I wrote this post about a week ago. There is an ebb and flow of “things are fine” and “things suck, when are we leaving.” While I try to stay on the “things are fine” side of life, it’s not always possible. Things are fine now, but I’m still going to press “publish.” The security situation here has made things difficult, and this is one of the challenging realities of life in Dhaka. Anyway, here you go.
We have been here for 10 months now. Time is flying, and I’m thankful for that.
Life in Dhaka hasn’t been easy lately for me. I am an outdoorsy person, and I feel like here the most outdoor exposure is getting into the car and back out again. And it really sucks.
When we were initially looking at the bid list before coming here, there were all these places that we ranked low because we wouldn’t be able to go out and do much. Now, all those places, like Saudi Arabia, seem like they’d be wonderful because, while we’d be living on a large compound, at least we’d be able to walk around the compound. Here I can’t even walk out the front gate of my apartment building. There’s a beautiful park a few blocks away with a playground, and M will never get to play there. Heck, he might never even get to actually set foot on an unguarded road here.
The other day I was daydreaming about what it would be like to be able to walk on the streets here, and I was thinking about taking M and Athena for a walk together. I started wondering whether it would be best to put him in his Ergo carrier, or to put him in the stroller. If I put him in the Ergo and someone shoots at me, then he could get shot too. So maybe the stroller would be best. But people here drive like maniacs and what if his stroller got hit by a car? I mentioned all this to Nate, and he said that tactically the Ergo would be best so that we could more easily escape from a dangerous situation. And you know the really sad part? I am not worrying about crazy scenarios that could never happen. These are actual possibilities.
If anyone had ever told me I’d be seriously mulling over things like this I’d have told them they were bat-shit insane.
Things aren’t really that bad, but sometimes the bad overpowers the good.
According to Athena 