I’ve been here in Rayenda for a week and a bit now and I’m starting to settle in and get comfortable. I was originally a bit scared that the program would be full of super serious save the world types and I’d have to adapt to a life without silliness. Fortunately there are some very funny people here and seriousness hasn’t been an option. I’ve even found a couple who enjoy talking about poo as much as I do (is there anything more funny than poo?) so that’s provided even more entertainment for my sick and twisted mind.

There are about 25 of us in the house but I’m having no problems at all coping with that. I think living in squalor in London for so many years has prepared me for living in close quarters with lots of other people… and mice and the occasional cockroach. All up though I think the setup here is great. My room is quiet, the bunk beds are sturdy and now that I’ve hooked myself up with a pillow and a blanket life is good.

Some things I’ve learned in my short time here:

• I’m getting used to the world of squat toilets and have only peed down the side of my leg once.
• I’ve accepted the fact that Bangladeshi chocolate has been somehow robbed of all taste.
• I’ve learned that to avoid being served huge amounts of food when a guest in someone’s home you have to counter their surprise serving attack with a two-handed plate cover and a shout of ‘na!’
• I’m ok with the staring and have grown used to having 15 locals help me buy grapes in the market or follow me home.
• I’ve got some insider information on the location of the only market stall that sells cold drinks and ice cream and have a source to lead me to the place that sells ketchup.
• I’ve accepted the fact that the power will go out at least five times each night.
• I’ve gained a new appreciation for lentils and accepted my forced quasi-vegetarianism.
• I’ve gotten used to kids asking my name and country 450,000 times as I walk down the street.

And most importantly I’m just really happy to be here in this great community and looking forward to all the other little things Bangladesh has in store for me.

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I’m happy that the prime requirement for working with Hands On Disaster Response is a sense of humour because I think my construction skills leave much to be desired. So far I’ve acted as a diversion to keep a massive group of teenage girls away from the other volunteers who were attempting to build a house, pounded mud with a cricket bat in an attempt to repair a foundation, and been a gopher while the rest of the team worked on constructing the roof of a new school. So far I haven’t fallen off of anything and have only had one thing fall onto me. Pretty good going, I say. I’ve been doing some sawing, pounding, hammering, measuring, lifting and water fetching. All great skills for the resume.

On Saturday I’ll be joining four other people who will be building a ‘HODR Half’. The ‘HODR’ part stands for the organisation, ’Hands on Disaster Response’ and the ‘Half’ is a half a house. The idea with the half houses is that HODR will get a basic, sound structure up that can be expanded later by the homeowner if they want. So instead of having a pointy, triangle shaped roof, they’ve got a half roof that sort of slopes downwards making it easier to build an extension onto the front of it.

I really don’t know much about construction so I’m hoping the other team members don’t mind teaching me the way of the HODR Half. I’m pretty keen to work on a house from start to finish, even in a gopher, water-fetching capacity if need be. I think it’s about time I fall off a roof though, so hopefully I’ll be able to get more involved.

We’re just about to finish up a school that will replace a tarp that the students are currently working under. When they’re not in class they’re always hanging around the site which, with pointy things occasionally sliding off the roof, probably isn’t the safest. It’s handy having them around though because they’re eager to help and we’re happy to get them to pass us stuff and cart wood around. Yay to child labour.

The community members around the school have been taking turns making lunch for us and are always around to offer help, have a nap inside the structure, or to just stare at us. When we walked home the other day we had a trail of about 10 people lingering behind us for quite a while but everyone is really nice and it’s great to feel like the community is involved.

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It looks like I’ve fallen victim to the difficulties of keeping my blog updated. It’s not because I don’t have time to do it but that I’ve sort of lost touch with the blogging world for now. It’s difficult to write about blogging and earning online when I don’t have much time to check out other blogs, message boards and tinker with methods of earning online.

I’ve got lots to report on the travel side of things though and am still amazed at how easy and cheap it is to get online here in Bangladesh! Work as a volunteer is really great and rewarding and the people here are really cool. It rained today and I managed to get some little things done on my Wanderstruck site which is encouraging but I’ve still got loads to do. Luckily we’ve got two more days off and I’m planning to hit the site building thing really hard tomorrow.

