Tin Man and the Chocolate Pimp

One funny thing about living in Bangladesh is the names you come up with for folks you deal with regularly, but have never (by virtue of language gap or unpronouceability) actually figured out their names.

Tin Man: This is the guy that sells Hands On the tin sheets that we use for roofing and siding homes. No one knows his name, and we’ve all even actually been over to his house for dinner. The Tin Man had all 22 of the volunteers over for a big “thank-you” dinner – I think our non-stop orders have made him pretty wealthy. Dinner that night was good; Rod (me) ate lightly for fear of fish (which was about), but had a good time nonetheless. The highlight of the evening was the brief appearance before dinner of a mysterious musical instrument which lingered on the table for 5 minutes before being taken away. It was a small wooden box (maybe 2ft long, by 1 ft high), with piano keys. A few weeks later we found out what it actually was when the “Save The Children” training seminar we were at trotted one out – its a crazy accordion-powered mini-piano, basically, which sounds like a spastic accordio-harpsichord (for lack of a better description).

Anyway – the Tin Man is a cool dude. One final thing about that night: Bangla dinner events don’t include social time after dinner. One literally gets up shortly after eating, says “thank-you” (doh-nah-bad) and head’s out. Sort of anticlimatic, but whatever works!

The Chocolate Pimp: The Bangla experience in many ways can be summarized by looking at their chocolate. Its as if someone, several years ago, travelled to a 7-11 in Kansas and tried some chocolate bars. They then returned to Bangladesh after several years and tried to reconstruct a variety from vague recollections; the result is packages that look more or less right, chocolate bars that often look the part, and a taste and texture that’s best described as “lacking.” Its seriously a bizarre and flavour-less experience.

After a hard day of digging pits, nailing tin, or whatever, chocolate is luxury you feel entirely justified in desiring. There’s three solutions to getting ahold of it:

1. Horde it: Get ahold of real Cadbury chocolate in expat grocery stores in Dhaka or Khulna and keep a stash on hand.
2. Nocilla: If your stash is empty, and no-one’s willing to share, you can get “Nocilla” – that’s a quasi-Nutella substance which when spread on Roti (flatbread) is quite tasty. Beware: you need to get the Nocilla imported from Spain, not the Malaysian stuff. Why the town of Rayenda (which doesn’t even has anti-perspirant, or many homes with electricity) has affordable and tasty Nutella-equivalent imported from Spain, I’ll never know.
3. Visit the Chocolate Pimp: The CP is a near legendary figure in Rayenda, who has *good* Bangla chocolate. I’ve never even seem him or his store myself – but others have passed along goods from him to me. I think Connie may have been there. Anyway, this dude has 20 varieties of sketchy Bangla chocolate, which Kirsty, Emma, and a few others bravely sampled until they discovered “Checkers,” “Jupiter,” and “Lake Bar” – the three palatable Bangla-bars. Hurray!

Alright – enough of the names. A quick recap: were working on a playground installation right now, which is the most intense one weve had yet. Its big and complicated, and being built on an exposed 1 acre mud plain, which means its HOT (35 degrees today), and crowded with HUNDREDS of locals staring at us in fascination. I don’t think too many of them actually know what it is were building – which provides us with great amusement.

The build is about a half-hour bus ride from our base; getting too and from is no simple task here. In the mornings, the buses are perpetually late – this morning, we gave up after 40 minutes, and hitched a ride with a passing military troop transport (in a bitchin’ Toyota Land Cruiser). Coming home, the 5:00 PM bus usually leaves our build-site town by about 5:30 – if were lucky, we’ll get room on the rooftop, so we can enjoy the terror of dodging low-hanging trees and powerlines, while being mercilessly camera-phoned by the pack of teenagers that immediately flocks to the roof when we get up there. If were unlucky, its into the bus with about 100 other people packed beside, on top, and underneath of you – 50 women in burkas, and 50 guys watching you.

Next week, were taking a 4 day break after 3 weeks on; were heading up to Khulna to stay in a western hotel (conveniently called “The Western Hotel”) with TV, A/C, room service, cheeseburgers, normal toilets and so on. Can’t wait! It is the place that everyone goes to take a break from working and from living in the base; fortunately, there’s nothing to see or do in or around Khulna, so you can just soak up the luxury – which we intend to do!

Later dudes…!