Package

     Today our packages came!! They are full of paper and notes. It also contains a pedometer, which had 253 steps on it. Who knew it was only 253 steps between Walla Walla and Bangladesh!! It also contained two issues of the Collegian (WWU’s newspaper) and a couple Sudoku puzzles. Oh and a sweet and salty peanut bar, which I am looking forward to eating! It is really nice to get things from ‘home’ and to hear from those back in the States! Thank you to those that contributed to this package!

I'm Sorry

       I’m sorry it has taken me so long to catch up on updates, but I finally am!! I will now try and stay updated and write at least once a week! Thank you all for your patience and support!

BUGS

       The bugs are DISGUSTING!! They have been bad for awhile now. A couple weeks ago we finally put up our bug nets, but we are still figuring out how to keep the bugs away. We finally have it practically down to a science. We don’t turn on any light in our room unless it is really needed. We leave the light in the main room on until just before we go to bed to keep bugs out there. We then also put our bug nets down just as it’s getting dark, we roll up a side during the day so we can sit on our bed if we want. These bugs cannot make up their minds though, they can’t decide whether to be a bother or not. Some nights they are very bad and other nights they aren’t bad at all! The bug nets are definitely helping, although there are still some tiny bugs that find ways through it and if I am on my computer on my bed, they find my screen! I am learning to deal with them; they aren’t quite as annoying any more. The ants that were so bad before, really haven’t been a big issue, they still converge on dead bugs, but they haven’t been on our beds in awhile, thankfully!!

Cooling Down

       The last couple days have been pretty busy! The weather has cooled down, we are not sweating as much and the children are cool enough they are starting to wear jackets. The humidity has also gone down, which is really nice!! Because of the cooler weather and I think just the fact that Mrs. Waid is back, it is time to switch out clothes! This is a real chore. There are 118 children and each get about three everyday outfits and one Sabbath outfit. Finding the right size pants and dresses is a chore and on top of that Mrs. Waid is very picky with what she wants the children to wear. But in the end it is all worth it to see the child’s excited face and how cute they look in their new outfits!

       Today while we were getting the last few finished up Timothy was  there observing and started singing ‘Sabbath is a Happy Day.’ I started singing along and then Isaac, whom I was holding, started singing as well. It was soooo cute. Isaac is one whom I really haven’t heard talk much, but he was so cute singing ‘Sabbath is a Happy Day.’ He continued to sing it the rest of the time we were working and he was there, it was a quiet but steady stream of happiness that totally made my day!

A New Word

       Every night I have made an effort to tell the children good night. I have been rotating between the girls’ room and the boys’ room. No matter which room I go to, I get attacked, but in a good way. Tonight was the boys room, where Isaac and Noah, both adorable three-year-olds (I think), the smallest of them all claim attention. They are both so quiet and sweet, when you pick them up, they just kind of cling to you and totally relax in your arms. When it was time to say official goodnights, I put Noah and Isaac in their beds and then Marc, who is one of the most endearing first graders I’ve ever met (He is a cutey for sure!), gave me a big hug and whispered this in my ear: “I love you 100, 100, 100, 100, 99, 100, 1000, 100, 100”, and so on. It was so cute. I learned how to say I love you, ami tomoke balobashi, a couple nights ago, but tonight Marc taught me a new word to add to it, onek. He taught me to say ami tomoke onek onek balobashi, which means I love you a lot a lot. He is one of my favorites, oh what am I saying they are all my favorites! But Marc has definitely stolen a piece of my heart, and to top it off, he speaks English pretty well!!

