A visit to the permanent campus site with the Science Club

This weekend, me and the other advisor took the science club to the permanent AUW campus site on The Big Yellow Bus (more on that later in the post).
Here the architect's design for what it will look like:For now, we are in four small buildings in the middle of Chittagong and there are no buildings at the permanent site yet. Here is what the site looks like right now:
It's completely undeveloped--very hilly with a valley that runs through it. The valley is usually wet and in the rainy season is a river. It's an absolutely beautiful location and it's quiet, the air seems cleaner and there's breeze--and it's all still within the city of Chittagong! The 'paved' road goes into the entrance of the land and then narrows to a footpath, which ends in a very steep path down to the valley floor. There are several walking paths around, but we didn't get to explore quite as much as I had hoped this day. There's always next time.....
There are a few families who live near the site/ on the site and work as guards and caretakers (I think there are a fair number of squatters, too--which I can't blame--I'd love to live out there where it's quiet and pretty but still be essentially in town). There are the usual chickens, goats and cows, which help keep the weeds down anyway. Here's a little kid who was super cute: And of course there are the standard bored-looking guards with fake-looking guns.....

We took the Science Club as a fun outing--we brought some insect nets and jars, I brought a plant identification book and some crayons/paper for leaf rubbings. I'd like to go back with some binoculars (saw a lot of great birds) and a magnifying glass and some more collection containers for insects! Here we all are:
The students really had a fun time and filled up all the jars we had with numerous bugs.

The guards were very curious to know what a bunch of girls were doing keeping insects in jars. Here's them inspecting our collection from a "safe" distance (notice the few jars on the ground in the lower left):

And here's our collection close up:
I climbed up one of the hills and took this picture of the students down below:
We identified a lot of plants (at least to family and a few genus), looked at parts of flowers, talked about some of the plant/animal interactions and generally enjoyed just being outside!
The students are stuck in the couple buildings we have 24/7--they eat, sleep, go to school there and there's no green space or personal space. At all. So they were really glad to get out for the afternoon! I took some of them down a pretty treacherous little path to the valley floor to see the water--this photo doesn't even show how steep it was--these two girls are running down.
And, as I mentioned earlier, we got to take The Big Yellow Bus. Here's the bus navigating traffic on its way to school to pick up the students. You'll notice it's larger than any other vehicle on the road by a LOT. I think it's the largest vehicle I've EVER seen in Bangladesh.
Every single one of the vehicles in the above photo was honking their horn because this bus just clogs up the whole road. Here's what it looks like from inside: Where are we going to fit?

This big bus only gets taken out for times when you have a lot of people. It literally takes two people to 'drive' it. Nur at the wheel and his assistant who leans out the door and yells and then gets out to clear traffic out of the way and check to see if the bus has enough space to pass between power lines/signs/other various crap. It's quite the sight to see and it's also fun to see people's expressions at watching it inch down the road. I think the top speed i've experienced is around 20 mph it's mostly a lot of stop-n-go. I wonder how fast it can go?......
Our driver, Nur, is amazing. He's so friendly and smiley and laid back and all he does is fight insane traffic all day. I always want to give him a big hug when he delivers us somewhere safely, but sadly men and women don't touch in this culture.
Here's a final photo of Nur at the wheel. We all literally owe this guy our lives many times over.