Is that ___? No, its just a white person

This rickshaw picture has nothing to do with this post...I just liked it :)

I have talked quite often about the reaction I get here. However, tonight was a true experience. When you are on the boat/hospital or out in the chars, people stare, but they know that you are a doctor and work with Friendship and it is a somewhat tolerable stare. However, when we go out in the village just to walk around, it is a bit different. The kids are always really cute and stare in awe of someone that looks so different. Sometimes at night, we just go for a walk through the town and as we walk, the crowd behind us just grows and grows. People come out of their houses and line the streets...you would think I am the president or something. Little girls wave, little boys smile shyly, the women stare, rickshawallas (that is the rickshaw drivers) sometimes nearly crash into each other, I sometimes even think that the cows stare at me funny. However, it is the grown men that I am always most surprised by their lack of attempt to hide their staring.

Since I am doing a project on malnutrition, we took a rickshaw into the market that comes twice a week to take some pictures of local foods that they can use to teach parents in the future. These people were so flabbergasted by my presence that I am sure they all forgot what they came to buy (I bet there were some angry wives when they got home). We quickly had a mob of grown men following us (and I don't mean from a distance, they want to get as close as possible!). However, I was able to get some great pictures of some crazy local vegetables, colorful lentils, etc. Then, we decided to really throw these people off guard and stop to have some tea. No one drinks here (it is a religious thing), so the closest thing to a bar are these tea shops. The picture below isn't the greatest but you get the idea.

the tea kettles on the bottom left, the tea maker with canisters of different biscuits/cookies, and me at the edge of the bar that extends into a narrow shop. (don't mind all of the stuff floating in the air...it's what I have been breathing the past 9 days!)

We enjoyed our tea (it was actually made with cow's milk (I am sure straight from the cow...they haven't heard of Luis Pastuer (sp?) here either as he was also white) and made it safely back to our guesthouse