Some things I will and will not miss about Chittagong....and me in saris

In accordance with my effort to increase the number of blog posts before my time is finished here, (countdown of four weeks, people!) First, I have a few random photos and then a few of me wearing saris at various events.

The first two photos are an example of something I will not miss. The insane street construction in front of our apartment building.
Keep in mind, this street was completely smoothed out with manual labor and newly paved ONE YEAR AGO. It has completely disintegrated and now looks like this:


Some of those potholes are large enough for an adult to drown in. It's actually the dry season now, but the reason it's all wet is because they're reconstructing the critical waste ditches on either side of the road, so the liquid and semi-solid waste that normally flow on either side of the road have no place to go....

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These next two photos I did not take myself, (thank you internet) but are my favorite food in Bangladesh.
Fushka. or you can also spell it phuchka. The sound of the word is a combination of those two words.
Anyway, they're something I will definitely miss. If you can't tell what they are, they're small, crispy fried hollow shells filled with mashed-potato, chick peas, onion and green chili mixture, topped with some onion, spices, cilantro and maybe a bit of crispy chana chur or a bit of chopped egg. With spicy tamarind sauce. My favorite version involves yogurt over the top like the one on the left, called Doi Fushka. I will try to get a photo of me eating some before I leave.














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This next one is somewhat random, but a very common occurrence. This is a crowd of people at a fence staring at the two westerners. I will not miss this.

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And now, as promised, a series of Amber-in-a-sari.

I've been practicing wrapping them and have definitely improved. I'm above-average for a white person, but by no means proficient yet. I think "draping" is a much more correct term--it's very similar to draping a dress you'd like to sew but you're using yourself as the mannequin.

This first one is a borrowed silk sari--very comfy to wear, but impossible to wrap. So slippery and smooth! This photo was taken by my good friend, Se-woong (I don't know what's up with the soft-filter effects.....) The sari was wrapped by another good friend, Shahirah. This night was one I will never forget either and I will definitely miss our good times together.

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This next photo is taken at a recent dinner party at one of the upper management's house. He has a liquor connection, so we were drinking a glass of port! Yum! This is an awesome fellow faculty and all-around great gal, Jenny. She had submitted her PhD thesis mere hours before this photo was taken. Congratulations, Dr. Jenny! I will certainly miss hanging with you and your awesome boyfriend and playing cribbage and laughing!

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This next two are of me and my environmental policy class. It was "school picture day" for the yearbook and the students told me ahead of time "in case you want to wear a sari, professor" The one on the left is with the Nepali contingency minus the one holding the camera.

This class has been amazing to teach--both for me as a professor and I think also for the students. I was very nervous to design a course from scratch and teach it without ever having taken a policy class or taught a class formatted in this way. Definitely something I will miss. They continuously to impress me with their consistently strong critical thinking skills, communication and vision.











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And here's one of me and my most enthusiastic summer research student. I just wrote a blog post about the poster session this was taken at, but this one makes the sari look especially nice.


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And finally, I attended a 5-year old's birthday party this weekend and this is a not-so-great photo of the two of us with her (unpictured) cake. She's the daughter of the other chemistry professor and pretty hilarious. All the little girls at the party were dressed like her (very pouffy, ruffly candy-like dressed) and many of them (despite being under the age of 10) had lots of makeup on. I'm glad I wore my sari because I was the only foreigner at the party and EVERYONE had very fancy saris on!