A weekend with Firoj; The heart of Bangladesh Part 1 BAU

Friday 29/8/08 we spent touring the Bangladesh Agriculture University (BAU) in Mymensingh. It is huge! Our friends Kamal and Masuda from Adelaide have a cousin there who hosted us (and took us to meet most their family on Saturday). We went to so many different sections of the university and met so many students and heads of departments and professors all of whom offered to do anything they could to help us and many of whom fed us! It is amazing that what is expected of a university is so much more basic here. Classrooms have 1 blackboard (the lucky ones get a white board too) and desks are like we see in museums. .... but the students are strongly committed to both their studies and their university! Many international universities are collaborating with BAU which is great to see.

Steve has noticed a lack of radiator caps in place in many different places. They were not on the horticulture tractor either. "That's where you put the water!" was the reply to "Why no radiator caps?". I really enjoyed the horticulture area remembering my childhood on the orchard. I was most interested in the multi-storey horticulture too. Many of the fruits we do not have in South Australia. We both quite liked something they call a big lemon. It looked like a brownish grapefruit and tasted citrusy but sort of sweet and sour.

We had lunch in Firoj's dormitory with various friends dropping by to say hi. They were interesting and had many questions for us. I wish students at home would hang on my every word like that!

The day was (theoretically) completed with a boat ride on the Brahmaputra River and hearing a solo from a friend of Firoj's. That was amazing and restful. Who would have thought a year ago I would be cruising the Brahmaputra with my own private oarsman!

Then we went to see an "auntie". Firoj had tutored many of her children for 5 years so she was very special to him. She feed us various homemade cakes. We discovered in Bangladesh cake can be savoury!

A wonderful day,however,we never really got used to being "important guests"

Jeanette