Dearest Dhaka...

I closed my eyes in the airplane and was naturally recreating the memories and replaying the pictures of the City in my head...I was trying to keep it together and to imbibe whatever sorrow I felt in that second...And I can confirm that it's only later on that you realise what you have really left behind...a piece of my heart stayed in Dhaka this morning...it was a gullible and guilty little piece that dug a hole in the ground of Bangladesh to stay there forever...and as the slideshow was going a song on the radio said "You don't have to love me, I understand, believe me..." and that was it, if Dhaka could have told me something I think it would've been that sentence...and tears crawled down my face, more tears...and...more tears and I was sad but at ease with myself because I knew something had happened there, something had grown in me and that country called Bangladesh had helped me reconnect with my own country and with my own God...And so Dhaka, I am telling you this one thing that's on my mind right now: It's too late because I already do, I already love you, believe me...And I would also like to thank You...

Truly yours,

The shy little piece of my heart and I

With M.Yunus

The one and only professor Muhammad Yunus...what a presence...he dedicated 50 minutes for us, around 40 interns taking pictures with him and asking him some questions...

I couldn't leave before meeting him, now I'm relaxed and starting to feel ready to go back :)

Last day at work

July 24th, last day of work... handed my report and got my certificate from Grameen Bank...gonna miss the people at the Head Office in Mirpur 2 !!

With M.Morshed, my coordinator at the Bank

With Chrise Nesselrode (K) love youuuuuuuu

Lovely receptionists at the Grand Prince Hotel, always asking about us ! :)

And yeah , Bangladesh all the way!

Farewell party

And this whole trip comes down to this one night......From all over the world: France, The States, Bangladesh, Spain, Ecuador, Lebanon, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Morocco, Germany, Austria, UK, Canada, Australia, Uganda...All together...we danced and cheered for Dhaka, for Friendship, for Music and Happiness...We are all different but yet so similar...we have our flaws and our prides but we are all here for one single reason: To learn how to change the World
And I believe we should be grateful enough, the World can still be changed, there is still a lot to do and we are the seeds that our parents once planted, we grew in different lands and learnt different ideologies, and our shade and branches should and will reach out to life and to peace. And I don't know how to put this in the greatest way but I am going to miss you all and you are all welcome to come to Lebanon and Paris...

Home made dinner

I was invited two nights ago to one of my father's friend and collegue's home in Dhaka...Great great people who welcomed me like a family member...dinner was delicious and I was so glad to be surrounded by these two heartwarming families...felt like home! :)

With M. Mustaba Ali , M. Jamal Ali and their wives

With M. Jamal Ali's family

At the lobby...

This is a proof to the parents that we are hard workers, and we can't even get through reading some pages quietly in the lobby without falling asleep hehe...

Riot in Old Dhaka

Chaos in Old Dhaka, people running everywhere, rikshaws going away to clear the roads, policemen start to appear and next thing you hear "excuse me, students are going to crash, it's possible for you to leave this place" says a bengali student to Kellen and I ... leave? now? hell no...but we couldn't get anyone to explain to us why the students were protesting...we saw one student getting beat up by 5 or 6 policemen who then asked shop owners to temporarily close their stores! Anyway... our presence seemed to clearly bother them as we were hearing the word "foreigner" over and over again as the policemen spoke to each other and gave us the [your-camera-better-stay-in-your-bag] look and all I could think of was my camera is my best friend and I won't turn my back on it, not now, no...