Pooped out Gwen speaking
Just in case my parents, or other people who don’t understand, get really upset reading the title… “Pooped out” just means “really tired”…
It’s confirmed… Jess & I are taking part in the whole month long program… Not just the workshop… That means that we get to go on excursions with the students and go sightseeing… It also means we have to do a photostory… It’s what I came here to do really… But then, I’ve never been confident of my photography skills or my journalistic skills… And the whole thing is stressing me out… I can’t think of a good story idea… One that can be done 2 weeks and has visuals… Panic!
I got a few stories but they are very vague…I need time to think it all through and get some specifics… 1) Foreigners who choose to live in Bangladesh… Why they want to do it and how they live… 2) Street Children… Learn about their backgrounds and what they do to survive and to have fun… 3) The educational system… How students like it… And what are the opportunities that are lacking for the poor... 4) Middle classes… How do all of them live… If anyone has any suggestions, let me know… I’m gonna need all the help I can get… I’m supposed to promote the stories to a newspaper or publication… Help!
Back to my being tired… I woke up at my usual time to go to Drik… Which really wasn’t enough… Only got 6 hours… But I dragged myself up… I went with Jess to Drik to drop off her parcel (which she is sending to her bf back home)… Said a few words to my people at Publications & of cos my dear friends in Multimedia… Then we came back to Pathshala… We weren’t sure if the Big Boss wanted us to go for the whole workshop or just a portion of it and we wanted to check… We attended the morning talk and it was really up to us! So we decided to go for it!
That’s when we had to present our story ideas… We had to think of them on the spot… Later on, we discussed the story ideas with our groups and that’s when I started worrying that the stories weren’t visual enough… I can get some contacts from Topu but I’m just not sure what I want to do…
After the discussion, it was sightseeing once again… But first, we went to Drik Café for lunch… Of all the places! Good grief… I met my dear Multimedia guys there and joined them for lunch… Syeed says they’ll both miss me when I don’t come for work… Haha! I feel bad about the Norwegians though… They never eat spicy food and that’s all you get in Dhaka… Save for the fast food joints and fancy restaurants… Think they didn’t quite enjoy their lunch at the café…
We went back to Lalbagh Fort Museum and this time, it was open… The grounds are really huge! It was used by the Moghuls… There was a bathhouse, a burial house and a few more buildings but I have no idea what they were used for… It was very tranquil…
Lots of people go there with their families to relax… Kind of like a park… All the children kept staring at us and walking around us… They saw our cameras and wanted their pictures to be taken… I took a few pictures… I couldn’t help it… Some of them were very endearing!
We also saw a little boy being forced to do squats by a security guard… Apparently the boy was caught picking flowers and as punishment, he had to do a hundred squats! Ouch… That must hurt…
Topu bought a very nice sweet made from coconuts… They were little flakes dipped in sugar… Perhaps actual flakes from coconuts… I don’t know but I really liked that sweet…
When I was taking in the whole surroundings, the Islamic worship song started playing… With the hypnotic music, and the whole Islamic surroundings, it was just so apt… It’s something you can’t take away with pictures or a video… It was different from any other place I’ve been to… The museum actually had some China porcelain plates and vases… I recognized the prints from when I went to China… But otherwise there’s nothing about this place that is similar to other places/countries…
After the Fort museum, we went to a Hindu temple nearby… It had a sculpture of a Hindu story in the centre of it… The sculptures were caged up to prevent people from damaging or stealing it… One of the characters… the villain… looked exactly like Malu! (Mind you, I wasn’t even the one who said it… Topu was… And he’s good friends with Malu!)
We went back to Pathshala…
It may not have sounded like I did a lot, but I was really tired already… Talking to Topu is exhausting when I keep having to decipher what he's saying in Bengali... On top of that, it was not even the end of the evening… I had agreed to go shopping with the Norwegian girls but I remembered that I had a dinner appointment… Abir had invited over to his place for dinner!! Yup… I promised the girls I would join them another time…
Strangely, I felt I would be wasting my evening if I didn’t go out and do something before dinner…The hartal had just ended and the shops were finally opening up after 3 days… I went out on my own to get my negatives scanned… It isn’t very far… Just down Mirpur road… I rather liked going around on my own… I mean, I know I’d be able to take care of myself…But I’m not too sure if I can take care of other people… I sent the negatives in and took a rickshaw back on my own… No problem at all! Shomosha na!
At “sharey shat ta” or 7.30pm, Abir came to pick us up and go to his place… His place is slightly bigger than most of the other houses we’ve been to… He and his family stays with his parents and some of his brothers… His son Nil is so cute! Nil is very obedient… When I asked him to come, he came and sat on my lap… I could ask him for his age and for his name… So proud of myself…
There was so much food again! There was 3 beef dishes, 1 fish dish, 1 chicken dish, chicken salad and a lot of dessert as usual… There was even chocolate cake and Doy (the nice curd thing from Topu’s home… Abir says we can get it from any sweet shop… yes!)
We seriously over-ate and tried to make up for it by eating some strange leaves with some small seeds… The taste was really strong and I choked on it… Diya & Jess couldn’t take it too… We all spat it out… with Abir’s wife’s permission of cos… She found it very amusing… our choking and screwed up faces…
When we’d finally been stuffed to the brim with food and dessert, we headed back to Pathshala… There’s actually another place to go after dinner… The Norwegian students were going out to someplace that I don’t know of… I wanted to go and just see what the place is like…But I was so tired I knew my body would never forgive for it… Since I still had to wake up early the next day…
So here I am, writing my blog in my room… Listening to Michael W. Smith’s “Worship”… I’m going to bathe and do my time alone with God… Then it’s a long conversation with my pillow… ZzzZzz…
It’s confirmed… Jess & I are taking part in the whole month long program… Not just the workshop… That means that we get to go on excursions with the students and go sightseeing… It also means we have to do a photostory… It’s what I came here to do really… But then, I’ve never been confident of my photography skills or my journalistic skills… And the whole thing is stressing me out… I can’t think of a good story idea… One that can be done 2 weeks and has visuals… Panic!
