trip to the beach...

a football team that insisted I take their photo...

a few people who wanted some photos with us...

a food cart making fusca, a local delicacy

we took a trip to the beach here in Chittagong in October. The first hour or so was really nice and peaceful, and then the crowds came and we were absolutely mobbed. Foreigners aren't really common here so we were the main attraction on the beach that day, which got to be really uncomfortable after a while. Most of the people were nice though, and asked if we would take photos with them, a few were more aggressive and unpleasant though.

Me and some of my students after their performance in a cultural presentation of music and dance.

My class and I (I'm the one in the suit). They're singing a Bangladeshi song, "Phule Phule, Dhole Dhole" by Tagore.

They were pretty nervous beforehand, but they sounded great and were happy with their performance. It was also my first time conducting a choral performance, and it went pretty well.

This was definitely one of those days that I thought to myself, "There's no way I could have ever predicted that I'd be doing this."

update!

So, it's been a while since I've updated this, and lots has happened since then, so I'll just jump right in.

Jenny and I went to Thailand for a week in the beginning of November for the Eid holiday break and that was pretty amazing. I went to Bangkok for a few days before Jenny got there (on her way back from Arizona) and we were there during the height of the flooding. I was able to do a bit of touristy stuff, seeing temples and wandering the city, and soaking up a lot of good food and drink that is not available in Bangladesh. We then went to Koh Samui for 4 days and stayed at a pretty luxurious resort on the beach which was great. We didn't do too much sightseeing and mostly soaked up the peace and quiet that is difficult to find in Chittagong. We did do a snorkeling/island hopping boat trip one day which was really amazing, saw lots of great sea-life and then hiked this really craggy peak, 500 meters straight up (i was wearing flip-flops=BAD MOVE) and when we got to the top after literally scrambling to the top of a wooden platform atop slippery and jagged rocks, it began to rain buckets. we slowly then worked our way down the mountain with one of our tourguides and this German tourist, both of whom were also wearing flip-flops. Completely drenched, we got to the bottom and took the boat back to our hotel.

Since then, I've been continuing to teach my music class and have begun teaching folk songs from some of the countries represented here at the University. I've taught songs from Bangladesh, Nepal and Vietnam and aim to teach songs from all of the other South Asian countries represented here by the end of the school year. It's been a lot of fun and I've had a lot of help from my students with language, without which I really wouldn't have a clue. I've also been teaching a lot of guitar and am setting up some flute classes thanks to one of the other teachers here donating her time to teach the class, as I have no business doing so.

We had a big thanksgiving at the teachers/professors' apartment building in which about 30-40 of us expats live, which was good times overall.

And this past week, my class was preparing for a performance at a fundraiser for the University, which happened last night and went pretty well. I'll post photos soon, most of the students seemed to enjoy themselves, and we took loads of photos while all of the students were dressed up in their national outfits. I wore a suit. I'm going to set up a music showcase at the university in January for my class to perform and probably a few others playing violin and harmonium.

As for my own musical endeavors, I'm spending a lot of free time recording some of my own music at our apartment, and I had a performance at Bishaud Bangla, a local artspace and cultural shop here in Chittagong thanks to the owner's generosity. Alam, the owner, found me a tabla player as well to accompany me for my performance, and it was really great to have a chance to work with a Bangladeshi musician, I think that I'm going to have another performance and I'm going to try and get the same tabla player again to accompany me. I keep trying to post a few videos of it here, but the internet speed here is really slow, so it hasn't worked. Most of the audience was made up of my students and I got them to sing along at a few points in the evening, and they reminded me that a some of my lyrics are a bit funny and absurd, as evidenced by their laughter as I taught them "Meowing". You'll see it in the video.

Ok, that's all for now, I'll post some pictures tomorrow and hopefully I'll at least get a link posted to the videos once I can upload them. Sorry this was a bit bullet-point oriented, lots of ground to cover y'know

new fav mode of transport

This is from a rickshaw ride from my apartment into the center of town. I take these nightly home from work, cost is around $0.30 for my one-way commute. This video gives a bit of the flavor of the constant motion around you in the streets, although I feel pretty adjusted to it now and don't really have the same fear that I did the first time I got in one.

week 4...

welp, here we go with the start of week 4 already.

thus far, we've found a few good local restaurants, I've booked a gig at an artspace here where I'll be playing and singing some of my songs accompanied by a local tabla player and my job is starting to fill out.

