Last day of classes!

Today was our last day of classes for the summer semester. Yay!!!!! I feel really exhausted. I so need a break. We're planning to go to Kolkata, India over break. I'm excited about that. It will be my first trip to India. Azfar's brother Dipu and family are going (Urmi, Jasra, Audry), and Azfar's Amma is also going. This will be her first trip out of Bangladesh, EVER! So stay tuned for more about our adventures in India. (We're heading there on September 1st, and we'll be there for about a week...)

North South University English Department

Here's a shot of the "campus" at North South University. As you can see, there is no campus! The university consists of 3 high-rise buildings, plus the English department in a smaller building. It's chaos just trying to get from my office to school!
Here is a photo of North South University's English department. Here's where I spend lots of hours meeting with students and grading papers, etc.! The English department is in its own building set apart from the other NSU buildings. So it definitely has a "small family" feeling. My office is on the second floor (or, according to the British/Bangladesh system of counting, the first floor).

My office at school

Here's me and mom in my office (ok, my and Azfar's office--currently we're sharing one) at North South University. It's hard to see in this photo, but I plastered my wall with photos of Salma. It always puts me in a good mood to see her face!

My literature class

Here's me with my 19th century British fiction class. Mom and dad came to sit in on the class, and afterwards mom wanted to get a photo of us.

Monsoon rain

Hi family and friends,

Thought I'd send a little longer update, since I haven't in a while. So here you go...sorry if I already talked to you and I'm repeating myself!

Salma's doing good! She's pulling herself up on furniture all the time now. I think she's gonna walk soon. And she's learning words like crazy--Bengali and English. Her new word today is "brishti" (rain). We're having a monsoon today, so I guess it made an impact on her! There's about 3 feet of water in the road right now. The road is literally a lake. It's quite entertaining watching the cars go by--they look like boats. And I feel sorry for the poor rickshaw drivers who are trying to peddle through this rain--they're completely soaked. It's supposed to keep raining for 3 days. Guess we'll have to hole up in our apartment till then. I'm not brave enough to venture out in the monsoon.

Well, we just had our first trip outside of Dhaka, finally. We went to the beach (Cox's Bazaar) for four days. It was so nice to get out of the city for a few days! And Salma loved the beach, especially getting totally dirty in the sand. We also saw two people get drowned in the ocean, though--they went out too far. Scary. We saw their bodies being brought to shore. So sad. And there are so many poor kids there (as there are everywhere), begging for food while we're playing on the beach. Feels a bit out of whack for us to be having our expensive holiday while people around us are starving. But we did have a fun time. I'll send some pictures when I get them uploaded on the internet.

Teaching is going well. I'm really enjoying it. We just finished our first semester about a week ago. I think students like me so far. I've had alot of fun with them, anyway, especially in the literature class. Next semester I teach American literature again, and public speaking and composition. We don't get much of a break between semesters--just a couple of weeks, so I'm just trying to catch my breath before plunging in again!

Azfar says hi. He is certainly is in the limelight here. TV interviews, newspaper articles, journal articles, political lectures, all kinds of stuff. I went to my first Bangladeshi political rally the other day--it was in protest of police killing of some organizers against a coal company that wanted to do open-coal mining and destroy the land of lots of poor people. Although at least 6 people were killed by the police, the people had a small victory in this battle! They managed to kick the coal company completely out of the country. It was pretty exciting to watch all this happen!

Anyway, I am trying to get some work done on my dissertation before the fall semester starts up next week...I'm plodding away, doing some reading now. I found a book called _Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day_, by Joan Bolker, which is helping me feel less panicked and a bit more organized about the whole thing. I've also gotten involved with a women's reading group here--a group of feminist activists. So I'm excited about where these conversations with the group will lead--not only for my dissertation, of course, but for working in solidarity with them.

Well I hope to talk to you soon! Love you all!

Love,

Missy

Classes have started...

Hi all,

Just letting you know that Azfar and Salma and I are all doing well. We've had two weeks of classes by now, and we're adjusting to the rhythm of the university life. We still don't have very accessible internet. Everything takes more time here, it seems. It will probably be a few more weeks before we get internet access at school, and at least that long to get it at our apartment, so until then I have to find someone's computer to borrow for a few minutes, so I'm a bit rushed.

The poverty here is so extreme. There are beggars everywhere, and it's very heartbreaking. They are always running up to me to beg for money especially, since they can see I'm a foreigner and that means $$. It's so hard to see the children begging and the people with missing and withered limbs. But it's overwhelming--I can't help them all. Anyway, I'll tell you more about life here when I have more time. Also, I've managed to figure out how to take a taxi across town now all by myself, which makes me feel good. Anyway, I must run. I'll write more later.

Hello from Bangladesh!

Just writing to let everyone know that Azfar and I and Salma are all doing fine! We've started teaching at North South University and we've moved into our new apartment close to the university. It's the nicest apartment we've ever lived in! It's huge--it has three bedrooms and a dining room and parlor and patio and 3 bathrooms. But unfortunately it doesn't have any phone. So we'll have to just rely on our cellphones for the most part. Also, generaly speaking, on the weekends, we're at Azfar's parents house (Thursday morning through Saturday night), so you can also call there then. Here's some photos of our apartment. Here's our office:

And this is our dining room. Look at all this space!:
And here is our living room:Our furniture, as you can see, is made of bamboo and wicker. There's not alot of wood available in Bangladesh, so most people have wicker furniture. Anyway, as I said, this is the nicest apartment we've ever had! The university gave it to us as part of my teaching package, and I am so grateful! It's really nice to have our own space.

Things are going well at the university. I'm really enjoying teaching. I'm teaching American literature, freshman composition, and intro to linguistics. The students are really friendly and generally more serious than American students, I think. We've already had 2 weeks of classes by now.

I'm getting more and more confident about moving around all by myself. I've learned how to say the words for left, right, stop here, etc., so that I can direct the rickshaw driver from our apartment to school, or to the grocery store. I was uncomfortable with riding in a rickshaw at first because of th exploitation of the drivers, but then the rickshaw drivers also need the money to survive. Anyway, I feel very proud of myself that I can move around a bit on my own!

There's so much to tell about what I've seen here already, but I'm kind of rushed for time now. I'm using Azfar's brother's computer at his office. We're trying to get an internet connection set up for our apartment soon, then I'll be able to write in more detail. The poverty in Dhaka is immense. I've never seen such a crowded city. At 9:00pm the streets are just bursting with people. It never seems to get quiet! I guess it's among the top three cities for noise pollution. We had to buy a big fan for our bedroom to drown out all the noise of the cars honking. People here honk there horn about once every 10 seconds, it seems, for any reason. I also get stared at quite a bit whenever I go out, especially in Azfar's parents neighborhood, where a lot of people haven't seen very many white people before. Salma also gets lots of stares and compliments. The city and the university, for that matter, is very very baby friendly, which is nice. Everywhere we go on the street or in restaurants, someone wants to talk to Salma or hold her for me while we eat, even the waiters. And at school when we take her, everyone wants to hold her--professors, secretaries, students. So I have instant babysitting as soon as I walk into the department.

Also, things are going great with Azfar's family--they're so wonderful! They're all very sweet, and they've been helping us out so much. And I'm getting better at communicating with my Bengali, at least in basic terms. And Salma's having so much fun playing with her cousin Jasra, who just turned 1 year old a few days ago.