Food

       So the food here is delicious! Shati (our cook) does an amazing job! We really didn’t realize how lucky we were to have her until we spent time in Dhaka and only had rice and watery dhal for every meal. For those of you who don’t know dhal is a bean type of plant. It looks similar to a lentil, but is yellow; the Bengali’s love to use turmeric so that is the main seasoning in it I think. Traditionally, dhal is very watery like we had in Dhaka, but Shati has learned that the Waids don’t enjoy that so her dhal is much thicker, it almost reminds me the Wat of Ethiopian food, a thick stew. We got back and told Shati we would like to not have rice and dhal for a couple meals. She is very sweet and accommodated us, even though she only serves it for breakfast typically. Instead of rice and dhal in the morning we got Sugi, which is like a cream-of-wheat but made with rice. It is delicious. For dinners we get a variety of food, much of it is American based because the Waids don’t particularly like Bengali food. Shati has made us a Bengali meal and it was very good, but I have found Shati doesn’t make much that that is not delicious, even with how picky I am. Yesterday she made a pumpkin pie with the leftover pumpkin she had from making a sweet pumpkin soup. It wasn’t quite as sweet as I like pumpkin pie, but it was still good. Something they have here that I really enjoy are Chapatis, they are similar to tortillas, but made out of rice I think. Shati has made us some chips out of them, they are good, although a few are soft, almost doughy, which is a bit strange, but still delicious!

Braided Hair

       Today was our third Sabbath. Every Sabbath the older girl’s hair looks so cool, well okay they all look cute and sweet! The older girl’s braid each other’s and it’s not just one or two French braids, they do the whole braid around their head and forming the braid spiral things! Today Lauren and I commented on it and Mrs. Waid suggested that they do ours. We agreed so we all went up to our room and they braided our hair. Bristy did my hair and Melony did Lauren’s. They either have really tough heads or just have learned to live with the pulling, because when they braid, they do not seem to care about how many hairs they pull or break in the process. When Bristy got near my injury, I told her to be gentle because it is still a little tender, especially with how they pull hair! When I told them I had an injury and Bristy actually found it, she had to show everyone in the room, which was only three girls and Lauren! They used bobby pins to pin the ends of the braids up and make sure it stays in the spiral form. It’s kind of funny, they use a whole lot more bobby pins than are necessary, but they also don’t poke your head when putting them in, even though they don’t use bobby pins on themselves. When they were done Lauren and I took pictures of each other’s heads. They did a very good job of covering my short hair area.

Difficulties Teaching

       Today was probably my hardest day so far. We arrived back at Bangla Hope safely yesterday, and today was my second day for piano. Lessons started out fine, but my third student started the difficult day. I had narrowed down who I’m going to teach, but there are still 10 students. So in order to not be doing lessons all day, I decided to try and teach two at a time. That worked well for my first two students, Jennie and Bristy, but the next two I’m gonna have to separate. They are Konny and Marissa. Mrs. Waid said recently that Bengali’s are temperamental. I have found it’s true, they are happy with you one minute and then for reason’s not clear, they are not longer happy. Marissa was like that today. When her and Konny first arrived she was very happy and excited. Then as time went on and I was working with Konny, something happened and Marissa was no longer happy. When it was time for her lesson, it took me awhile, but I finally coaxed her back up to our room and the piano. When I got her there I decided we would just play together. We had done this last Sabbath afternoon, so I got out the book that had hymns in it and we picked a song to play. That went pretty well. My next couple students were fine too, then came Joseph’s turn. Now to understand his reaction, you have to understand that this year Mrs. Waid has allowed the children to watch a movie on Friday mornings. They are all very excited about it and last week I had to postpone Danny’s lesson until the afternoon, but Joseph was fine last week. This week I don’t think he wanted to leave. But he came pretty willingly, then when we got up to our room and the piano, he would not sit down and play, he wouldn’t even smile for me. Well okay that isn’t totally true, he smiled when I tickled him, but he tried to hide it, he didn’t want me see it. I even tried bribing him with candy and he wouldn’t even take it. I finally got him to come out of the corner, but then he started crying on me. His crying isn’t big sobs, instead, it’s tears slowing running down his face and a few sniffs. I am someone who sympathy cries, so his crying started me crying. We did both eventually stop and then some of the girls came up to tell us it was time for Joseph to eat. At that Joseph started crying again, which got me crying again and this time it wasn’t stopping. The girls stuck around for a bit, but then Saborna shooed them away. Saborna is the head caretaker and lives across from us. She then came in to find out what was wrong. Now this whole time Joseph had not spoken a word, so I had no idea what was wrong. Saborna then asked him in Bangla, at first he didn’t answer her either. When she did get him to talk, the conclusion I came to was he would like to have his lesson in the afternoon, which I had suggested earlier when I was trying to convince him to play, although when I suggested it he made no appearance that he liked the idea. Saborna then sent him to eat when we figured that out and then she asked me why I was crying. Well besides being a sympathy crier, which I wasn’t sure she’d understand, I start crying harder whenever someone asks what’s wrong, even if nothing was wrong. Today was an emotional day and I had felt like crying earlier and haven’t really cried or been super homesick since I had got here, so maybe I just needed to cry, but how do you explain that to someone who doesn’t really understand English very well. She came to the conclusion that I was homesick and maybe I was a little bit, so I let it be at that. There are times when you just need to cry and I think today was that for me. For Joseph, I think he was sad he was missing out on the movie and that he didn’t play piano at all. I think he was going to try and wait me out and have me send him back, that never happened, but I think next week I will wait until afternoon for Joseph’s lesson definitely and maybe even just spread the lessons out throughout the week, so very few have to be on Friday.

