A little edification about Dhaka

I've been telling everyone that I'm going to start blogging again, particularly about our upcoming adventures. I thought this might be a good starting point...

For those who have not already heard, we are moving to Dhaka, Bangladesh!!! Derek has taken a position with the State Department, Foreign Service. I am giddy with excitement. Unfortunately many of my friends and family seem to be taking our excitement over moving to an overcrowded third world country as a sign of mental illness. So first, let me assure you that, while I may genuinely seem mentally ill at times, there is no correlation between going to Dhaka and my mental health. This will be a great adventure!

I've had several interesting reactions to our recent announcement, the most common of which is "where IS Bangladesh", followed closely by "WHY"?? FYI...we CHOSE Bangladesh! It was number one on our Bid List (the list of available assignments). Canada was number twelve or out twelve, so you can kind of see what direction we were wanting to take on this.

Another common response is "Really?? Bangladesh??? Well...you'll be in our prayers. (imagine a worried face when people say that). While I always appreciate being in someones prayers, I assure you, we are not moving to a Bangladeshi prison camp. This wasn't a sentence, rather a choice. We will be fine. In fact, we will be moving into the Diplomatic Enclave. This is an exclusive part of the city designated for embassies and their employees. There is 24/7 security. Lots of it. We have our very own marines.

The truth is, we will have domestic help and drivers. I know...don't hate me. You know those massive, run down barios that you see in pictures and on TV? That's not where we'll be living. Bottom line...we won't exactly be roughing it. Okay, I take that back. There isn't a Target for like 9,000 miles, but that's only my idea of roughing it and there's always Target online.

I had an interesting conversation with a telemarketer the other day. She called from a company that I had closed an account with, eager to convince me that I desperately needed to continue their services so I explained to her that we were moving. She assured me that their services were available all over the country. I informed her that we were moving to Bangladesh to which she replied "I'm sure they're available there too"!  Seeing that she wasn't really grasping just where Bangladesh might be, I finally explained to her that it was right next to India to which she replied with surprise "Oh! So NOT in America". Now, I'm not trying to be disparaging. I can give you arguments for why 2+2 doesn't necessarily have to equal four. Math isn't really my thing. By the same token, geography isn't really every ones thing. I had to ask Derek where Nebraska was when he told me we were moving here from England and I'm American!

So in the interest of edification and enlightenment, here is your geography lesson for the day. Bangladesh is a small country surrounded on three sides by India and by Nepal to the north. It is almost the exact square mileage as Iowa. While Iowa boasts a selectively exclusive population of just slightly over 3 million, Bangladesh has a vibrant and bustling population of 159,000,000 I know...that's a lot of digits for a country the size of Iowa. The city of Dhaka, where we will be living is home to around 14,000,000 inhabitants. On a transportation note, it is also home to about a zillion cars and over 400,000 rickshaws. I am also told that Elephants periodically cause traffic jams, hence the need for a personal driver. One might question what the occasional elephant might be doing in the middle of a city that large. One must simply assume that elephants do not have GPS.

The country is 90% Muslim, 9% Hindu, and 1% everything else. We fall into that everything else category. For those who are concerned about the heavy slanting towards Muslim, we are told that it is a country of more moderate Muslims, not the extremist Muslims who so commonly make the news by setting relatives on fire.

It is hot there all the time. The only variation is whether it is hot and dry or hot and wet. During the monsoon season,  which is substantial, up to 70 % of the city can be flooded. They can get up to 100 inches of rainfall during the wet season. So it'll be a little like living in Atlantis!

Dhaka sounds like an amazing city. You might be interested to know that is has been one of the premier cities for textile production for over a thousand years and some of the most gorgeous fabrics in the world can be found there.You know what all that textile stuff means? It means I can buy clothes that get sent to large America retailers for a fraction of the cost! So there!

Dhaka is also called the city of Mosques. I think you can imagine how excited I am as a photographer about that! Unfortunately you can only go inside if you are Muslim, but Hey, I'm Mormon, so I kind of get that;-)

I am told that the people are generally warm and friendly and love to have their pictures taken, so that's another huge win for me!

Anyway, I just thought I'd share a little about this amazing city and country with you! Thank you for your prayers! Those are always appreciated. I'm not stupid, there are always aspects that can be dangerous. Like drinking the water, but I get a little nervous in North Omaha too. It's all about being safe and being smart and being aware of your environment.
We are beyond excited at having this amazing opportunity to go on a long overdue second honeymoon and spend some quality Derek and Leni time while having an opportunity to learn about a whole new culture and to meet new people and make new friends, (while, of course, never forgetting our old friends), so if you ever happen to be passing through Dhaka, give us a call!:-)

And then they asked...why??

