9 days!

It's now 9 days until I leave for DC, and then Bangladesh. Things are starting to come together; I bought bug spray yesterday, and my Bengali textbook arrived on Saturday. My suitcase is sitting half-packed on the floor of my room. I have to learn the Bengali writing system before I leave, so I've been working through that section of the textbook. The first word I learned was "am," meaning "mango."

I received my international itinerary last night. After the orientation in DC, we leave on the night of the 4th, fly to Qatar, then to Dhaka, arriving around 5:30 am on the 6th. It's about 18 hours in the air, with a 2 1/2 hour layover in Qatar. I've been told there should be about 15 of us going. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone!

21 days and counting

Hello all. If you're reading this you probably already know that I'm going to Bangladesh this summer with a Bengali Critical Language Scholarship (CLS). I leave in 21 days. At this point, I'm both excited and nervous; it will be my first big trip out of the country. This blog will be my record of the trip, and I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as possible.

With the CLS program I will learn a year's worth of college-level Bengali in eight weeks. The program is located in Dhaka on the campus of the Independent University of Bangladesh, and housing is nearby in the diplomatic area. I leave for Washington, DC on June 2nd and then for Bangladesh on the 5th.

Just one final note- everything written on this blog is my own opinion and does not reflect the opinion of the CLS program or the US government.