Greetings from Bagladesh - Day 2

Hello from Tuesday.

We are about to leave the hotel to see some of the work that BRAC is doing for adolescent girls here in the rural areas around Dhaka. Hopefully we will have a new driver today. Although we didn't kill any animals yesterday we did knock a few peds over as they tried to cross the road. I sat in the back seat for the ride out yesterday and it was too boring so I moved back to the video game that is Bangladesh driving for the ride home.

It is truly amazing some of the maneuvers we made. I kept thinking, "he'll never make this," and then at the last second we avoided death. A new challenge was added to the driving mix last night. Seems like most drivers don't like to turn their lights on until it is totally dark. With the heavy smog this makes it very hard to see oncoming cars at twilight - as I said earlier people will pass anywhere, even on blind turns. Also there are literally no lanes painted on the road, I guess they just gave up

We spent the day yesterday visiting CMES schools. They teach very rudimentary skills like textile making, carpentry, and candle making along with regular classes. You have to be amongst the poorest people to qualify for this school. We also got to see the end result of the girl effect, with two young adults who were running successful businesses after graduating from the program. Hopefully the video will be OK, it is hard to make adjustments as it is really bright outside and then we duck into dark rooms to talk to people.

We had dinner with Warren Buffet's son and wife which was interesting (they have a big foundation called NOVO, and are interested in helping adolescent girls - Nike is hosting them on a fact finding tour). We were late so we had to come directly from the field, pretty dirty and sweaty. They were all showered and dressed nicely. Needless to say, I did not get a seat at the head table.

Interesting challenge: The electricity in the hotel room goes out several times a night. You have to get up and restart it by putting your key in a slot. You usually know it is out because the room has gotten pretty hot. Makes it hard to charge batteries for the video camera if you don't wake up.

Hope you have a good Tuesday, it is shaping up to be pretty nice here.