I’m hoping to finally get this sponsers/fundraising page done so I can put the word out. I’m hoping that other bloggers will be interested in writing a post about what I’m attempting so it will be interesting from a marketing aspect to see if I can generate a bit of interest from around the web. I think I’ll make it my aim to get included in those weekly round-up type posts that bloggers tend to do.

On Friday a bunch of us are planning to head to the Sundarbans National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage site and apparently home to Bengal tigers. We’ll be attempting to bribe our way in in order to avoid having to hire an official boat and armed guard. I think we’ll be taking our interpreter with us who knows which strings to pull and we’ll see what happens. Should be pretty funny if nothing else!

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First off let me give you a piece of important advice for the next time you find yourself in Bangladesh: Do not, I repeat, do not give your phone number out to Bangladeshi men. I now have three semi-stalkers and have around 10 missed calls per day. The one that keeps calling me the most doesnt even speak English so I’m not too sure where this relationship is headed.

The people here are really sweet though… in an intense, in your face kind of way. I’d heard about the staring and the celebrity status things and didn’t really buy it, but it’s true. I went for a walk through the market and by the end had accumulated an entourage of about 20 people. Nearly everyone who passes by us, especially children, ask what I think are the only questions they know in English: “What is your name? What is your country?” It’s cute the first few times but then gets a bit annoying. I think I’m going to start telling them my name is Shaneequa and I’m from Antarctica.

I went out to snap some photos yesterday with my big ass camera and bigger ass lens which attracted a crowd everywhere I went. I got chatting to a guy who works for a local newspaper and he invited me to his home where his wife force fed me fish with heads still on it and this black paste stuff that was like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. I have to say that I’m getting a lot braver with my food choices which is great but I’m not sure my stomach likes me anymore.

The community seems really lovely, I feel totally safe, the people are friendly and the scenery is beautiful. I’m not sure I have a good idea of how much devastation the cyclone caused. There are plenty of people living under tarps and plenty more building new houses where their old ones used to stand but I haven’t really explored the area too much just yet so I’m sure things are a lot worse than Ive seen.

I’m anxious to get my hands dirty and get out to see more of the community. So far I’m really happy to be involved with Hands On. The house we’re in is great, the people are all really friendly and the disaster response program seems really well organised.

I’m going to be annoying again and hassle you for money so beware. If you’d like to donate to the project, head to their sponsors page. Thanks!

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I’m in a pretty remote part of Bangladesh and online without any problems. Very cool. There are actually a whole load of people in the room clicking and tapping away at their computers as well.

I’ll keep this short because I’ve got to go work on my donations page over at my new site but I just wanted to say thanks to Ki from Oslo for Beginners and Samuel from Group Accommodation for $50 each. I thought I’d add your links here in case I don’t finish the new page for a bit.

If anyone else would like to snag a link on my soon to be established fund raising site then check out HODR’s sponser’s page, contribute at least $25 on behalf of me (Kirsty Henderson) and then forward the confirmation email my way. I’ve got tomorrow off so will work on the page tomorrow and have something up and running tomorrow night I hope. These guys really are doing some amazing work here but I think fundraising is always an issue so get involved if you can!

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Things started out on track this morning with Jewel putting me on a 10am bus destined for who knows where and arranging for the driver to help me transfer to get to my final destination of Rayenda. He even gave me a crash course in Bengali and wrote down some phrases. For the record, ’toilet’ in Bengali is ‘toilet’. Who knew?

Once on the bus I held people’s stares for a little while but eventually they lost interest in me and decided to sleep themselves instead of observing me sleep. How rude of them. After driving for only about 30 minutes we sat in what seemed like a bus parking lot for about two hours, inching forward a few feet every 20 minutes or so. I didn’t have a clue what was going on and nearly peed my pants because I was too afraid to get off the bus in case it suddenly decided to leave. I made a dash when things got desperate though and the bus remained locked in it’s location for another hour after that.

