Friday bloody Friday

Friday. Oh God Friday. Friday was a perfect example of how life in this country swerves viciously from desperate despair to joy to pleasant, unexpected surprise.

I was woken, despite a persistent hangover, in my favourite way, devoured a Sure Hangover Cure breakfast (vegemite toast with ORS chaser) and strolled to my computer to observe James continue to fix my laptop (yes, I could have done this myself, but sometimes a girl needs a boy to just take control of these things).

James was in the middle of ‘synching’ (without properly synching because …blah blah blah IT technical language…Casey tunes out) my iPod with iTunes and pulling the videos, music and photos we’d backed up to the iPod off and saving them back to my hard drive, post System Restore (thank you Dell, you mother-fuc-ing bastards for selling me a piece of sh-t computer that after just six months completely shat itself…but let me not rant here…).

J: Cool. Finished. All your videos and music are back on the hard drive.

C: And my photos?

J: What photos?

C: Ha ha James. Yeah, what photos…yeah right. Ha ha. Hilarious.

J: Ummm, Case, there aren’t any photos here.
(Nausea overwhelms, tears jump into eyes. Casey hides in bathroom while James checks again. After two minutes, Casey re-emerges)

J: Case, there aren’t any photos here.

C: mmm. (Tears freely cascading down cheeks) Ok (sniffle sniffle)...I’m running really late (wipes snot from red nose)…really have to get across town (whimper) to pick up the new Intake of Australian volunteers at the airport (silently swearing for not being able to wallow in misery at home).

J: Ok. But I might be able to recover some of them ok? I’ll come over again soon and look, ok?

C: mm. (sure all hope has died along with the 8 YEARS of photos cataloguing life, love and travel – my whole LIFE – which, no I don’t have backed-up anywhere else, thank you very much for asking).

Building guard stares at the red and spotty girl as she leaves the building, without pestering her in the usual fashion with questions of ‘how are you?’ and ‘where are you going, apa?’

Miraculously a CNG appears and, struggling to speak Bangla while sniffing back tears, I’m on my way to Rach’s place for an omelette lunch before we are picked up and taken to the airport. Despite crying openly (my least favourite thing) all the way to Banani, the CNG driver assured me he had 400 taka change. When we arrived and he only had 300 taka and Nice Casey morphed into Irrational, Screaming, Crying, Psycho Casey:

“You f-cking lying prick. You f-cking said you had f-cking char-sho f-cking taka bhanti (400 taka change). You’re a f-cking disgrace to your country. I hate you. You bastard…I hate you!” Followed by tears and stamping of feet. Resisting the urge to fall to the ground and cry and bash my hands on the ground like a child, I made it upstairs where Clancy (yet again) came to my rescue (he also gave the driver some attitude, though not sure why at the time).

Following some cuddles, reassurances and jokes (my friends are the best!) I decided slitting my wrists might not be a responsible solution and pulled myself together. And I definitely laughed at least twice before we got in the car to go to the airport.

At the arrivals gate of Dhaka International, reminiscing about the day, nine long months ago, when we first arrived in Bangladesh, the day seemed lighter and brighter and full of hope once more.

When the 13 new AYADs stepped out of arrivals and into the humid, crowded parking lot, their faces were a mix of excitement, anticipation, nerves and exhaustion. With so much to overwhelm their senses, we left them at the hotel to get some sleep and won’t see them again until the end of the week, by which time they’ll feel like a month has passed with all that they will learn and see and do.

Always a great reliever of anger, stress and bitter disappointment I went straight to the gym. Feeling much better about the state of the world I went home to prepare for a date with, let’s call him, The Charmer.

I know you’ve all noticed I’ve been quiet on the subject of men in this blog and in part that’s because it’s so damn hard to keep up – both with what’s happening and how I feel about it – and because I don’t quite believe it myself. Suffice to say that Bangladesh has not been the Year of No that I expected would follow my Year of Yes. In fact, I’d recommend the expat community in Bangladesh to any single woman in Australia complaining about the man drought…

Anyway, I digress. The Charmer is, well, rather charming and after a long and emotional day an evening in with a bowl of pasta, a bottle of Pinot Noir, a film, and a lovely man to cuddle was the perfect way to end it.

So, although some days inevitably involve tears of utter desperation, there is always hope that some unexpected happiness is just around the corner. And it is liberating, anticipating what each new day will bring.