I don't quite know when the itch started. I guess it's always been there. I loved being in the Air Force and moving around. Regardless of the trials we endured in the Philippines, it was exciting. It was different. I struggled when we came back to America because it all seemed so familiar. So mundane. After the Philippines, it was Colorado and then England and finally Nebraska. It was all good. We enjoyed every assignment.

As a child I used to love maps. I also loved reading and my favorite thing was to read books about places with exotic names. I pictured going to places like Kuala Lumpur and Kathmandu and Abu Dhabi.

How do you decide that a perfect life isn't what you are looking for? Derek retired from the Air Force on September 1, 2001. He missed stop loss by 11 days. The Air Force tried to talk him into staying in After 9/11.  If he hadn't already gotten a good job with a large company, he might have stayed in, but I doubt it. He was ready to settle down. We decided to stay in Nebraska despite my early reservations about moving there. So he got his corporate job and we found a beautiful home and we settled in. The house is 3000 sq. ft. backing a forest. The neighborhood is tidy, established and filled with beautiful trees and we have made a comfortable home there. I'm not sure how to explain. I love all of those things. Our two sons live in the area so we see grandchildren almost daily. I love being near family. My sister lives with us, so we see her everyday. Our daughters family lives in Colorado Springs. They are a day trip away and we see them a few times a year. We have enough money to get by and not struggle, but still I'm restless. I feel ungrateful for not appreciating the many blessings that I enjoy. I do appreciate them. I just want something else too.

Grandmothers are supposed to want to stay home aren't they? Stay home and knit and bake cookies and babysit grandkids. I love doing all of those things...well, not the knitting. And yet...
It just seems to me that this is a really huge planet and they're all of these people and places and cultures and experiences to be had and I want to have them.

So here we are. We do NOT leave our beautiful family behind lightly and we are already planning to budget travel money in to come home for visits, but we want this; we need this and I am eager to see what Heavenly Father might have in store for us!

A fond farewell to corn...

Every great adventure has a beginning and an end. Our Nebraska adventure began when we were living in England. Derek came home one afternoon and announced that we had orders to Omaha, Nebraska. I responded with "Where is Omaha? You know...in relation to the rest of the planet." The second question was, "Whomever you have offended, could you apologize to them and get us out of this? Because, if we are being sent to Nebraska, clearly, you have done something terribly wrong".

Derek was a little surprised that I had been quite willing to follow him half way across the world to the Philippines, but had reservations about Nebraska.

It was just that it sounded so...Midwestern. I envisioned a flat, dry, treeless dustbowl. I was not wrong about a good portion of the state, but Omaha and Bellevue were a pleasant surprise. Who knew that Omaha is the home of Arbor Day? I discovered a lush green city rampant with trees and even with culture. There are beautiful museums, jazz festivals, shakespeare festivals, A list plays...It's a good place to be.

Since arriving here, we have put three kids through high school, seen them go to college, seen them marry and then seen them have children of their own. We own a beautiful home where I can sit in the back garden and watch deer, turkeys, possum, raccoons, butterflies, hummingbirds, other beautiful birds and yes, more than a few mosquitos.

We have made amazing lifelong friends here and built a wonderful life for ourselves. In short we have loved Nebraska and it has been a grand adventure, but now it is time to go.

We have a new adventure beginning in just a few weeks. This one is called, "The Adventures of Derek and Leni".  We have raised our kids. We adore them and we adore our grandchildren, but now we are ready to make new and exciting (hopefully not TOO exciting)  memories. There are two truly exciting components to this new adventure. The first is that, while we know we are leaving Nebraska, we have no idea where we are going! The second is that it will be just the two of us and every adventure is better with Derek beside me.

So, what does all this mean?  Well...drum roll please...

Derek has accepted a position with the State Department, Foreign Service. What this means for the near future is that in two weeks we will be leaving for Washington D.C. for orientation into State Department Life, policies and procedures. Orientation will last until the end of September at which time (yes, AFTER giving up his current position and all illusions of security), we will find out what country we will be posted to. Derek will stay on in D.C. until February for additional training and I will come back to Nebraska to get our house ready to sell and see our kids and grandkids as much as humanly possible. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Foreign Service, we could be posted to any Embassy or Consulate in the world. Unfortunately, there is a small chance that Derek could be assigned an unaccompanied posting for a year, in which case our Nebraska friends haven't seen the last of me yet, but we are making it quite clear to them that I really am willing to go just about anywhere, so hopefully we will be going together:-)

Rest assured, we will let everyone know when we find out where we are going.

To all of you who have made our lives amazing here in Nebraska, we love you and thank you. And welcome you to come visit us where ever we end up. 

You all have made Nebraska a truly grand adventure indeed!