More Dhaka Adventures

       Today was our last day in Dhaka, we leave early tomorrow morning and we are all ready to go back! Since it was our last day and Mrs. Waid basically got everything on her list, today was a ‘fun’ day! We first went to Mrs. Waid’s friend’s shop. Her name is Nyoni and she runs a dentist shop and a woman’s beauty shop, it contains clothes and a salon. Lauren and I each found a shari there. She has some really nice stuff, but it is all expensive, however, she gave us a really good price on the sharis we picked.

       After that we went to Gulshon. Gulshon is where you can find the ‘American’ stuff, like chocolate, oatmeal, etc. We stopped for lunch at a bakery there. They had some tasty looking food in there, but all we got was a veggie patti, which was basically a croissant filled with veggies. It was delicious! We than went to a store where they sell things that are native to Bangladesh, like artwork and such. We each found a little something there to get. After that we were going to go to another shop, but today happened to be the day when all of those shops were closed! We were disappointed, but at the same time, we are ready to go back to the orphanage!

Dhaka Adventure Continued...

       Today was very exciting! It was spent in Old town Dhaka! Before we arrived there however we had needed to stop for the bathroom. We found one, well our translator did, at the stadium (I think it’s a cricket stadium!). This bathroom turned out to be the one the guards of the stadium used. It was rather gross! To understand why it was difficult to find a bathroom, let me explain the culture. In Bangladesh, men just go to the bathroom anywhere. You look beside any road, you will find at least one man squatting; they squat for all bathroom needs!! The women of Bangladesh just let it run down their legs according to Mrs. Waid, so even if you do find a bathroom facility it is usually just for men.

        Old Dhaka was where we went to get material; material for girl’s dresses, boy’s shirts, dishtowels (the handicraft ladies make I think), for bed sheets and curtains of the new rooms. We first got the material for the dishtowels. Then Mrs. Waid, Chantel, Lauren, and I took rickshaws to another material area for the rest. This was a real adventure, we can’t speak Bangla of course and in old Dhaka, not many speak English, especially not rickshaw drivers! We split up, Lauren and Chantel in one, Mrs. Waid and I in the other. The one with Lauren and Chantel took off, and Mrs. Waid was yelling at it, we hadn’t got on ours yet. They were waiting for us at a corner and we continued on with Mrs. Waid and mine rickshaw leading. We arrived to our destination just fine and got all we needed. We then had to hire a rickshaw van to get us and all our material back. We made it to the other shop just fine, but then we needed to add that material and one more person to this rickshaw van. That was a real experience! A nice man helped our driver, who was an old man and rickshaws are all bicycles, by pushing from the back the whole way back to where our van was waiting for us. The two men than wanted more than Mrs. Waid thought reasonable and so they weren’t leaving us alone to get paid, but they finally did and we drove off. Dhaka is pretty big, but it really shouldn’t take like 2 hours, maybe not quite, to get back to the dentist clinic!! The traffic is awful in Dhaka! It is always bumper to bumper, I don’t think it ever lets up!

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!

