Setting up the Khulna center was my last assignment from Relief International. I’ve been working for this international aid agency since May 2005, and I finally realised that it’s time to quit. I resigned last month, and September 31st was officially my last day at work. For last two weeks, I’ve been helping them out as a volunteer, and mentoring my assistant Alamgir whom I’ve nominated for my position.

My work at Khulna took only few hours, so I got a good chance to roam around the city. I visited the zero point, Khulna University campus, Khulna court, the “Jail Khana Ghaat” on the banks of Rupsa river, the New Market, Meena Bazar, and Daily Purbanchal office.

The Khulna Meena Bazar is almost the same size of the Dhaka one, but has one third of the products that our one has. I went there to buy Playboy deodorant for myself but couldn’t find it.

Overall, it was a good trip. I boarded at Hotel Royal as usual and I’m giving them 8.5 out 10 for their service. No beer this time since it’s Ramadan.

It was my first trip to Joypurhat, a North Bengal district 380 km from Dhaka. It was infact my first trip to North Bengal as well, the vast region on the other side of Jamuna river.

Since there isn’t any AC bus service available on this route, I had to travel by Hanif Paribahan. I listened to my crazy collection of trance music through out the journey, so I didn’t get too bored. More over, crossing the 4.8 km Jamuna bridge (which is 110 kilometers northwest of Dhaka) was exciting. To date, it’s the longest brigde in South Asia, and 11th longest in the world.

It took 8 long hours to reach Joypurhat. My destination was further 15 kilometers from the town, a village in Pachbibi upa-zila. Pachbibi is completely an under developed rural area, with rikshaw vans as the only means of transport. It was quite surprsing for me see only a handful of real rickshaws around. The Indian border and Hili land port was near to where I stayed, I was informed that a lot of villages are involved with smuggling.

There’s a good number of indigenous population in the area, making it a heaven for a lot of local and international NGOs. A Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) mission school is also in the area, and I was told by my guide that they receives a huge funding from USA. I was told that they have their own backup generators, water supply system, air-conditioned rooms, computers lab with 50+ PCs and so on. I wanted to visit them, but couldn’t manage the time to do so.

An interesting point to mention before I end. If you go to a tea stall in Joypurhat, then this is how they’ll serve your tea: they’ll fill two-third of the cup with milk, and then one-third with tea! Should we call it it tea with milk, or milk with tea, that remains the question.

The tiresome 2 day Technical Lead Teacher’s traning ended today. The TLTs got hands-on training on:

• Assembling Pentium 4 computers
• Installing OS (Windows XP and Mandriva Linux)
• Installing and updating application programs
• Securing a box
• Anti-virus and malware protection
• And more.

Stuffs that happened this time:

- Mr. Faruque was me
- We took Jack’s car (he’s in Australia now)
- Akram was fired due to his poor performance at work

Details later.

Here’s what I’m going to talking about in the training:

• Overview of computer software and hardware:
  • Capability of computers
  • Hardware and peripheral devices
  • System and application software

• PC configuration and maintenance:
  • CMOS/BIOS setup
  • OS installation
  • Driver settings and installation
  • Tips and tricks to keep the machines running smoothly
  • Virus protection
  • Backup procedure

• Overview on networking
  • Advantages of a networked environment
  • Topologies, LAN, WAN, switching, routing, cables, sockets
  • Peer to peer networking concept
  • Security issues, firewall
  • Practical session
  • Connecting RJ-45 plugs
  • Hub/switch settings and installation
  • Connecting PCs with 10 base T cables
  • Sharing peripheral devices

• Overview on Internet:
  • WWW, e-mail, bulletin board, relay chat
  • Connection types
  • Netethics

I gotta sleep early tonight, the training starts at 10:00 tomorrow!

I reached the port city on Sunday evening, on the very comfy Shohag Volvo Bus. I stayed at Asian SR Hotel this time, and I’m extremely happy about their service. It’s very apparent that the hotel authority has taken extra special care in training the staff. The room was great, so was the food! The hotel has a bar as well, and I tried out some Chinese liquor!

I’ll skip the reason why I went there, since it will only bore you. Instead, I’ll leave you with a few impressions and observations I had about the city of Chittagong.

- With so many small and not-so-small hills around, the natural scenery of the city is a truly magnificent. It’s an old city, and the buildings and the oak trees bearing the sign of it. One of the attractions of the city is Patenga sea beach, which is about 10 km away from downtown. This small beach has increased the beauty of the city by a large scale. Foy’s Lake is another attraction, and it’s a very romantic place to visit!

- No offence, but people in Chittagong speak in a weird dialect! I should better call it a language, since it has a very little similarity with Bengali. If Sylhety and Dhakaiya is considered a language, then it should be counted the same way.

- Since there are numerous hills all over of the city, setting up point to point wireless connectivity can be very tedious and expensive. Putting up a 180 feet (almost 55 meter) tower on top of a 10-storied building is a lot of money! In case of DSL/ADSL, cables get stolen regularly and therefore the ISPs only provide connection within 1.5 km diameter of their POP! One ISP guy told me that their fiber optic cable got stolen! How pathetic!

- Chittagonians seemed to be very conservative (read: Islamic). Foreign Muslim preachers stayed this part of the world since centuries (they used to come mostly from Middle East on waterways). I’ve seen a very few young women on the roads, even in the posh areas of the city. Most of the women wear borkas, which is an Islamic dress (usually black) that covers the entire body except for fingers and eyes. I always thought men hated shopping, but Chittagonian men seemed to do it with a lot of enthusiasm! Since I found guys buying sari, cosmetics and ornaments, I’m sure they lock their wives at home and buy the ladies’ products themselves! Very strange breed of men! Another important point of their conservativeness: I found only a handful couples dating around at the parks or at the romantic hillside spots.

- There are too many graveyards around, at least one in every five kilometers. What a terrible waste of land!

- When I went to Chittagong for the first time in October, when the CNG 3-wheelers didn’t had fair meters. Transport authority forced them to install meters, but the drivers don’t want to use them since it wouldn’t be possible to overcharge the passengers any more! Fucking thieves!

- Since there isn’t much cars around, there isn’t any traffic jam in the city except for the road in front of the sea port, and it’s a valid reason. But still, this jam is nothing compared to the jams of Elephant Road, Mogbazar, or Motijheel in Dhaka!

Any how, I’m way too tired now, and I seriously need to get some sleep. Before I go to bed, here’s a little yucky fact for you guys:

Chittagong, also known as Chattagram, Chatgaa, and Chattrala has the largest homosexual population in Bangladesh!

Our mobile editing team consisted of my boss Jack Welch and me, and we used 3 laptops and some high-end software to do so. It took the whole day to edit the videos; and by supper time, we were ready. We hooked one of the laptops to a 29″ TV and showed the documentaries to the kids and the RI battalion who were accompanying them.

My boss dropped me home at midnight — it took one and a half hour to get back to Dhaka.