2022
Hello there, all good people in Connect!
My name is Sonia. I am from a beautiful small country in South Asia, prominently known for its mother language movement. You guessed it right. It's Bangladesh. I am a Local Guide of Level 5 from Dhaka, the capital city of the country.
I am a traveler. That’s my primary hobby. When I am not traveling or working, I listen to music and try to sing along. I dance. As a kid I used to dance Kathak (a classical form of Indian dancing), but now my dancing has turned into more of a Caribbean form. I try dancing Salsa. I like to do pencil sketching when I am not singing or dancing. And I love trying street food whenever I am traveling. Chotpoti, fuchka, chanachur, jhal muri, pakora, peyaju, ghugni puri, bhelpuri, gol gappe, khaman dhokla, khandvi, poha……(the list goes on) are few things that never fail to cause hunger in me. Even just by thinking about all these types of food now is making my mouth water.
I don’t really remember when I have joined the Google Local Guide program, but I’ve been contributing to the maps since long. Initially I used to just post reviews and photos for different locations, without knowing there was any program called Google Local Guides. Then one fine morning I received a mail from GLG saying, ‘we like the way you review’. And this simple one sentence encouraged me so much that I started posting more and more. It was sometime in mid-2015. Google Local Guides’ continuous supportive emails and their updates on different events made me get more involved with the program. Back then I was jobless. I mean, I didn’t have a proper job that would allow me to earn for my livelihood. So I was struggling a bit then. And hence could not take active part in any of the programs, such as #Bem-Vindo’Brazil #London’sCalling #PartyOnLG #LocalGuidesCommunityChallenge etc..
Like I said earlier, I am a traveler. Traveling is my passion. When I travel I prefer to be with the locals, try their food, explore the less traveled attractions. Whenever I go to a new place I study a lot about the place on Google. I check out the ratings of the attractions from the other local guides in Maps. It gives me some basic idea about the place and helps me in finalizing my itinerary.
I love helping people with directions, providing information about places, sharing a lot of photos and my experiences about a place with others.
Well, those were the primary reasons I started posting in maps and became a local guide.
I am not a moderator for any community, nor have I hosted a lot of meet ups or attended many as a local guide, but I still want to attend the summit. I will tell you why.
To me, all local guides are the ambassadors of their respective countries. They represent their culture, they show how the country is by their gesture and activities. As a traveler, it would be a blessing for me to have the opportunity to see such a mixture of cultures in one place. I want to avail the chance to meet them all under the same roof. If I am selected, I want to represent my lovely country and share it's culture.
This is one of the main reasons that I want to attend the summit this year.
And the most important reason is to meet the Googlers who are working the back-end nonstop for this amazing tool. They have taken Google to a level where people have started considering it as a one-stop solution. Be it searching for a simple thing, to organizing a corporate meeting, or even running a whole business, Google has the solution for everything. I wonder how the ideas are being generated from the geniuses’ minds! I want to meet the geniuses.
Hope to see you in San Francisco, guys, or else, somewhere around the globe...... 🙂
Happy Connecting!
