Today is May 16, 2024, and I’m writing this in a small hotel in Dhaka where we’re waiting for our AirBnB to open up. Two days ago, Clayton Murphy, Maddie McCuddy, Renna Al-Haj and I left Missoula and drove to Seattle to fly out, first to Doha, Qatar, and now Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

The journey to get here was lively. In Seattle, we had wonderful hosts, ate good food and saw seals from the beach shore. We ran into McKenna Johnson at Pike Place Market, one of America’s largest open markets and wound up searching for good novels to read on the plane. It was my first time seeing the West Coast, and I wanted to stay longer but we had to keep moving on. 

The rest of the group, minus Adrian Cook, met at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. There, our great adventure began: we trudged through security and boarded our 14-hour flight. I brought my first neck pillow for the lengthy journey hoping to find some semblance of sleep, but I’ve never been great at snoozing while moving. Instead, I watched movies, ate chicken curry and silently fought to recline my chair while the teenager behind me kicked my seat. 

My entire life, I’ve sought adventure, but until now, I’ve seldom strayed farther than my backyard. I grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota in the Midwest and then moved 10 hours to the University of Montana in Missoula for college. I’ve been out of the country a total of four times. Twice to Canada, a vacation in Mexico and a trip to Costa Rica. Embarking on this trip across the world is my greatest adventure yet. 

In one of Mary Oliver’s poems, “Sometimes,” she writes, “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” So that’s what I’m going to try and do. The main advice I received before takeoff, besides watching the heat, was to soak it all in. 

When we first landed at the airport in Dhaka around 4 a.m., I sponged up information. We all started sweating instantly, sitting outside waiting for our van. But I tried to focus on the sounds, how thick the air felt, all the new smells. The best part about our arrival so far was a little girl who approached me with her dad for a selfie while we waited outside. Najifa Farhat, our teaching assistant, guide and friend, and Dhaka local said by the third day we’ll be tired of all the pictures. But for now, I think it’s nice and I’m more than happy to pose a couple of times. 

In an hour or so, we’ll head down to breakfast before we check into our AirBnB at 2 p.m. I’m tired, but excited. 

Bangladesh is waiting, we’re about to grab it.