Bangladesh Update!

My first update on Bangladesh, I'm writing from Berlin.

I'll get to that in a minute...

I am in love with Bangladesh.  It's beautiful.  That's most likely not the term most people would use to describe an extremely over populated, filthy, sewage smell consumed land, but that's exactly what it is.

I don't have many pictures to share yet as I haven't had any sight seeing time, but this is a small glimpse into the culture.

What a crazy journey we are on.

As to why you are being updated from Berlin...

I had to come back to Berlin to get all of our Indian visas.   After many times of getting our hopes up in hearing from the Bangladesh Embassy before we left, they did not complete them in time for us to get our Indian visas.  In fact, they barely finished the Bangladesh visas in time for us to catch our flight in the first place.  They had to send our passports via a carrier to the airport in Munich!  Some of the students found this a little unnerving.   Normally, I would have also, but if you know me at all, the fact that I was able to remain completely calm during the day of travel to Munich only proves that I have learned so much during the planning process of this outreach.

This picture was taken in an elevator at the Munich airport ( that somehow fit all 14 of us - including our hiking packs! ) while I was handing out the passports that we had just picked up an hour before our flight was leaving!  Haha!

After we made it to Bangladesh without having to spend over 3000 Euros to change 14 flights, turns out that our solution for getting our Indian visas while remaining in Bangladesh wasn't going to work out after all, due to unstable laws in Bangladesh.

This lead to me having to fly back to Germany to get all of our teams visas and leave Efrain to lead the team alone.  This also happened to be the week that we would be split up into two separate teams in different locations.  So the night before the rest of the team was to leave for the next location in Bangladesh and I was to head back to Germany,  we asked two students to be student leaders for the time that they would be separated.

All of this in one day.  :]

The next day as the team left early in the morning, I prepared for another day full of travels.  Minus my team.

Last night I was able to pick up the visas and I am currently ( not so patiently ) waiting for the evening when I will head back to Dhaka.  Only to have one more day of travel within Bangladesh to finally be reunited with my team. :]

When I first arrived back in Berlin ( after going directly to the Visum Centrale from the airport and finding a hostel to check into ) I called Efrain on a team phone to let him know I had arrived.  It was kind of late for them due to the time difference and he was in a tribal village under his mosquito net ready for bed.  Kind of comical if you ask me.

I have to admit, I was a little jealous. Would I rather be in a tribal village or a hostel?  Right.

He was able to tell me again how amazing and passionate our team is.  They are hearing the stories of the people and being creative in how to make an impact.

I can't wait to get back there and I can't wait to be able to tell you more of what my team has done.  And to think, this is all within the first week!

7 weeks to go....

:]