I am primarily a budget analyst here at the university helping with organization and management, but I am also going to begin teaching non-credit music classes, specifically directing a choir and teaching guitar. I started teaching guitar last week and began by teaching "I Walk The Line" by Johnny Cash. I taught a very simple version, and then played a more complicated version of the song, at which point one of my students' eyes bugged out and she said "WOAH. I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THAT." which was awesome because it wasn't that difficult and she'll totally be able to learn it.

My choir class has yet to meet, as we just got it going this week. We had a university-wide sign-up for a musical performance class/quasi-choir with 45 spots available. It filled up in less than an hour and there was a waiting list of 42, so I added another section and will now be teaching two choirs. What will we be performing? We'll be starting off with a smattering of pop songs that I know that have good female harmonies and will be very easy for the students to learn, and then learning what the common ground is between skill levels and musical heritage, (i.e. it's probably not the western scale), and going from there. I have been told by several people that I'll inevitably be doing a few bollywood songs as that is what the students are really into, which I'm happy to oblige, and I've also been told that there are a few performers and musicians in the student body who have signed up and I'll be asking them for some assistance on music selection.

So yeah, I'm pretty excited about that aspect of things, and a little bit terrified at the same time, mostly because I've never taught music in this capacity before. I'm pretty sure it's going to be amazing though.

whole bunch of rickshaws

i dunno what this building is, but it was in the middle of this great park in the middle of the city, very peaceful compared to the chaos outside of the gates.

reflecting pool in front of the building in the previous photo, in the park. there's a path that goes around the pool, very nice.

More walkin' around photos...

This is the lobby of the university we work at...

and the outside of the University...

this is on the way to the music shops, where I went with Micah, one of the professors at AUW.

Sorry this is so shaky, there are a lot of potholes everywhere. I took this from the back of a CNG today at rush hour.

Tabla!

Yup. Bought a Tabla today. Best shopping day here so far! I got a few other percussion toys too, but this was by far the best of the bunch! Can't wait to piss off my neighbors with my ragas...

some views from my rooftop

I got to Chittagong, Bangladesh last Saturday morning and started work at the university on Sunday (work week is Sunday - Thursday here). Work's been fine, and as there's a van that picks us up in the morning to take us from our flat to school, I haven't had much chance to do any exploring, until yesterday.

Yesterday, I finally got to walk around Chittagong and went with Ara, one of the teachers here, and we went on a mission to find an umbrella, a computer screen, and bread (bread's not easy to come by). We went to this mall which was 8 floors of the same shop repeated, and got to the top level where there were the two most upscale shops. We asked if they had umbrellas, and they didn't, but the manager of the store told us that one of his clerks would take us to another market to find an umbrella. So, Ara and I got into a CNG (little three-wheeled death-cage-cab) with this clerk, Joey, and went to this market about 10-15 min away in a neighborhood that we didn't know. Joey paid for the cab and we started wandering around to all of these little shops after seeing that the umbrella market was closed for the day.

The umbrella market is apparently a few floors of umbrella shops, conveniently all in one place for your umbrella shopping needs.

We wandered through all of these back alleys until we found a good umbrella, which Joey haggled for, most shops we went to only had one or two, and I paid 150 Taka ($2) for a decent umbrella. They had this really great umbrella there too, but it was 450 Taka ($6) and Joey wouldn't let me buy it because it was a "big price". Then, Joey took us back to the main street, put us in a CNG, PREPAID the driver for us to get back to the mall/shopping center that we started from, and sent us on our way. We tried to offer him some money for his time, but he wasn't having it. So, all in all, my first excursion into Chittagong was a success, as evidenced by my new umbrella.

These photos are all from the rooftop two floors up from our flat in Chittagong.

to the south...
to the east...
and to the west again.