Dhaka Adventures

       Today was our first day in Dhaka. We had to come here to get stuff for the children, shoes, material for the girls’ new room and such. The van was already in Dhaka because it had brought a few other orphanage workers so we took a bus in. The bus left Hili at 10pm and so we left the orphanage at 9:30pm to make sure we got there in plenty of time! It was probably one of the longest nights of my life! Lauren, Chantel, and I haven’t stayed up past 9pm really since we’ve been here, so this was definitely an experience. We were supposed to arrive in Dhaka at the dentist clinic between 5:30am and 6:30am this morning. But things never go as planned! We arrived at the Dentist’s about 9am. It is really hard to sleep on a bus, especially one that doesn’t have AC, where bugs are attacking you, where the springs are shot, where no one speaks English, and where it’s stop and go the whole time! Where also you don’t quite trust the driving! When we got to Dhaka, we got very confused, apparently we were going to meet the other workers somewhere, but we weren’t sure where. They talked to the conductor and he supposedly knew where to drop us off. When we got to the place where he told us to get off, Mr. and Mrs. Waid were confused and not very happy about the whole arrangement. When we finally got picked up we found out that after 6:30am the bus would not take us by the dentist, so we had to meet somewhere else. They took us to the clinic and we then ate and then left for shopping.

       Mrs. Waid is a crazy shopper! She just keeps going and going! We went to the new market first where Mrs. Waid found lots of stuff for the kids. Lauren and I also found more shalwar kameezs for ourselves! This market was an outside market, it was a rather large one too!!!

       After that we then went to the Bangla Bazar, this is actually an inside market. Most of the clothes and stuff here is actually export quality with just a small error, most of the time hardly, if at all, noticeable. There Mrs. Waid found pants and shirts for the children, Chantel found a jacket, and I found a pair of laze-around pants. When I packed, I really wasn’t thinking of any clothes except underclothes. I almost even forgot pjs! I’m not sure how much I really would have packed of some things that I know would be nice here, even if I had been thinking about what I would want to wear!