First Impressions don't always come easy (Robert Lehman)

After arriving in Dhaka at 7 AM, I excitedly set off into the city in the hope of developing a first impression of the life and spirit of Bangladesh. Interestingly, I actually had great difficulty with this, traditionally the simplest of tasks, as I came to find the most consistent thing about my first day was that absolutely nothing was consistent.

Passing through the clouds as my plane landed gave me my first glance at the surrounding area of Dhaka, an apparently endless plane of flooded fields, without a person or building in sight - hardly what I had expected approaching the third-most densely populated city in the world. After landing at what seemed to be an isolated airport, a van took me right into the heart of Dhaka into an urban world that was irreconcilable with the view from the airplane window. Once again, firm impressions did not come easy, as I simply could not put my finger on urban Dhaka. The faded colors of shops and billboards presented an image of a place that was quietly stuck in time, while the streets bustling with cars and people passing within inches of each other made it seem as if the country was moving faster than it had space for. My sense that there was a conflict between progression and stagnation was developed by the sight of slums across the road from high-rise buildings, and by the difficulties I had in determining whether the half-established buildings that I kept on passing were being built, torn down, or simply forgotten.

Throughout my day at the BRAC headquarters, the weather would switch between clear, sunny skies and torrential rain that turned the sky black within minutes. At one point I was staring out the window, transfixed with the sheets of rain that were thumping down on the rooftops below when Galiba, one of our translators from BRAC university in Dhaka, came over to make a passing comment about the "light rain"... I'm looking forward to the "hard rain".

My long day ended after inconceivably dense traffic turned my trip from the BRAC headquarters to our accommodation (the BRAC training center), a distance that could be walked, into an hour and a half journey. With the ceaseless futile honks of frustrated drivers still echoing in my head, I'm really starting to see how much I have to learn about this country. Let the adventure begin.