An interesting fact about Bangladeshi apartments, even recently finished ones like ours, is that there is apparently no rhyme or reason to the way in which the electrical outlets have been placed around the flat. As you can see from the picture above, there are three different types of plugs that, depending on the whim of the builder (or whatever outlet cover was closest at hand at the moment of installation), are placed at random locations throughout our home. It didn’t take long for this arrangement to produce problems, since the first night as we went to bed I realized that the plug on my bedside lamp was of a different kind than the outlet on my side of the bed. So as we set out this morning, this was one problem I was determined to fix, because I could foresee the slow unraveling of my mind over the next two years if every time I wanted to plug something in I had to hunt all over the house to find the right plug.

Before we could leave, however, we were delighted to see Mrs. Snowdon (Shannon) arrive with a new fridge! This was a welcome addition to our household, since our old fridge was about as tall as our aya and couldn’t fit much food, especially not enough to feed two people for more than one or two meals. She also brought an entourage of workers to move out the termite-infested desk and the other old desk we had decided not to use. I’m assuming the diseased desk was thrown away, and the other one relocated to another (currently unoccupied) apartment in our building (GIS rents all 10).

We hopped into a CNG and raced down to GIS where Mr. Snowdon (Dave) was waiting for us to chat about Taara’s teaching schedule and the possibility of me teaching History and Biblical Studies. I had come with the understanding that my expert teaching services weren’t needed, so this sudden reversal took me by surprise.

After the meeting, we to the computer lab to take care of my Internet withdrawal sympt…er, check our e-mail. Taara logged on just fine, but my inevitable bad luck with technology struck again (WHY AM I IN THIS INDUSTRY?) and there was some problem with my profile that prevented me from being able to log onto the system. The systems technician at the school, Masud, started working on it, but wasn’t able to fix it while we were there. Thankfully Dave shared the secret student password with me and I was able to log in as one of the unwashed masses.

Once I had become suitably depressed over the huge amounts of e-mail I would have to wade through (thousands) when I finally got full online access, we set out to Gulshan circle II to find some solution to our electrical outlet multiplicity. We walked into the store recommended by the school, called “The Perfect Electronics Store,” not much more than two guys sitting squeezed behind a counter with floor-to-ceiling piles of every home-electronics-related wire, outlet, power strip, and gadget ever invented, from all time periods (some of the stuff looked like it had been sitting undisturbed in that pile since before my parents were born). Taara said one word: “Multiplugs!” and the men sprang into action to show us their offerings.

A multiplug is a device that plugs into an outlet and has outlet holes arranged in such a manner that it is able to receive almost any type of plug (see right). There are also outlets at the top and bottom, which you can’t see in the picture. Anyhow, the thing with buying at a store where foreigners usually buy is that if they have successfully managed to fleece (it’s slang, look it up André) the previous foreigners, there’s a high probability they will try to fleece you as well. After hearing their starting prices, I told them I wanted to purchase about 30 and tried to bargain (at which Taara started chattering at me about how unnecessary it was to buy 30 plugs–I think, since I tuned her into ignore mode once I heard the disapproving “HONEY!”). I had made a list of every outlet in the house, showing the types and the number of each. The thing is, these guys wouldn’t budge an inch. They just looked at me blankly and repeated the same price.

The beauty of Gulshan circle II is that there isn’t just one electronics store, these things tend to come along in packs of 10 or so. So I just hopped next door (with Taara still trying to get my attention about how we only needed a couple of these multiplugs) and was successfully able to bargain with the next store’s owner, for a substantial discount over the first prices (40 tk vs. 50 tk, but hey, that’s 20 percent!). After assuring Taara that I had indeed been listening the entire time, and explaining at length my reasons for getting so many plugs, she capitulated before my flawless logic (yeah right, she just got bored of hearing me justify myself and would say anything to get me to shut up!).

We had set up to meet someone from Grameen Cybernet to discuss our Internet connection in the afternoon, so we ate a quick buffet lunch at Ninfa’s restaurant (250 tk for a large buffet–that’s about $3.25 for you American folk) and headed home by ricksha. I dutifully installed all of our multiplugs, and you can see the result to the right. While I have you looking at that picture, I’d like to also point out a couple of interesting things about Bangladeshi electrical installations. See the big dimmer switch, with “Light dimmer” written underneath? It actually controls the speed of the fan. See the three switches below it? The one that’s on (red) is the only one that works. It turns the fan on and off. So not only do you need two switches to turn the fan on and off, rather than just the dimmer switch, but you also have to hunt for the right switch to turn it on in the first place!

This phenomenon is not restricted to the fan switches. Around the house these sets of three switches are everywhere, and depending on the room, only one, or two, or all three of them might actually do something. I decided that this would be another thing that would quite likely drive me insane by the time two years were up, so I pulled out my trusty magic marker and went around the house, carefully labeling the switches that worked with clear descriptions of what they did.

In the midst of this meticulous exercise the Grameen guy arrived (late). After paying him 6,000 tk and signing several pages, he assured my that my Internet connection would be up and running within 7 working days. I didn’t have much faith in these prophetic words, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

As soon as he left, we experienced our first power outage. Taara was quite surprised that there hadn’t already been one during our time here, and thankfully we had been able to get our UPSes hooked up, which meant we could keep working for a short while on our monitors (before having to switch to laptop monitors only) and that, when installed, we’d have a few extra minutes of Internet access to finish up whatever we were doing. The UPSes also provide voltage regulation, so things shouldn’t burst into flame if there is a sudden spike (that would be disastrous, given the amount of electronics we brought with us). The power outage only lasted for about an hour (which is usually only the minimum, as I would later find out).

After dining once again on Purnima’s excellent food (beef curry), and remarking at her apparent desire that we should eat five times as much as any human being could possibly contain within their bodies, we spent the rest of the night unpacking and setting up our office.