The strangest Christmas...ever...

My gentle readers, I am back in Sylhet after two days of Christmas meyham in the tea gardens of Srimongol. I can not even convey how much of a needed break it was to get away from my new host family and be with Americans. I met the Sylheti crew as they headed south towards Srimongol and I jumped on their bus. After getting to Srimongol we ate at a very scary restaurant in which the food was all cold. My tummy was queesy all weekend but again I am suprised that I am not sick. Really my body is handling the food really well except for rice which I fricken hate now. After our dinner we grabbed our packs and headed for the tea gardens. Nothing like 4 Peace Corps volunteers with all their crap on their backs riding on rickshaws in total darkness out in the middle of nowhere. Actually if I were in Mongolia right now I would be in the middle of nowhere and certainly not surrounded by trillions of Bangladeshis....

Anyway, we arrived to the tea resort and met up with the other volunteers who were already there. We had rented two cabins and as we arrived to settle into the other cabin the drinking games had already begun. It was at that point that I realized I was the only B8. You see the B7's and the B8's got off to a bad start and there is lets see what do the Bangladeshis say...? Heavy tension. But it was cool they were nice and shared their really bad gin and peanut butter with me and life was good. Someone had also gone into the forest and brought back a branch of some or other plant that served as our Christmas tree and someone else had a bit of red ribbon and a key chain that served as the ornaments. And of course the crowning glory was a star someone tore and fashioned out of card board. We had a wonderful time that night and we sang Christmas carols and played Taboo and someone found a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom that the staff had brought up for us. Of course since none of us use toilet paper anymore we just used the roll to toilet paper the room, add more decoration to our tree and otherwise make a mess. Later I got grilled by my comrades about the "inner" secrets of the B8 group. Why does everyone hate this person? Who else is leaving? Is it true that so and so are sleeping together? Blah blah blah.... and since we have cell phones I was made to call and harrass other B7's cause no one knows my voice. But I think I warmed my way into their hearts and I certainly have a store house of gossip to bring back to the B8's. Heh .... heh.... heh......

Christmas morning found most of us feeling like crap (I wonder why?) and the fact that Stephanie woke us up at 6AM did not help. So we went to the tree to open our secret santa gifts. The Japanese volunteer did not show up and so the B7's divided my gift up among themselves. But they were sweet enough to bring me some gifts. My secret santa got me this really ugly statue of a half naked woman with a vase. Here in Bangladesh statues such as these are refered to as "show pieces". Um yeah. They said it reminded them of a belly dancer. Ok mabey a belly dancer at a freak circus but hey it s cool. They also got me a tea pot and a blanket for my new apartment. Yay.

Later in the day we went swimming in the pool at the resort, and when I say resort just think of the crappiest hotel in the US. But for hear that is pretty swanky. So we went swimming and since I did not have a swiming suit I swam in my shalwar kameez. Then I layed in the sun and ate oranges and no one stared at me. Bliss. Later we went into Srimongol for lunch and snacks and got back to the resort around 2pm. That is when we went on our monkey hunt. So there we were tramping through the jungle looking for monkeys. We heard something but found no monkeys I am sad to say. Next time... We also upgraded one of our cabins to a "delux" and I got to sleep on a real mattress (which they did not bother to change the sheets from the last quests cause I found a hair ball in my bed but thats better than a cockroach) and I had a HOT shower!!! Praise the Baby Jesus. After I got cleaned up we sat down to watch "Its a Wonderful Life" on Nicks DVD player and Hannah gave him a hair cut. Of course cocktail hour and h'deovres had been served (bad gin, peanut butter and pringles) and Nick came back with a bowl cut. (he is at the moment I write this at a barber here in Sylhet getting it fixed). We laughed so hard. I mean he looked like a medieval squire or something. We just hung out before dinner and talked and the conversation went something like this.... "God the B8's are SO annoying! What a bunch of wooses. Except you Maya. Leaving in droves dropping like flies, the brown nosing butt kissing jerks! Except you Maya. Goodie Goodies they are the lot of them! Except you Maya. We hate them! Except you Maya. ..... ummm thanks......

So then we went for our Christmas dinner. We requested Western food and are you ready...? We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, cauliflower with REAL cheese on it, cucumber and tomato salad, dinner rolls and gravy!!! HEAVEN! We gorged.

Then we went back to the cabin for some more meyham which I will not go into detail now because this entry is long enough and both my grandmothers read this blog. I went to sleep and then traveled back to Sylhet, which is where I am now in a new internet cafe. Tomorrow we have our new security meeting and we are going to touch base with a lot of the issues that we are facing in Bangladesh. B8's think we are leaving. B7's think we are staying. Who really can say.

So I hope you all had a lovely holiday and enjoyed yourselves. I will write again soon. All I can say is that mass amounts of stress have been relieved and I feel a lot better. Also I will be moving into my new place soon and am looking foreward to that.

Be well.

M

p.s. the Tea Gardens are stunningly beautiful.... Che we are going to them when you come.....

p.s.s. the hotel here in Sylhet has a bathtub ... score for me... ohh and cable with English movies... double score....