Village with Nurse Kerri

       Today Kerri and I went into the village with Pomwell to look at a sick lady. When we arrived, the lady was squatting against a tree. Everyone squats here; it’s actually pretty incredible the way they squat, flat on their feet, not toes!! Pomwell was our interpreter and so he tried to find out what was wrong and what hurt. This lady’s feet were very swollen and when you pressed on her legs, your finger indent stayed. She complained of abdominal pain when she sat or stood, especially when she sat. Kerri wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong, but she figured a lack of protein and dehydration was part of it. So she advised the lady to raise her feet above her heart (to try and get some swelling down), drink plenty of water, eat some protein, and see a doctor to get a true diagnosis. Kerri did say she thought she had a fever, but she hadn’t brought a thermometer to be sure. After making sure the lady lay down with her feet up, we left and went to see another lady. This lady had come and seen someone at the orphanage gate who gave her some pain reliever. From talking with her Kerri determined that she had tension headaches and arthritis probably. Not much you can do for that. :(

More Pictures

 Singing in front of church

Our clothes curtains

Second Sabbath

       So one thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that during the children’s rest time, Olie (a lady that works in the office and who Kelsey started to teach piano to) asked me if I would help her get together a special music with the children, basically teach them a new song to sing. Well for some reason the only song that was coming to mind to teach them was “There is a Treasure”. So yesterday afternoon we got a group together and taught it to them and then practiced it. We did that until it was my dinner time. Then it was the kids dinner time and then it was time for vespers. After vespers, the kids found me and told it was time to practice again, so we gathered everyone, and even acquired a few new ones, and practiced some more. It got to the point where many were not singing and I felt like we had practiced enough, but Olie would not let up. Then they decided it needed to be louder and so all of them started just yelling it instead of singing, so I put a stop to that pretty fast. I’m not quite sure if a few of the girls were trying to sing harmony or just an octave higher, but whatever it was, it was way off key, so I gently told them to sing with the rest of us. This morning I had gotten up early and dressed way before I normally do, which is a good thing since the children came ringing our doorbell telling me it was time to practice early. So again we practiced until I had to go eat breakfast. The performance during church went rather well, I was proud of them!

       There was a misunderstanding today on when the village Sabbath School would be held. Last week it was at 2:00pm and dinner was at 3:00pm, today dinner was planned for 2:00pm and we hadn’t heard anything different for the branch Sabbath School. So we ate hurriedly since we weren’t sure what was going on. Because of what time it was when we finished eating, Mr. Waid arranged for out little put-put (motorized flatbed rickshaw) to take us. When we arrived none of our children were there and Pomwell (the pastor and person in charge of this Sabbath School) wasn’t there either. Metali (one of our guard’s daughter, who attends our school) was with us, so we got her to help us in singing songs. We sang quite a few songs before Pomwell showed up with the children. When they showed up we taught all the villagers a new song and then Chantel was able to tell her story. It was a story of Zacchaeus. We also had to wait for Pomwell because he had pages for the children to color after the story, so when Chantel was done, we handed out the papers making sure the villagers all got one before handing them out amongst our children. When they were done coloring they each got a package of crackers, they were all so excited to get them!

Pictures

Our corner at Hong Kong airport

Waiting for our ride in Dhaka with all our bags

The hotel we stayed at in Dhaka

Our Non breakfast being made

The Children all together to greet us

Kakoli and me

Lauren with Amelia asleep on her lap during church

The Branch Sabbath School

Our dead HUGE spider compared to Chantel's ipod mini

Our trip back from our exciting trip with just Mrs. Waid

First Day of Teaching

       My first day of teaching recorder was yesterday and an interesting experience. These children have only had a little bit of music experience that was not singing and so I need to teach them how to read music before we can really do anything. I really have no idea how to go about doing this so I started with rhythm and teaching them how to count and clap different beats. When I was planning what I was going to do I expected to get a lot further than I did get. All we did was basically memorize different rhythms and play them together, but this gave me a good idea how to proceed.

       Today was the day for piano classes. Mrs. Waid told me what classes I should probably start with and then told me the kids could tell me who Kelsey (the previous sm) had started to teach. Well when I asked the kids, they told me all of third grade had taken lessons, but that is 14 children, I am definitely not up to teaching 14 children in one day. So today I took them all and gave them each a ten minute lesson and found the ones I thought were musically talented. This is a hard task, because I don’t want to say no to any of them, but I don’t think I can teach all of them, especially after experiencing today. Quite a few of the children did very good, so it will be hard to narrow it down. Some of the children did ok, but just didn’t seem very interested so those I don’t think I will teach.

