Some Retail Therapy Always Does the Trick

This is an entry that I had typed and saved for when I actually had some internet.
It's from Friday the 5th.

Today we had our crazy van drivers rush us around the city at top speeds, swerving in and out of traffic, and narrowly avoiding multiple collisions. This morning we were driven out of the city a ways to the Center for Women’s and Child’s Health. This facility was really amazing. When we arrived, the sweetest little lady greeted us. She has been the director of nursing at the facility since it started around 7 years ago. She gave us a wonderful tour of the hospital; showing us all of the specialty areas (gynecology, pediatrics, eye doctor, dentist, laboratory, and the operating room.) The hospital is very impressive because anyone who comes to the hospital for treatment is given treatment regardless of if they can pay or not. The hospital has also been planning and raising money to build a 500 bed hospital and also a college of nursing on their grounds behind their current facility. Everything was very impressive. The work they are doing there is amazing, and they are just growing so rapidly.

After a quick lunch at the hospital we traveled to a few NGO stores closer to the center of Dhaka. We did a ton of shopping at a store called Aarong where almost all of the goods are hand made by Bangladeshis and the profits all go back to the villages. It’s such a good program, and the goods are all wonderful and cheap. It’s quite the win-win. We rounded out the afternoon with a few more stores, most of which being NGOs with the same philosophy. The sad part of the afternoon was when I went to an art store and was going to buy two original canvas prints. I had talked the shop keeper down to 2/3 of the original cost and then had to run to the ATM to get money. While I knew I had enough funds to cover the paintings, I decided to check my balance on the ATM anyway. It was a huge surprise when the ATM told me I had the equivalent of $16 dollars in Taka… when I should have had so much more. After a phone call to my darling mother at 5:45am (sorry, Mom!) it was all sorted that I did indeed have the amount of money I thought I had. Sadly, this wasn’t figured out until after I had gone up to the shop keeper and told him my story (when I still thought someone made fraudulent charges on my account) and that I wouldn’t be buying the paintings. He was pretty upset… especially since he had already wrapped them up. I told him I was incredibly sorry and that when I had everything sorted out, I would go back and buy them. So providing I can find my way back there, and I can actually use the money I really have, I’ll buy the paintings. They are really nice and I was getting a HUGE deal.

All is well here. We leave for Matlab tomorrow to go to the ICDDR,B research post. It should be a fun trip. It is a 3 hour drive, but we will have our psycho drivers back with us… so I imagine we’ll get there in no time at all.

Hope all is well at home!
Love and miss you all!