The food looked mostly scary so I subsisted on a few grapes a young university student sitting next to me shared with me and some little chocolate bars I bought in Manila. As the bus inched forward I finally realized that we were in a massive queue waiting for a ferry to take us across some mystery body of water. Getting onto the boat seemed to take a zillion years and getting across seemed to take a zillion more but by about 3pm we were cruising down the centre of the highway honking constantly so that anything smaller would get the hell out of the way.

Driving… driving… driving… sun going down… something isn’t right here. Jewel told me I would be transferring to the second bus at about 4pm at it was well past 7pm at this point. I was actually feeling strangely calm. I sort of like it when I really don’t have a clue how to get somewhere and things are just left to chance so I just listened to some music, relaxed and assumed that I’d make it there somehow.

Well I didn’t make it there. I did, however, make it to a small desk by the side of the road with a kerosene lantern on it and a bunch of men crowded around. The bus driver got off the bus, carried my bag to the desk, explained to the desk guy that I wanted to go to Rayenda and then headed back to drive the bus after holding it up for 15 minutes for my sake.

I sat down beside the table while desk man made a phone call and about 30 other guys gathered around me to stare. Only one of them seemed to speak English and he offered to buy me a tea and we chatted a little bit – where from, what is your qualification, what is your name etc. It wasnt the most inspiring conversation in the world, but it wasn’t the least, either. The tea was tasty but there were mystery floaties in it. I can handle hard floaties but these were kind of soft, gooey floaties so getting the drink down took a bit of concentrating on not spewing on my part.

Desk man told English speaking man that there were no more buses to Rayenda that night and I would have to stay in a hotel until the next morning. About 3 of the staring men took my phone number and desk man, whose name is Mona, led me away to another bus. He carried my bag and wouldn’t let me pay him for my fare and we drove up the road for a few minutes while the entire bus, you guessed it, stared at me.

Then we boarded another bus where I sat right at the front beside the driver. Mona smoked a cigarette and he, the driver, and about 10 men hanging around the front of the bus had a long, animated conversation which seemed to be about buses to Rayenda and hotels in the nearby town. All while staring at me because I am fascinating, after all.

So now, thanks to Mona, I’m sitting comfortably in a hotel room fielding phone calls from random Bangladeshi men and once again amazed at the kindness of strangers. Mona arranged for his brother to meet me tomorrow morning in the hotel lobby to take me back to the desk that I’m guessing is some kind of bus ticket thing place.

So tomorrow I’ll have a second attempt at making my way to Rayenda. If the rest of my days in Bangladesh are anything like this one then I’m in for some very good times.

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I’m here and I have no idea what I was ever worried about. I was met at the airport by a guy called Jewel who runs a beautiful place called Greenhouse B&B. He picked me up, got me settled and then this morning he pretty much became my personal assistant. He sorted me out with a mobile phone (I am finally the reluctant owner of a camera phone after fighting the power for years), an internet connection, and he even went to the bus station for me and waited three hours to try and buy me a ticket!

The phone and net connection means that I can get my laptop online from anywhere and I don’t even need a contract or anything, I can just pay by the month. It was the easiest thing ever to set up and I can’t imagine things ever going so smoothly in the UK or Canada. I am very impressed so far and really looking forward to heading down south and getting started with some work.

So what am I doing in Bangladesh, anyway? I’ll be working with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR) which is an American organisation that was started up to help out after the tsunami. They’ve done work in The Philippines after a typhoon, Peru after the earthquake last year, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and I think they’ll be helping out in the US again in the region hit by tornadoes recently. In Bangladesh they’re working in the area hit last year by Cyclone Sidr which flattened homes and left well over 3,000 people dead.

I learned about the organisation while I was researching The Philippines and decided to try and volunteer with them if they ever had a project near to where I was. Bangladesh isn’t exactly on the way to China from The Philippines but it is a great opportunity to help out with what seems like a wonderful organisation and I’ll get to know a lot about Bangladesh, a country I’ve really never considered going to in the past. What’s travel witout a bit of spontanaeity and adventure, anyway?