Laundry

       Laundry is definitely an experience here. They have a washer and dryer, but they only use them for diapers and sheets, everything else is done by hand. As student missionaries we have two options, pay a bit and have the laundry ladies do our laundry or do our own. We all have opted to do our own, at least for now. I’ve hand-washed some clothes before, but not all my clothes, when I’ve done it in the states, I’m also using liquid soap and here they use bar soap. You put the bar in the bucket and then fill it with water. You want to make sure that the soap has gotten in the water. If the water is clear, you know you have to make your own suds! The very first time I washed clothes I found out that this soap gets stains out extremely well. I had a white shirt that had got jam or something on it and after rubbing some soap on it and letting it soak, it came right out, it was amazing! The more you do Laundry the better you get at wringing out your clothes. The first time we all did laundry, all three of us kind of did it all at once, not a good idea. We have a clothes line on our back porch and so we hung up all our clothes there, well it turned out to be too much for the worn rope and the rope broke, dropping all our clothes on the ground. After that we fixed it, but haven’t really hung anything up out there. The reason being, the ants; for some reason they seem to really like our clothes if we hang them up out there. So now we hang our clothes on our curtain rods in our front and extra room. It looks kind of cool when we all do laundry, all our colorful outfits hanging up, we have made our own curtains!

New Town Adventures

       Today was definitely an adventure. We went to town again, this time without a translator, was just us three girls and Mrs. Waid. Mrs. Waid needed to get some towels and stuff and Chantel and I needed a couple more everyday shalwar kameez’s, so we went to quite a few of the material shops. That’s all they really look like, probably because that is all they are. They are basically a room open with usually 2 sides to the streets. They are a raised room set up with stools in front for people to sit at and browse through the merchandise. There are a few nicer/newer shops that you actually walk into yourself (you must take your shoes off first) and can browse through all the outfits hanging up. Mrs. Waid only knows a little Bangla, so it was interesting to see her try and get across what she was looking for. She has a few shops in Hili that she always goes to for certain things and those shops have worked well for her, so she sticks with them. At one of those shops she just kept coming up with more and more stuff that she needed. Being without a translator definitely was an experience that we don’t really want to repeat, especially at the tailors, our outfits didn’t turn out quite right with a translator the first time, we are kind of wondering what they will turn out like this time without one!

Spider

       When we were getting up this morning I saw this HUGE thing with feet skittered behind my bed. I freaked and Chantel was like “What?” and I said that I just saw a huge spider. She kind of laughed and went to look and then let out a screech and jump back. Lauren came in and was like “What is going on?” Chantel told her there was a GINORMOUS spider. I moved my bed away from the wall so it would not climb on it, and we all got our cameras. I was standing on the bed and Chantel was being brave and was between the bed and wall getting a picture. Well suddenly she freaks and jumps up on the bed frame, the spider had run towards her. Now while you all are laughing at us, let me just tell you this spider was HUGE and it didn’t just crawl, it moved with a swiftness I did not know spiders contained!! Lauren was the brave one of us and got her shoe and when it climbed on our table and smashed it. Before that, it disappeared, we had no idea where it went, I was on Lauren’s bed and started taking video, it was rather funny I have to admit. After Lauren killed it and we knew it was dead because it fell to the floor all crumpled, we made sure to clean it and all its juices up to avoid the ants if possible. It was gross!!

Picture for Sponsors

       Mrs. Waid makes sure to take pictures of all the children at least 3 times while she is here, the first one being almost as soon as she gets here. Well this year Mrs. Waid give us three girls that task, the reason being, she saw Chantel’s nice camera and decided Chantel could take them and Lauren and I would help. It was an interesting experience for sure! Most of the little babies would not smile and many of them started crying the moment we tried. These pictures are for the sponsors of the children and so we want them to be good and to look happy. That was a big task. After three days of trying, we finally succeeded with at least getting cute pictures of all the children.

Attack of the Ants

       So the bugs honestly aren’t bad, all that is except for these disgustingly annoying tiny red ants. They attack anything that even smells remotely of food. Well everything that is except soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and chapstick, but other than that everything that has a smell of food, they attack. They also attack if something used to have food in it, like my purse for example, I’m sure I’ve had food in it and I know I’ve had cough drops in it and they attacked it! They are everywhere! They form lines that go on forever! So annoying!!

