Party like it's 1421

Bangladeshis are smart people. They know how to have a good time and there's nothing like a new year's party. In order to maximize on the parties, Bangladesh uses three calendars, allowing it to celebrating the new year three times a year. They have the Christian calendar for business, the Muslim calendar for religious purposes and the Bengali calendar for cultural and historical reasons. Whereas we might say it is 2014, it is 1435 in the Muslim calendar and, as of last Tuesday, 1421 in the Bengali calendar.

 You are supposed to wear red and white on the Bengali new year and eat lots of rice and hilsa fish. We definitely had plenty of rice, but might have abstained from the fish. We braved the 100+ degree weather and headed out for the "boishakh" (first month of the Bengali calendar) celebrations.

 We found a lot of musical celebrations around the city and lots of beautiful outfits - not that people really need an excuse to dress up here. The photo below was from the park just at the end of our street. I loved the bright colors against the green pond, even if they weren't technically wearing the appropriate colors for the new year.

In other parts of the city we found rides and craft fairs set up. This picture below is of a manual Ferris wheel that was being turned by some very warm, but happy, amusement ride attendants. We were tempted to go on, but it seemed more restricted to kids and the younger folk.

Boishakh is celebrated with lots of colorful pottery, singing of songs, henna, special new year's foods, and painting on the streets. This display of color and pottery was outside a popular shopping area not far from us (with me enjoying some delicious green mango juice).

As they say, "shuvo nobo borsho!" Happy New Year!

The joy of having furniture

Well it was a long 175 days. 175 days of one futon - a single futon that served as a couch, a dining chair, a workspace and a bed. 175 days with two plates, two glasses, two forks and two towels. All you need, really, but it takes some planning and thinking ahead.

Christmas came early this year, though (or maybe very late?) - at 10 PM on April 3 our container arrived in Gulshan 2 - just in between downpours no less. The team of barefooted men worked until 2 in the morning bringing all of our stuff up four flights of stairs. Sadly for them there may have been more than just a few big boxes of books.

We are now in the process of unpacking everything, which has been a nice, if not poorly timed, distraction from much needed time for studying. I think we're about halfway through the unpacking process, though Kathleen thinks it's far less. Wherever we are exactly in the process, though, what I do know is that it is pretty freakin' awesome to have a mattress, couch, dining table and, dare I say, more than 2 plates.

As if that weren't exciting enough for the humans, the feline members of the household are in a cardboard paradise. Just imagine all these boxes, bubble wrap and new things to climb on and hide inside. I'm afraid they're going to be terribly disappointed when all the packaging goes away and we just have a bunch of boring furniture.