Bizarre serendipity

The last few days have, for me, summed up the best and the worst of life in Bangladesh.

First, the bizarre and stressful. Apparently, in Bangladesh, everyone knows to unplug their cable lines into their TVs when there's a storm, because unlike in the U.S., cable lines are exposed. So if it's not unplugged, the cable line can get hit by lightning and fry your TV--as I found out the hard way Sunday night.

Seriously??? I really needed a handbook to read before moving to this place.

But then, lo and behold, the situation is redeemed by the serendipity that is Bangladesh. Not sure what was wrong with the TV, I talked to Mazhar, our kindly teddy bear of an audio-visual technician (who explained the madness of the electrocuted cable lines to me).

He knows where I live since he's been in the car when Motorpool has dropped me off, and so told me that right across the street from my apartment there's a dry cleaner, and next to it there's an unmarked door leading to a TV repairman--who happens, he explains, to be his brother.

That is so Bangladesh. Only here would the brother of someone I trust on the topic of TV repair happen to be a TV repairman working literally directly across the street from me. Bangladesh giveth and Bangladesh taketh away.

And the good news is he's confident he can fix the TV. So let's hope for a happy ending.