First Sabbath

       Our first Sabbath was a hot day. It was a day that was not ideal to wear a nice shirt and long skirt, but since our outfits were at the tailors, that is what we had to wear. Sabbath school starts at 9:00am here and since that is our normal breakfast time, on Sabbaths it is moved up to 8:30am. Even with it moved up, there are people setting up for the group that meets in the cafeteria, where we eat. When we were ready for Sabbath school, a few of the older girls took me to their Sabbath school, which is located in their room. Lauren was also brought there. We were asked to teach a new song and so taught them the Clap Jesus Loves me. We were then asked to tell a story, since we were given no warning before hand, both of our stories were short and so we were convinced to tell one more story each. At the end of Sabbath school I had to smile, to finish up they sang the “Sabbath School is Over” song which took me back to my childhood. J When Sabbath school is out here there is time before church starts and so all the kids surrounded us. When it was church time, Rimi (who is probably three years old) took me to sit with the other little girls. One other little girl attached herself to me while I was sitting there, she is cute (but then all the kids are!) her name is Suzanna. During church many of the little girls fell asleep, one even fell asleep on Lauren’s lap, it was really cute. After church all the children change and then eat and then rest some, so while they were doing all that, the three of us went back up to our room and rested.

       After about an hour our door bell rang. A few kids were there to tell us Grammy (Mrs. Waid) was calling, it was time for a walk through the village. A group of kids went with us. Everyone had to hold hands and Kakoli and Joseph were the two that took mine. It was interesting to see the village and how it runs, all the villagers at work making baskets and such. They do such a nice job of weaving. When the walk was finished we had about 10 minutes until it was time to head out to the village again, this time for the branch Sabbath school held at the SDA school there. The children that joined us for that adventure were all girls and none of them we knew yet. The two that stuck with me were Rebecca and Kathi. As we walked we found out that Rebecca and I shared our birthday, January 5.

       When we reached the school many children were there and ready to start. We started with songs and then Lauren told a story. The pastor, his name is Ponwell, was her interrupter and as she told the story, he definitely added embellishments and even finished it for her, it was kind of funny. We then had prayer and left.

       After dinner we said good night to the children and then went to the Waids apartment for game night where we had mango smoothies and played 5 Crowns.

First Day at Bangla Hope

Our days and nights are still a little messed up. We are tired early and wake up early. That is what happened this morning. We also went on a walk, we were going to walk with the Waids but they left without us and so we went on our own and ended up doing a lot shorter walk than it would have been with them. When they got back Nurse Kerri took out my stitches. I was so excited to be able to fully wash my hair I took a shower as soon as possible! The plan was to go into town today and so when we were finished eating we went back up to our room and got ready to go. Before we left we had to exchange money, each of us exchanged $50 hoping it would be enough, in return we got 3600 takas, and it turned out to be plenty! Our first shopping trip was interesting. We took the van, all seven of us crowded in, actually there was the seven Americans and two Bangla ladies, so there were actually about ten of us crowded in the van. We then drove into Hili and our driver dropped us off. We then went in search of salwar kameez for us. We went to many shops and each found two nice church one’s. Lauren also found two everyday one’s but Chantel and I only found one each. We then dropped them off at the tailors and went back to Bangla Hope.

Arrival at Bangla Hope

       We arrived at Bangla Hope at about 1:30pm. When we came through the gate we saw that the children and workers were all gathered. A sign hung above the gate and welcomed the Waids home. They had a program planned to welcome us and so they had us sit off to the side to watch it. The teachers and older girls were the ones that performed for us. They sang and danced, it was well done. After that was done, we were shown where all of us would be staying. After we had settled in we went back outside and the children and Mrs. Waid found us. Johnny was the one that attached himself to me almost right away. Then Kakoli joined him after she had given me some stickers. We then ate dinner and then played the children more. We joined the children for their worship and then we left and came back to our room, already tired and it’s not yet 8pm.

