It's difficult to explain how overwhelming it can feel being here in a new place, amongst so many people who live a different context, lots of names and ideas unfamiliar to me. I find I don't pick up so much on the subtleties. With meeting so many people I find it embarrassing when they Remember Me from a previous conversation but I have not remembered them some I met in my last tour in 2019 and of course I was the unusual one to them I was the the one who stood out as different whereas for may everyone was unusual and everyone was different so I don't always recall how I knew them some people look familiar without me knowing the context. And also it is trickier than when I'm at home to check because I really don't want to feel rude and the language barrier makes it difficult to just straight out ask. Not to mention that these last few days I have been tired from travel and time zone shifts and the end of a cold.

I’ve been finding it quite tiring listening to this new language, waiting for some English words to season the conversation enough for me to follow along. And suddenly I’m spoken to directly (hopefully I’m not in a moment of reverie at that time!). Even though the language is English, the accents can make it difficult for me to decipher the actual words. Then also I’m aware that those same words, phrases and intentions of communication may have different meanings in this Bangladesh environment. So it’s a fairly constant game of “guess what’s really behind this communication”. Add to that differences in body language meaning and other cultural, organisational and contextual factors and we have quite the complex uncertainty cocktail. I’m pretty sure that I’m understanding much less than they think I am. This is not helped by my tendency to nod and smile and hope that shortly it’ll all fall into place in my brain as they’ve intended…