"Laughing makes your heart grow stronger"

**Warning: This post is unusually optimistic.**

If that is true, that laughter makes your heart grow stronger, then my heart is in impeccable shape after spending the last seven weeks surrounded by such amazing and hilarious people. Before heading off on my Bangladeshi adventure I was warned about the heat, the food, the traffic, the poverty ect. but no one mentioned to tell me how funny everyone was or how the effective use of humour can play a huge role in development. One of the masters of the utilization of humour (in my eyes at least) is my good buddy Basudeb, the district project coordinator of Lamonirat for RDRS. When that man steps into a room he fills it with his presence, his hearty laugh, and his eyes that brim with happiness. He's charismatic and knows how to work a crowd, and even though he spends most of his time in his office doing paper work and managing staff he is completely comfortable in the field, not talking down to program participants but getting onto their level and speaking their terms and also relaying that back to us with a component of realism and honesty that is sometimes overlooked. His office is always full of staff who clearly enjoy his company as much as I do, and he is always offering anecdotes, advice, praise, and a good cup of tea.

Although I am becoming more and more sure that international development is not the end all be all for me (something I plan on exploring in the upcoming year) Basudeb will remain a role model for me in whatever future carer aspirations I choose to follow.

I've learned a lot over the last few weeks and not all of it is related to Bangladesh, development, RDRS, ect. Although a lot of it is, I have also learned a lot about who I am, and who I want to keep being. My optimism has become a very useful tool, and even though I have always know that I can be happy in any situation the importance of attitude has become even more clear. For me, it becomes a choice. Its possible to be happy in any situation, and its also possible to be miserable (or somewhere in between)in any environment, in any crowd. Call me lazy, but it takes way too much energy to be miserable and if I'm only on this wonderful world for a limited time I want to love as many of those minutes as possible and take in as much of its beauty as possible.

Along with my borderline obnoxious positivity is my ability to learn something new in every situation even if seen the same scene a hundred times. To be able to continue learning even if I've had the same conversation, visited the same school, read the same paper. Learning never has to stop, and I don't ever want it to. Right now I am in no way ready to head back to school for a 'formal' or institutionalized education, but that doesn't mean I am going to stop learning, in fact I think I may learn more. From my friends, from strangers on the street, from the world wide web, from all the books I read, and from the world...because that's what its there for...right? To explore, to grow, to change, and to keep you just confused enough to keep on keeping on.

I leave Thailand tomorrow after spending two amazing weeks traveling in the Southern part of the country with Lauren and Kaitlan, and although those two weeks have flown by Bangladesh feels forever ago, and Winnipeg even further. I am nervous (once again) to return back to Canada, to a bunch of unknowns and changing relationships with so much baggage--filled with not only souvenirs but unanswerable questions, frustrations, unsharable experiences, memories, and dreams.

I forsee culture shock, which by now I know hits me pretty hard, but I am also very excited for the whole list of 'new' things and 'first times' that await me. A new apartment, a new job,new relationships, my first time at folk fest, my first semester completely detached from University (well mostly) and for a whole list of things that make me happy even though I've done them a million times before, like camping, road trips, dim sum, slurpees from 7-11 the beach, spending time with my friends and my ever wonderful family AND a challenge to myself for the upcoming year...Spending September 2011-September 2012 (one full year, yes one ENTIRE year)in Winnipeg without leaving for an extended period of time. Something I haven't done in the last five years, since graduating high school. Why does the idea of staying put for twelve months scare me more than taking off across the world all alone...

Because sometimes if you put roots down, they grow,
Delaney C.