Gratefulness

On the drive home today I saw a woman cooking lunch on the side of the road for her family who live under a tarpaulin on the footpath, this heartbreaking poverty is a pretty common sight here and it alone would be worthy of a mention. However, the part that surprised me about this woman was that she had, on the footpath, a couple of flowers in a jar and a cloth set up, such an incredible sight among the dust, noise and filthiness of the road. The sight filled me with hope, and also made me feel pretty bad about all the things that I complain about in this city.

I have been inspired by this woman, as well as by a wonderful friend of mine in Cambodia who recently wrote a blog post about staying positive, and I am going to write about the things that I am grateful for. Seeing this homeless woman on the footpath making the best of her situation made me realise just how blessed I am-so here goes, a list of things I am grateful for and that I love about this country. With pictures of course!

1. The colours. I just love, love, love the fabrics, the patterns and the colours in this country. They are so beautiful and are also as comfortable as wearing your pj's, some of them even look like pj's which is even better!

2. The fruit and veges at the moment are great, we are just coming into watermelon and pineapple season which fills me with great joy as they are pretty much my two favorite fruits and are exceptionally cheap!

I also love the markets and the way people carry enormous loads on their heads, it's incredible!

3. Buses. I am grateful for buses, because even though they terrify me sometimes, they are easy to catch, they are usually the biggest vehicle on the roads and you are therefore less vulnerable to being squashed, and people on them always surprise me with their friendliness and willingness to give up their seats for the poor white girls! 

4. Electricity! Every time the power comes back on I am so grateful for electricity, the ability to sleep under a fan at the moment as it gets hotter and hotter is something that I am well and truly grateful for. You can understand why the power goes off so much when you see the power lines! There are too many people in Dhaka and not the infrastructure to deal with it, but there is power most of the time, and wonderful inventions such as IPS and generators which mean that the power keeps going.

5. Beautiful kids. It seems that everywhere we go we get trailed by gorgeous kids yelling at us (admittedly, it's pretty annoying, but I'm focusing on the good here!). But they are beautiful and the ones I'm getting to know are awesome, you can communicate with kids even if there is a language difference!

6. School. This follows on from the beautiful kids, I love the kids at school (even the naughty ones) and they make me being here completely worth it, every day that I walk through the gate at school and get greeted by multiple students with big smiles, it makes me realise why I am here. Their enthusiasm is infectious and I enjoy teaching them a lot!

7. Food! Every morning we get breakfast from here, 2 borota (like roti) and fried egg with large chunks of chilli in it. It sounds odd, but it's really good! I really love being able to buy food from roadside stalls and the price is awesome, very cheap. I haven't been sick yet from any food I've eaten yet (and I've eaten from some fairly dodgy-looking places!) so another thing to be grateful for! 

That's pretty much it for now, there are many other things that I'm grateful for, these are just a few. I'll finish with a beautiful picture which shows just how gorgeous pollution makes sunsets, there is a silver lining to every cloud...