Ice cream and Paratha

Hello, my name is Mehedi and I have attended the workshop that took place in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh during October-November 2010.

Ever since I was added to the author list in this blog I have been trying to write about the cultural shocks and differences that I received from my fellow Norwegians but I really couldn't come up with any.

Yes, their skin turns red on every occasion, they use hand sanitizers before every meal, they can't eat any spice at all and some of them have a great attraction to a certain brand and flavor of room spray... but that's nothing to write about, really. So I decided, I would write about one thing that really appealed to me.

The first week of our workshop was very hectic. We had lectures and assignments and had a pretty tough time. Many of us would end up with boring photographs and some of the people fell ill. The two people who spent a good amount of time in bed were Benedicte and Astrid. I think they both missed out majority of the lectures.

Soon after that, we had our main assignment which required us to work hard for a week and those two were still pretty sick and had to rest back at home. These are times when you see the world pass by at 110 mph and everything looks so distant. I have met many people who gave up.

But not these two. With only two days left till the deadline, Astrid picked up enough energy to start her work. We were working in several different groups and Astrid was in mine, so I helped her out a little to get started on her story. While it took others much trouble and time to work out the language barriers and work in a completely different environment, Astrid fit right into her garage where she worked for the short amount of time she had.

Although they did not have the oppurtunity to exhibit their full potential they did quite well in the short time they had. It taught me a lesson more than it amazed me. I learned that through hard work one can achieve the most difficult of tasks, even with all the odds against you. I learned that the only way to success is not to give up !

*(More quotes and info for people who give up)

About the title

Ice cream and Paratha are two things that I never had tried having together before (this workshop). I have had them separately but after mixing them together, it felt that I have been missing out a lot of fun :)