas with lights and shopping. The whole city looked like a Hindi telladrama. Everyone was in panjabis or saris of new white or a very bright colour, ornately designed and freshly pressed; minus one man that was completely naked…cant win ‘em all. Even the man at the flight gate was nice and we talked for a while. He was Muslim and working on the biggest day of the year for him but managed to make kind conversation with me.
Some Deep Thoughts from Sri Lanka:
A Buddhist monk I saw on the bus one day allows/asks a tired Muslim woman to share the bus seat by him. Monks are entitled to always have a seat on the bus and women shouldn’t sit next to them. Why do we fight again??? A group of South/Central/North American Christians and Bangladeshi high cast Hindus break fast with their Muslim friends during the holy days of Ramadan. Who is your brother, who is your sister? A man sitting on a bed he has been confined to for the last few weeks smiles and asks you to sit down. Can this only happen in your “homeland”?
People are basically the same, so why do we want to see so many differences. I love culture and everything that surrounds it; language, dress, religion (sometimes cross cultural), dance, food, colour. In that way people are different, but still basically the same. Hmmmm… people are like burgers; meat and bun. Culture is like the “fixins” you know lettuce and ketchup. If people could just pick off the pickles and onions of each other and realize that they are all burgers.
On a lighter note:
We took a group of farmers to the hills to see a big dairy and a milk powder plant. It was awesome minus everyone was getting sick from riding in the hills…oh well. I made some good friends. We also went to the national semen collection center and got a demonstration. Leave it to me to take conservative farmers for a semen collection (We told the children they may want to leave and anyone else could go to). It was great. We left at 4am and on the way back around 10pm we stopped for tea. I was grumpy and my but hurt from sitting so long. My friend Madasheeka asked me to sit down and out of the blue I just told her honestly that my bum hurt. (I used the word bum b/c I don’t know the sinhala word for butt). She giggled a bit but was ok. He uncle from across the room, told her to let me sit and yelling across the room she said “it seems her bum hurts”. Well now that everyone knows that my bum hurts they all had a good laugh. I moved from white lady to crazy white lady…YEA!!!!! OH yeah, I forgot it was also awesome b/c the hills are about 30 degrees cooler than where I live. It was freezing! Like 60 degrees. Crazy.
I AM GOING TO AMERICA FOR CHRISTMAS!!!! Come visit.
Peace
jodi
Ok I am back from the big Bang(ladesh). It has been a busy couple of days. I am about ready to throw everything out the window and say “poo on you work and stuff”…but not quite yet. I can’t throw in the towel that easily. I’m not even dead yet. It’s not like me do give up that easily…lets face it I wouldn’t have done even a tenth of what I have done in my life if I had let fear and frustration take the helm.
Some deep thoughts by me in Bangladesh:
I was thinking after talking to someone and feeling down on myself: If I can rationally say to myself, “Jodi, you are being irrational,” I am in fact not being irrational. I think it then must be “the world” that has become sub-rational. When I say the aforementioned quote to myself, it is not me being over sensitive or overreacting but others being undersensative or underacting. HAVE A HEART YOU COLD COLD PEOPLE!
[As I rode the train out of Dhaka]
Sometimes I feel…bad. I have so much and always want more. I don’t live in a slum, my house isn’t made of garbage strung together, I have plumbing and for the most part electricity. They seem a group possibly forgotten by God. I know this isn’t true… but it still makes you wander why I am well fed and on a train and not in their shoes…feet. I am obsessed with consumption; food, goods, natural resources. I allowed myself to feel justified when I splurge every once in a while. AM I ??? I realize complete self-denial is not the answer, but limiting what I spend on me is good; also consuming fewer resources. My goodness there is a lot of trash everywhere. I hope this idea sticks in my mind.
Police in Bangladesh carry big sticks…not club or guns…actual sticks like from trees…crazy.
I left Bangladesh on Id-Ul-Fitr (the end of the fasting month of Ramadan for the Muslim community). It was great, like Christmas with lights and shopping. The whole city looked like a Hindi telladrama. Everyone was in panjabis or saris of new white or a very bright colour, ornately designed and freshly pressed; minus one man that was completely naked…cant win ‘em all. Even the man at the flight gate was nice and we talked for a while. He was Muslim and working on the biggest day of the year for him but managed to make kind conversation with me.
Some Deep Thoughts from Sri Lanka:
A Buddhist monk I saw on the bus one day allows/asks a tired Muslim woman to share the bus seat by him. Monks are entitled to always have a seat on the bus and women shouldn’t sit next to them. Why do we fight again??? A group of South/Central/North American Christians and Bangladeshi high cast Hindus break fast with their Muslim friends during the holy days of Ramadan. Who is your brother, who is your sister? A man sitting on a bed he has been confined to for the last few weeks smiles and asks you to sit down. Can this only happen in your “homeland”?
People are basically the same, so why do we want to see so many differences. I love culture and everything that surrounds it; language, dress, religion (sometimes cross cultural), dance, food, colour. In that way people are different, but still basically the same. Hmmmm… people are like burgers; meat and bun. Culture is like the “fixins” you know lettuce and ketchup. If people could just pick off the pickles and onions of each other and realize that they are all burgers.
On a lighter note:
We took a group of farmers to the hills to see a big dairy and a milk powder plant. It was awesome minus everyone was getting sick from riding in the hills…oh well. I made some good friends. We also went to the national semen collection center and got a demonstration. Leave it to me to take conservative farmers for a semen collection (We told the children they may want to leave and anyone else could go to). It was great. We left at 4am and on the way back around 10pm we stopped for tea. I was grumpy and my but hurt from sitting so long. My friend Madasheeka asked me to sit down and out of the blue I just told her honestly that my bum hurt. (I used the word bum b/c I don’t know the sinhala word for butt). She giggled a bit but was ok. He uncle from across the room, told her to let me sit and yelling across the room she said “it seems her bum hurts”. Well now that everyone knows that my bum hurts they all had a good laugh. I moved from white lady to crazy white lady…YEA!!!!! OH yeah, I forgot it was also awesome b/c the hills are about 30 degrees cooler than where I live. It was freezing! Like 60 degrees. Crazy.
I AM GOING TO AMERICA FOR CHRISTMAS!!!! Come visit.
Peace
jodi
posted by Jodi Crossgrove at
3:28 AM
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