F-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-i-o-n

I haven’t been able to access the Blogger website for four days now, which is really getting annoying (as you can tell, it’s finally started to work, for whatever reason, since I’m posting this and you’re reading it). I also am having major problems accessing my work e-mail, Hotmail, and sometimes Yahoo – although Yahoo is the most reliable of all of them by far. I hereby take back what I previously said about my internet connection here being reliable. Something is definitely wrong, as almost every single site I try to view comes up with “This Page Cannot Be Displayed”, and I have no idea why. Re-connecting doesn’t help, reloading doesn’t help, and banging my hand against my desk doesn’t help, either. Unless you count a bruised hand as helpful, which it really isn’t. Although, it has stopped me from smashing my laptop out of frustration, so I suppose that’s helpful. If anyone has insights, I’d love them. Of course, I can’t post this entry now, so by the time anyone who might be able to help reads it, the problem is likely to be solved, I guess. I hope it’s not a virus – I don’t even know if this is the kind of thing a virus could do. I think it's just Internet connection lameness.

I’ve tried to alert the people from whom I’m expecting things for work that I need to do all correspondence through my Yahoo account, and I haven’t heard anything, so my instinct is that they’re just sitting in their rear ends. Or not thinking about the stuff they owe me, at any rate. I realize that I’m a type-A personality, but I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to expect a timely answer when I ask a time-sensitive question, and I loathe having to chase people down for a simple answer. I don’t think it’s okay for someone to, for example, just not respond when I ask things like “can you assure me that you can arrange for a Bangladeshi visa before I arrive?” or “please confirm that these proposed travel dates for my return trip home are acceptable”. If you don’t have the answer, or it’s going to take you a while to get it to me, that’s fine, just tell me that so I know that I’m not being ignored. Argh. So if I don’t hear something very substantive and informative from the guy at CARE by the end of the day tomorrow, I’m going to postpone the trip, since Bangladesh only sometimes allows for a visa upon arrival, depending on the day and the mood of the immigration officer to whom you happen to be speaking, and the less time there is to arrange such things, the less confident I am that it will work. I’m also telling our travel office to go ahead and book my return tickets, and then I’m going to ask my cousin in London to see if we can get tickets to see Ewan McGregor in Guys and Dolls in the West End! (I luuuuurve Ewan McGregor.)

The project manager’s wife arrived the other day, a very nice Ethiopian woman, just a few years older than me. He is, as you might imagine, delighted to have her here. It’s funny to see people you work with around their friends or family, sometimes you really see a different side of them. That’s not the case with everyone or every situation, but it’s still interesting. I think that I’m generally the same person all the time, but I know that there are also people who have a “work persona” and a “rest of their life persona” – that sounds exhausting to me, and I wouldn’t want to have to keep track of when I had to be fake and when I was allowed to be real. Perhaps I’m just lazy.

The PM’s wife ran to a nearby supermarket for us to buy a few small things for the office, like paper towels, toilet paper, cups, plates, etc. She also stopped at a little bakery on her way back to get some snacks, which were greatly appreciated. The bakery? It’s called Bimbo. I am not making this up. The full name, from what I can tell, is Banh mi Phap Bimbo, but “Bimbo” has its own line and is in bigger type, so I’m guessing it’s a key word. Heh. They do, however, make some very yummy little things with coconut, so hurrah for Bimbo.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that, since motorcycles are so prevalent here, it’s easy to forget that whole “Wild One”, “Easy Rider”, motorcycles-are-so-super-cool thing. Once you’ve seen everyone from someone’s little baby sister to someone’s grandmother with their own motorcycle, the mystique is lost and the badass factor dissipates. I was, however, quite impressed to see the desks for our office being delivered on the back of motorcycles. They got some bungee cords and strapped them to the back, then the guy drove with one hand, and tried to steady the desk behind him with the other. It was certainly impressive, so well done to him, but it was the balance and coordination that were impressive, not the bike.

I’m off to run some errands and grab some dinner. We’re mostly done for the day, so it’s time to pack up and head out. I have no idea what the plan is for tonight, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something. I haven’t done a ton of grocery shopping, because I knew I wasn’t going to be here for very long, but maybe I’ll make some dinner for myself tonight. I found a “gourmet” market, which is basically lots of imported foods, and I think it’s the most I’ve ever seen anyone charge for Old El Paso Salsa, which I’m not inclined to consider “gourmet”. But it’s really not bad with some rice and cheese. Seriously – that was my dinner last night, and it was darn tasty. I’m fine with that.