According to HODR’s website, it costs $425 US to build a house for a family and I’m going to attempt to raise that amount. I’ve chucked in $50 towards the cause so that leaves $375 to be raised. So if you want to help out a family and get that warm, fuzzy feeling you can make a donation on their secure donations page. It might even be me who helps build the house! Although in that case, I fear for the family!

If you’re a computer nerd like me and have a website you want to promote, I’ll add a link to your site on a sponsors page for a donation of $25. If you’re an American then I think the donations are tax deductable. Just make sure you email me once you’ve made a donation so I can keep track of the total and post a thank you to you on my site. No amount is too small… or too big.

Ok well that’s it for now. I’ll check in again from a place called Rayenda. Can’t wait to get there and get my hands dirty. Not sure what they’ll have me doing but the main requirement for working with them is a sense of humour so I’m sure I can manage that.

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I’ve arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh and things aren’t nearly as scary as I’d expected! I’m staying at a great B&B where the owner has practically become my PA for the day and has me all set up with a new phone and I’m even online with it! I can pay monthly for unlimited web browsing for something like $15 and no contract. Bangladesh might be the surprise country for online workers.

I’m heading down to the volunteering place tomorrow morning early. I just wanted to do a bit of begging before I go. I’ll be working with Hands On Disaster Response and on their website they say that they can build a family a house for $425. I thought it’d be a good idea to try and raise enough for a house so I’m hoping some of you might want to help out.

Donations can be made on their secure donations page. If you’re a web nerd like me and have a site to promote I will add a link to Wanderstruck on a permanent sponsers page (that I have yet to create) for anyone who donates $25. Help a family, get that warm, fuzzy feeling and get a cheap permanent link to boot! It’s win win win.

This will be a bit of a test to see if I can use my websites to raise money for volunteering projects I participate in. The sponsers page will be linked straight from the homepage so I think in the long run it will turn into a valuable link. The idea is to keep adding links as more people donate… sort of like a wall of fame, I guess.

The only issue is that the donations go straight to the organisation so you will have to email me to let me know that you’ve sent them money and how much. Just stick my name (Kirsty Henderson) in the ‘on behalf of’ box so I can verify and then email me with your link and anchor text. No dodgy sites please!

That’s it for now. I was planning on being offline for the next five weeks but it looks like I’ll be sticking around after all thanks to Bangladesh’s surprise internet infrastructure. I’ll post a spending update for The Philippines shortly.

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I love hostels. I love hanging out, meeting interesting people from all over the world and when I find a place I really like and have nowhere else I need to be I have a real hard time leaving. I could always say I like to stick around in places because I want to get to know them better but in reality, I’m probably just lazy.

I’ve been staying at Friendly’s Guesthouse here in Manila and it’s a wicked place to hang out. There’s free wifi and a beautiful rooftop terrace for getting some serious amounts of work done and a beer fridge nearby which has prevented me from getting serious amounts of work done.

I’m sort of torn because I know there are some fantastic people staying here that I’ve had a lot of fun with so far but I’ve got my flight to Bangladesh scheduled for Monday. I wish I could hang around here even just for a few weeks longer to get to know everyone a bit better because there are some really interesting characters in this place.

It really does prove that the people you meet have a huge impact on your impressions of a city. I never expected to like Manila and didn’t intend on spending anymore time here than I had to but I’ve ended up having a great time. I even scammed a free week of accommodation and beer for redoing the hostel’s website and know that anytime I return to the city, Benjie will be there with a warm welcome.

I’m sure I’ll meet some amazing people in Bangladesh so I’ll leave my fate up to the visa man at the Bangladeshi embassy. So far no sign of my visa and one application has been lost. I’m not sure if he’s just incompetent or expecting a bribe from me or what. Whatever is going on with the visa, I’d be quite happy to hang around Manila a wee while longer so if my application goes AWOL again. The lazy part of me kinda hopes it does!

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