What an action packed 24 hours since the last blog. An hour and a half of chaotic gridlock to the harbour and boarding the
Sunderban, the launch (ferry) for the overnight to Barisal, experiencing the very interesting and exotic harbour life through the evening and an early arrival the next morning to start the 1,000 bedkit distribution after having breakfast in a good Bangladeshi “joint” (restaurant).
We were not very rested on arrival in part due to trying to sleep on a packed and noisy ship but mostly because of Steve’s early morning mishap. Mike and I shared a very small cabin with enough room for two cots and Andy and Steve were two rooms away. I woke up about 2 AM to guys yakking outside our room and went out to find Steve looking a little distraught with the story of going to the common washroom at the end of the corridor, locking the cabin door from the outside --
there is no latch thus it does not open from the inside if locked -- when leaving and with no pockets shoved the key under his arm. While in the washroom the key fell and bounced into the floor level toilet and then proceeded into the Padma River, part of the Ganges River. So Steve had a dilemma with Andy locked in the cabin at 2 AM! After finally finding someone to help it became apparent there was no spare or master key and so the noise out in the corridor was four guys with a box of hundreds of keys trying them one by one with Andy watching through the cabin window. Planning was well underway to break into the room when near the bottom of the pile of key, one worked! Crisis averted but way too much excitement in the middle of the night!
After a long and challenging distribution (
More about that in the next report.) we unwound into the early evening with a long rickshaw ride through the beautiful countryside outside Barisal. From the looks and hoots from people along the way you can bet there are not many times six Canadian are riding rickshaws through the tiny villages of that part of Bangladesh. Wonderful experiences!
Tomorrow is a day off and a day on the “Rocket,” a river paddleboat taking us to our next distribution.
Maybe we will see a Bengal tiger?
Doug MacDougald
for Bangladesh Team 2010Leave your comments here.