Dhaka to Bangla Hope

       We left the hotel at 6am to leave for the Orphanage. There are some things that you notice in the day that you really don’t notice at night. One was the driving, it is on the left side which is noticeable at night, but you really don’t get the full effect until it is daylight and you can see all the little things that happen, plus more people are out in the daylight! J The rules of the roads are simple here, if you are larger you have the right of way; if you are more in front of someone, you have the right of way; drive wherever you want but get out of the way for those vehicles that are larger! In the US, you know what to expect for corners, here corners can happen at any moment because of the way they pass other vehicles and people. Their trucks are very brightly and colorfully painted, actually all of their vehicles and buildings are, this is one country that loves color! Something that I did not expect to see everywhere is goats. They are the dogs of South America, everywhere! They have dogs here as well, but not nearly as many varieties or great amounts as they do in other countries I have been to! I did expect to see a lot of rickshaws and was not disappointed, although I saw a few more motorized ones than I even thought of! They use their bicycle rickshaws for transporting everything, people, vegetables, hay, and so much more.

       For breakfast we stopped at a place that had really good food. When we got out of the van a military looking guard person pointed out where we were supposed to go, he was there when we were done and opened our van door again for us; it was as if they were guarding our vehicles and then us when we were near them. Breakfast consisted of Non and fried eggs. The Non was freshly made. Before we sat down to eat we watched them make it. They first rolled the dough into small balls and then heated up the oven. They then took the dough and flattened the balls into circles and slapped them on the walls of the oven. As the Non cooked it became a bubble on the oven wall, when it was cooked all the way, which I’m not quite sure how they determined that, They would remove the Non with this poker thing.

Getting gas has been an experience. They don’t have tanks like we do in the US, their gas tanks are located in the back of their vans, just sitting there. It is really interesting having gas pumped with the back open. This one gas stop was the last place to get gas before Bangla Hope and so we had to stop. It was a really crowded gas station, so we had to sit in line and wait for a rather long time before it was our turn to get gas. While we were sitting there some natives came up to our windows trying to sell us some food. They were on the opposite side of the van from me and so I just got to observe them. Chantel was right by the window they were coming up to and they kept smiling at her and she could not stop laughing. Two of them were insistent on selling us their goods. They had nice smiles and both seemed young. Their food looked interesting and we were trying to figure out what it was. Mrs. Waid said one of the foods was some type of spoiled fruit that they really enjoyed. The young man selling them seemed to enjoy making Chantel laugh, which as I said earlier wasn’t hard since she couldn’t seem to stop. We were all laughing and enjoying it. Mrs. Waid decided we should try something from them so she called over the man holding what seemed to be an assortment of seeds. He seemed to be making some kind of mixture with all of the seeds, and Mrs. Waid wouldn’t get any unless he didn’t use their hands or he let her make it, which is what he finally agreed to. When it is all mixed together it is something called Chanicha. Mrs. Waid said it contained mustard seed oil, onion, puffed rice, fried Dahl pieces, chili, and a mix of other seeds and stuff. The mustard seed oil and chili made it very hot and spicy! But it did taste kinda good! J

Dhaka

Customs was relatively simple in Dhaka. We just had to fill out a visitor paper; we didn’t even have to declare anything! The customs officers just looked at our passports with our visa in it, they took a picture of us and we were done! We then gathered all our bags and loaded them on carts and then waited on the curb for our transportation. It took seven carts to carry all our bags, one cart for each of us.  Our transportation arrived in the form of a van and a truck. We loaded the truck bed high and tied it down. The rest of our luggage and carry-ons were put in the back of the van. Kerri, Bob, Chantel, Lauren, and I were dropped off at a hotel. The hotel was a pretty nice one, we really didn’t stay up much past getting there, we took showers (I washed my hair in the sink with the spray nozzle they had) are now getting ready to turn out the lights.

Farthest from home...so far

       I am now the furthest I've ever been from home and I am only going further! The flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong was super long! We were following the dark (or is it the morning?), which was an interesting experience. I’d have to say I’m pretty sure it was the longest night of my life. It got dark about the time we reached Portland and didn’t get light until we were almost to Hong Kong. That is like 20 hours of dark, way too many!! We left Vancouver at about 2:45am, which was on time, unlike our Portland to Vancouver flight. I never realized how long 13 hours was until I had to sit on a plane that wouldn’t even let you put the seat back a little, it was not comfortable and because of that I did not get much sleep.

