a tale of a crazy bus driver and 4 banana trees....

It was drizzling that day, with tiny droplets of water being sprinkled all over the roads as they travelled on their way to their destination...."God's pissing on us again", he thought.... it was something that his friends used to say during their days in London..... It never rained in London, not when they studied there at least, and his friends being the jokers that they were would poke fun at anything they could, including rain.....

They were driving on small country roads now, passing through paddy fields, houses made of straw, and he could see cows and goats grazing, oblivious to the rain..... the people didnt really seem affected either, and why should they? after all, they're probably used to it, he wasnt surprised if they found it cooling as they were in the middle of a hot blazing summer....

He remembered them approaching a corner, feeling the car slowing down..... he suddenly felt the car swerve suddenly, and then the realisation of the situation dawned upon him..... the sound of screeching brakes hit him 1st before he saw the bus coming from the opposite side..... the bus was taking up the whole road, and there was no room for his vehicle to manouvre....

his driver frantically jammed on his brakes, swerved off the road and tried to bring it back into control again.... the bus blazed past their 4-wheel drive, seemingly unable (or unwilling) to slow down, and passed harmlessly by..... "that was close", he thought..... or so he thought anyway..... the driver was unable to regain control of the car, as the vehicle slid around in the mud off the road.....

he remembered the 3 trees, as the 4-wheel drive crashed into the trees headfirst..... the side of the vehicle slammed into a 4th tree, pinning them all in..... it all happened so fast, he barely had time to raise his hands in front of him, bracing himself for impact..... "thank goodness for safety belts", he muttered to himself...... amazed that he was allright..... he was also thankful that the driver, and the other 3 occupants at the back was also unhurt.....dazed, in shock, but thankfully unharmed.....

he stares at the trees, banana trees they were..... and beyond the banana trees, they was no road.... if not for the trees, they would have flown into a 3 metre high ditch, and with that, he feared, they would not have been so lucky..... he stared outside the window of his front passenger seat," I cant get out of the car this way"...... the ditch was much bigger than he thought, and the 4th tree also saved them from falling in as well....

he was amazed though at the response of the villagers, who happily helped them push the car out of the mud, and back onto the road.... feeling very shaken but very fortunate, he read out a quick prayer of thanks to God before re-entering the car, and back on their way to work.....

just another normal day in bangladesh eh.....

So far away from home, yet i feel the pain....

I've been away from home for 16 days now, am more than 1,600 miles away from KL, and yet, it hurts.... i'm left to monitor the developments from Dhaka through the internet, its something my friends no longer discuss, and i suppose a lot of us have already given up hope on them.....

I'm talking about the national football team back home.... we went through all the hassle of winning the bid to become co-hosts of the Asian Cup, we turned away arguably the world's most widely supported club, Manchester United and in the process, deprived its fans of seeing their favourite stars play in our own backyard......

And then we get whacked, 5-0 and 5-1 by China and Uzbekistan respectively..... Even though we manage to restrict Iran to 2 goals, the damage was already done..... Our pride and dignity torn to pieces, we were a laughing stock within the football community..... the national coach was sacked even before we completed our 3 game fixture, and the deputy president of our football association resigned in shame.....

But should we really be surprised at the results? What made these people think a more positive outcome could be obtained? Unlike our neighbours and fellow co-hosts, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, who managed to surprise their more fancied opponents (Vietnam even made it to the last 8 of the competition), we were a big joke, and the AFC probably thought they made a mistake in letting us co-host the competition.....

Looking at the standard of our current national league, the limited pool of talent that we have available, i cant say i'm surprised about this debacle.... we dont even have a proper development programme, unlike the europeans, so we dont pick out young talent and develop them further.... and among the current pool of players that we do have, they lack the ambition and drive to succeed.....

We never stood a chance really, and the whole competition became one big farce, leaving everyone who cares about football in malaysia feeling embarassed..... i dont see why we even bother with all the competitions, there will be not be an upswing in our fortunes anytime soon, and there isnt anything even the best footballing brains can do for us at this point in time.... maybe if we start having a proper programme to identify and develop young talent (and there must be some amongst us 24 million malaysians), we'll see something happen 15 years from now....

But until then, i wont be holding my breath.... and i hope the government and the national football association wont throw anymore good money in all these futile initiatives..... there's many other better ways to spend our money in developing our sporting talent.....

Back in Dhaka again....

People have made the observation that my blog is often updated on my travels.... which was the purpose of my blog in the 1st place, to keep those who would be interested updated on what's been going on whereever i may be at any point in time.... well, until now anyway.....

its been a while since i last updated my blog, i've been horribly busy, what with work, and trying to spend enough time with family and loved one..... before i make my usual pilgrimmage to bangladesh for work.... which is where i am again..... alone in Dhaka.....

i touched down in Dhaka on 4th July, and i'm only scheduled to leave on 4th August..... that's 30 days too long if you ask me..... yet here i am..... the team and i have not had much time to ourselves, and when we do have some down-time to spend, its used resting and catching up on sleep (and for some of us, watching the many DVDs we bought at the Bashundara mall on our 2nd day here).....

i'm all alone now in Dhaka, feeling terribly lonely, with the rest of the team out at the villages performing their audits.... this must have been how an ex-colleague, CMY felt 2 years ago..... waking up to have room service for breakfast, sitting in the coffee shop alone for lunch (i try to have a book to keep me company) and having dinner in front of the TV (or computer) while waiting for DCKK to come back from his village visit.....

this is my 4th trip here in 2 years, there are many other places i'd rather be, home being the main place i wanna be, with my family, my darling SL, amongst my work colleagues, my badminton kakis..... i'd love to be able to play futsal.....and maybe pick up salsa again.....

i guess i'll be counting the days till i return home.....