Because of Moose Gum Soup...

So the reason I am in Bangladesh (contrary to my noble reasons of discovering my limits and educating children) is because of Moose Gum Soup. "Whats this," you say" Moose Gum Soup?!" First of all for those of you who do not live in North America, a moose is the largest deer like mammal on the planet. It has a large set of splayed horns it uses to scratch on trees, fight of other males, and otherwise make itself look even taller. Native American ledgend has it that if you are truly in need a moose will bend down on its two front hooves, bow its massive head and sacrifice its life for your own. Ok, someone way back when really needed to cut back on the peyote. So back to Moose Gum Soup. When I was a freshman in college I majored in Anthropology. Though I later graduated with a degree in Education, I really loved and still do love, Anthropology. One day my professor, an extremely tall and manish woman, was lecturing about her work with a tribe. Now here is where I get confused. She was up in Northern Canada so the people cannot be called, "Native Americans", so are they refered to as "Native Canadians"? Or perhaps "Indians"? Indian gets me in trouble here in Bangladesh because and Indian is a person from India. So the "indigenous people of a tribe I do not know the name of in the North Western corner of Saskatchewan", were being studied by my anthropology professor (whose last name I do not remember but whose first name was Margaret.) Dr. Margaret was telling us of her experiences there and as all anthropologists and Peace Corps volunteers do, was telling of her adaptations to new and exciting foods. One day Dr. Margaret's host indigenous family was prepairing a deliscious soup for dinner. Dr. Margaret was tired from a long day of trapping squirrels and writing massive amounts of notes and she was very hungry. Her family served her a heaping bowl of hot soup which was much appreciated and helped to warm her frozen fingers. I am told that Northern Canada is quite cold but as I seem to be destined to live in the hottest places on this planet I shall never know. Anyway, Dr. Margaret dipped her spoon into the yummy soup and began to sip it down. As she lifted her spoon to her mouth she noticed something strange. There were teeth in her soup!!! Moose teeth still attatched to the gum to be exact. Dr. Margaret repressed her urge to vomit as her family smiled and showed her how to chew and suck the rubbery gum meat off. So on that cold evening Dr. Margaret shared a meal with her tribal family eating Moose Gum Soup in the middle of nowhere Canada. My Anthro 101 class was horrified. Dr. Margaret was satisfied and I was mystified. I too wanted to live with the Moose Gum Soup people and eat with them far from anything familiar. And while I have never eaten Moose Gum Soup I can say that I have sucked the marrow from out of a cows femur. It looked like snot, tasted like tapioca pudding and almost made me vomit. On that day I felt like Dr. Margaret and I had something in common, like we had shared a moment out of our cultures and I was doing what I could not do that day in Anthro 101. Eat something totally disgusting.

So what do I miss? Cheese for one. And actually as much as I love red wine I do not miss it all that much. It really is too hot here for red wine.... now a frozen margarita........mmmmmm...

Anyway things are going well and I am having a much better week. We went on a boat ride two days ago and our boat broke down in the middle of this river swamp and a 2 hour return trip took 5 hours so that was fun. I still suck at Bangla but I can manage pretty well on my own and people can get the gist of what I am saying. I know language will come but they put so much pressure on us in training. My host family is alright this week. I find that if I make jokes I can survive my mother's battle axe personality. Also she loves the WWF and they watch it all the time. When Hulk Hogan comes on she yells and claps her hands. I swear America is destroying the world in so many different ways.

And I have to say that I LOVE my class. I am teaching at an all girls college. I have 60 students in my class and as challenging as it is I feel like I can make it here for 2 years because I love teaching so much. The minute I stepped back into the classroom I felt the excitement and love that I used to feel back in Las Cruces when I taught. Its funny though that even though it is "college" my girls have the maturity of 13 year olds. They giggle and whisper and have no attention spans. Also when I ask them what they think about something they have no idea how to respond in part for two reasons. 1 that they are girls and are not supposed to think and 2 they are trained to be regurgitation robots and obey obey obey. I know I have my work cut out for me but mark my words my army of upity Bangladeshi girls is in the making. Bwahahahah.....

Tropical Disease of the week: None. Except the Malaria medication is making my hair fallout. The good news is that because of the humidity my hair (origionally straight) is now frizzy and wavy. So I do not look like I have lost any hair. Blehhhhhhhhh......

I love you all...miss you as well! I have been getting letters! Thank you thank you!! They mean so much!!

Love
M