I got a few stories but they are very vague…I need time to think it all through and get some specifics… 1) Foreigners who choose to live in Bangladesh… Why they want to do it and how they live… 2) Street Children… Learn about their backgrounds and what they do to survive and to have fun… 3) The educational system… How students like it… And what are the opportunities that are lacking for the poor... 4) Middle classes… How do all of them live… If anyone has any suggestions, let me know… I’m gonna need all the help I can get… I’m supposed to promote the stories to a newspaper or publication… Help!
Back to my being tired… I woke up at my usual time to go to Drik… Which really wasn’t enough… Only got 6 hours… But I dragged myself up… I went with Jess to Drik to drop off her parcel (which she is sending to her bf back home)… Said a few words to my people at Publications & of cos my dear friends in Multimedia… Then we came back to Pathshala… We weren’t sure if the Big Boss wanted us to go for the whole workshop or just a portion of it and we wanted to check… We attended the morning talk and it was really up to us! So we decided to go for it!
That’s when we had to present our story ideas… We had to think of them on the spot… Later on, we discussed the story ideas with our groups and that’s when I started worrying that the stories weren’t visual enough… I can get some contacts from Topu but I’m just not sure what I want to do…
After the discussion, it was sightseeing once again… But first, we went to Drik Café for lunch… Of all the places! Good grief… I met my dear Multimedia guys there and joined them for lunch… Syeed says they’ll both miss me when I don’t come for work… Haha! I feel bad about the Norwegians though… They never eat spicy food and that’s all you get in Dhaka… Save for the fast food joints and fancy restaurants… Think they didn’t quite enjoy their lunch at the café…
We went back to Lalbagh Fort Museum and this time, it was open… The grounds are really huge! It was used by the Moghuls… There was a bathhouse, a burial house and a few more buildings but I have no idea what they were used for… It was very tranquil…
Lots of people go there with their families to relax… Kind of like a park… All the children kept staring at us and walking around us… They saw our cameras and wanted their pictures to be taken… I took a few pictures… I couldn’t help it… Some of them were very endearing!
We also saw a little boy being forced to do squats by a security guard… Apparently the boy was caught picking flowers and as punishment, he had to do a hundred squats! Ouch… That must hurt…
Topu bought a very nice sweet made from coconuts… They were little flakes dipped in sugar… Perhaps actual flakes from coconuts… I don’t know but I really liked that sweet…
When I was taking in the whole surroundings, the Islamic worship song started playing… With the hypnotic music, and the whole Islamic surroundings, it was just so apt… It’s something you can’t take away with pictures or a video… It was different from any other place I’ve been to… The museum actually had some China porcelain plates and vases… I recognized the prints from when I went to China… But otherwise there’s nothing about this place that is similar to other places/countries…
After the Fort museum, we went to a Hindu temple nearby… It had a sculpture of a Hindu story in the centre of it… The sculptures were caged up to prevent people from damaging or stealing it… One of the characters… the villain… looked exactly like Malu! (Mind you, I wasn’t even the one who said it… Topu was… And he’s good friends with Malu!)
We went back to Pathshala…
It may not have sounded like I did a lot, but I was really tired already… Talking to Topu is exhausting when I keep having to decipher what he's saying in Bengali... On top of that, it was not even the end of the evening… I had agreed to go shopping with the Norwegian girls but I remembered that I had a dinner appointment… Abir had invited over to his place for dinner!! Yup… I promised the girls I would join them another time…
Strangely, I felt I would be wasting my evening if I didn’t go out and do something before dinner…The hartal had just ended and the shops were finally opening up after 3 days… I went out on my own to get my negatives scanned… It isn’t very far… Just down Mirpur road… I rather liked going around on my own… I mean, I know I’d be able to take care of myself…But I’m not too sure if I can take care of other people… I sent the negatives in and took a rickshaw back on my own… No problem at all! Shomosha na!
At “sharey shat ta” or 7.30pm, Abir came to pick us up and go to his place… His place is slightly bigger than most of the other houses we’ve been to… He and his family stays with his parents and some of his brothers… His son Nil is so cute! Nil is very obedient… When I asked him to come, he came and sat on my lap… I could ask him for his age and for his name… So proud of myself…
There was so much food again! There was 3 beef dishes, 1 fish dish, 1 chicken dish, chicken salad and a lot of dessert as usual… There was even chocolate cake and Doy (the nice curd thing from Topu’s home… Abir says we can get it from any sweet shop… yes!)
We seriously over-ate and tried to make up for it by eating some strange leaves with some small seeds… The taste was really strong and I choked on it… Diya & Jess couldn’t take it too… We all spat it out… with Abir’s wife’s permission of cos… She found it very amusing… our choking and screwed up faces…
When we’d finally been stuffed to the brim with food and dessert, we headed back to Pathshala… There’s actually another place to go after dinner… The Norwegian students were going out to someplace that I don’t know of… I wanted to go and just see what the place is like…But I was so tired I knew my body would never forgive for it… Since I still had to wake up early the next day…
So here I am, writing my blog in my room… Listening to Michael W. Smith’s “Worship”… I’m going to bathe and do my time alone with God… Then it’s a long conversation with my pillow… ZzzZzz…
posted by thebemusedphotog @ 11:55 PM
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