       When we arrived in Hong Kong, we had to go to the Dragon Air desk to get our boarding passes for our flight to Dhaka. At the desk they asked us to see our baggage tickets. The Waids had quite a few extra bags and there was a nice man at the Alaskan Air desk in Spokane that did not charge them extra. Well in Hong Kong they were almost going to have to pay extra, but the teller at the Dragon Air desk was kind as well and let them through with no extra charge. Mr. Waid figured out what they would have had to pay extra and it came to like $1500. After that happened, we got in a circle right there in front of the counter and thanked God for the miracle.

       We have a 12 hour layover, but since we are stopping here on the way back, we don’t see a need to bother with what to do with our carry-ons to explore Hong Kong, so we found a couple tables and put all of our carry-ons there and are rotating who is sitting and watching them.

It is now close enough to our flight we know what gate we leave from so we are in chairs near there and all of us are pretty tired and are probably going to take a nap.

Leaving the Country

       So we finally made it out of Kennewick at around 2pm and to the Spokane airport! We found what was lost and fit everything in bags and got all the bags checked in with no problems. Security didn't hold any of our group up and our plane left Spokane on time. We made it safely to Portland and are now sitting in the airport waiting for our flight that will be an hour late, so instead of leaving at 9:20pm our plane will arrive at 9:40pm! Traveling with the Waids has been an experience. They definitely know how to keep you entertained! Loosing things or looking for things seems to be their specialty! But everything is found eventually! :)
An example of this is just when we were getting in line to board our flight to Vancouver, Mrs. Waid wasn't sure where her boarding pass was. Mr. Waid thought that maybe he gave her the wrong one to throw away after our flight from Spokane to Portland, then they realized that it was just in a different pocket.
       The Vancouver airport is really a cool airport. It has a waterfall just as you enter between the international terminals right by the customs counter. We arrived at about 11:15 from Portland and now sit and wait for our really long flight to Hong Kong where I'm sure more adventures await us, especially since we must pick up our next boarding pass there! :)

Miracle before I even started packing

       Being the procrastinator I am, the official packing of my bags did not even get planned to happen until the day before I was leaving, Wednesday Sept. 28. The plan was for me to drive up to Walla Walla Thursday, and spend the weekend up there saying my last minute goodbyes. Jodi would then take me to Kennewick to meet with the Waids (the directors of the orphanage) and then have the car for the school year. I was wanting to spend at least one more time out on a friend's boat, the last time to spend time on the water for at least six months. We finally found time to go out and planned to go part of Wednesday out, then I was going to pack the rest of the day. The day started off good, beautiful water, graceful landings, lovely sunshine, and wonderful friends. We were ready to head in and I was taking one more run on my wakeboard. The landing of the jump I tried was not so graceful, the front of my board caught and threw me on my face. Faceplants I can handle, I have done them plenty of times, I can even handle my feet coming out of my board, what I have never had to deal with (until now that is) is having the board hit me in the back of the head. I felt the faceplant and was thinking about what I did wrong and how I would fix it next time when I felt the board hit me. I didn't black out, it didn't even hurt extremely bad, but I knew I was done for the day. I climbed back in the boat and realized that I was bleeding. Our on board nurse, Linda, took a look at it and determined it would probably need some steri-strips to help it heal properly. We headed back home keeping ice on the wound. When we arrived back, Linda got her steri-strips, scissors, a razor, and bandages to fix it up. Once she got it all cleaned up and could see the cut better, she realized it was worse than originally thought and would probably actually need stitches. We then called up our family friend who is a Physicians Assistant and found out if she could stitch me up. She could and did, with nine stitches. Because of this head injury my dad didn't want me to drive up by myself and so he said he would drive me, but he had to work Thursday still, and so I did pack last minute, Wednesday night and Thursday morning! We made it safely to Walla Walla after driving all night, we got accomplished the last minute errands and I got to spend time with friends!
       The miracle...A head injury, no concussion, no major headaches, no extreme bleeding, and heading overseas with American medical personal who are able to make sure nothing goes wrong.