Week something or other - just another week in BD

Well, we went to Mymensingh again this week, up on Tuesday morning (9:30 arrival) and back on Wednesday afternoon (15:30 departure).
As usual, there was a freshly destroyed bus on the side of the road, in each direction. The number of road accidents involving buses is horrific.
Last week, Jeanette & I travelled separately to Mymensingh, and she asked if I saw the crashed bus. When I said I had, she asked if the bloke wa still sitting on top of it. I gave her a puzzled look, the bus I saw had its roof on the road, next to a big tree, with the bus another 50 metres down the road and anyone sitting on it would have had a nasty fright. She was talking about a different one, on its side, in a pond nect to the road!
The weather is definitely changing, cooler now in the evenings, still hot & humid during the day, but without rain, the dust and pollution is certainly picking up - and there is worse to come. There are brickworks throughout Bangladesh, and they make lots of ... bricks. (Who would have thunk!),
This is important as Bangladesh has very little gravel or rock, so hordes of people get paid incredibly poorly to convert bricks into rubble. The brickworks are invariably situated on the flood plains and covered with water during the wet season, dug out after the wet season and put to work at about the same time as the rain stops (to clean the air). The brickworks use a poor quality local coal for fuel, so we wait, with baited breath, for the myriad of black soot and ash belching chimneys to stir to life in the coming weeks.
Enough about the weather.
Jeanette started her English Language (for report writers) this week. Task 1 is to identify the best candidates. She had 2 groups of 15 that she worked with and ran them through a number of exercises to find out their English Language skills. She is currently marking these (do teachers ever stop marking?). She was a little uncertain how to do the English language training, but having started, she a strategy is developing (in true Bangla fashion).
I (Stephen) am still getting the wiring correct so that the network work can proceed. Computers are a disruptive technology, and there is no way to be contextually sensitive with them. Either you do things correctly or they don't work!
Actually if you do some things incorrectly, they mostly work, but cause obscure problems later. This is worse than not working, because when you point out to the locals that it is done incorrectly, and they point out that it works – therefore it doesn't matter. Later when there are obscure problems, they are puzzled why they are there (the problems that is)
So much learning is by rote or empirical (trial and error), that the only way to implement or encourage change is by demonstration – and the benefit has to be immediate.
Appealing to any sort of theoretical concepts will eventually drive you under the covers in a foetal position.
We are thankful that the weather is cooling. The A/C in the lounge blew its compressor last week and the exchange rate is down yet again.
C'est la vie

Cheers, from Steve & Jeanette

42 potatoes.. reflections on teaching (and learning) language.

42 potatoes.. reflections on teaching (and learning) language.
So we are half way through our stay in Bangladesh. Steve has written his report and my two ladies are in Australia.
Lots more things impact on teaching and learning language in a different place than I had really thought about. Culture, climate, accents, emphasises and the way you use your lips and tongue all matter! Much is "Not wrong; just different!"


There is a sound made by rolling you tongue back on the roof of your mouth that we find difficult. Bangla has several aspirated sounds which require far more breath that we don't put into speech, and they roll their "r's" in a way good Aussies definitely DON'T! 'ch and 'p', on the other hand, they find very difficult. I taught 'ch' as a sneeze, complete with head movement. 'p' was confused with 'f'. Leaving the lips together as a part of making a sound they found quite difficult.

One of the ladies was showing me some photos of her project work. The photo quality was not very good so I was unsure what was being distributed. She was definitely saying kg (their word for kilogram). I thought it was 42 kg but I could not work out 42 kg of what. Eventually we worked out that she was trying to say potatoes. Her p sounded like a'f'; I heard the toes as two so with knowing it was kg turned it to 42 in my head! Hence 42 potatoes. We both laughed and laughed.

Another one that had me really puzzled was zender. It turned out to be gender. 'gs' and 'zs' seem to be almost swapped. Zia sounds like Gia to us. In that case it is a name so we say Gia ... with gender it was important the ladies learnt how the say it... for the gender awareness programmes our organisation runs! 'vs' and 'bs' are a bit the same.
We were have trouble with someone's name "It is easy for you. Novel, like the prize" they told us. "Which prize?" we asked. "You know, the Novel peace prize." "We do now!" we said. ...and to quote Winnie the Pooh "I hope you do too because that's all the explanation your going to get!" "Not wrong; just different!"
Accent... it was very scarey at times to hear myself back in the way the ladies spoke! One of the ladies in particular, had a very keen ear and the ability to mimic. (I wish I did. I may have leanrt more Bangla!) Anyway I would hear my own voice is the way she said some words that she had found difficult eg now. As I said above 'p' was a sound they found hard.
When I heard 'plant' with a South Australian accent I thought "OH NO!" The ladies are not going to South Australia so I did my best to teach plant in 'eastern state' Sorry to the Western Australians... not sure how you say it! "Not wrong; just different!"
Culture.. well that impacts on everything. "Not wrong; just different!" It was departure day and the ladies were staying in our home. I was transferring some money online. Most transactions are done in cash here so I thought I would show them what I was doing. They use computers to email reports etc but they didn't really seem to understand what I was showing them. After I finished I went in the kitchen were they were getting their breakfast. They were going to cook their bread in a fry pan. They had never seen a toaster! When I put the bread in they stood and watched it! "Not wrong; just different!"
When we were learning Bangla, our teacher showed us a model of a bangla knife. I love to watch a cook using them (if they will let me) It is used on the floor and held still with the foot. It has a crescent shaped blade on the upper side which is VERY sharp. (see the photos) the skill with it is amazing!
"Not wrong, just different!"
Jeanette

Nepal

Nepal
What do I say about Nepal. It was an unexpected gift from above. It is so beautiful. It is still very poor and has more problems with power than Bangladesh having over sold hydro to India.... although our hotel had a VERY good generator so we were unaffected. I have more pics this time because... well you know me and my camera!

It was much less humid than Bangladesh which was a refreshing change. It was also nice to be a tourist! Steve was unwell so we didn't see as much as we might have but it was extra an that we never expected, while in Banlgadesh. It was nice to see hills again.. anything under 2000 metres in Nepal... and some mountains as well.

We saw the mandatory temples.


Stephen was given a greeting and offered a photo but these tourist savy people got money out of us for this. I bought some western clothes, jewelery and some nice scarves.


The Himalaya are just breathtakingly beautiful. We didn't see Everest BUT it was the best weather of our trip. I literally cried at their beauty!


Flat tires happen anywhere and Steve was ready with his torch!

A drive to Daman enabled us to see more stunning scenery.

The houses had a special appeal too.

Filling the car with fuel was interesting

It was market pick day/time and it was interesting watching radishes being collected for market.

A boy hopped on one side a large scales. The large bag of radishes then went on next to him as he hoped over to the other side. Weights were added a the total weight or radishes recorded.

The mountain water was freely available and so... good. Woman carry a heavy load... as do many old men but the children skip for joy.