Photos Continued!

 This is our Eid dinner. It looks interesting in this picture, but it was all pretty much delicious!

As we were heading back from our Eid dinner we stopped by the side of the road and picked some Eucalyptus leaves. Beside us on the side of the road was a man standing on a ladder using it to even out the mud in his field. It was interesting to watch!

This is our 'slumber party'. It was really fun. They were the first week.



Top to Bottom, Left to Right: Konny, Kami, Heather, Marissa, Chantel, Melony, Kimberly.

Twister was fun, although Melony made it her mission to knock me down every time! It involved a lot of falling!

 This is honestly one of my favorite pictures! The all look like they are having such a fun time and I LOVE Rebecca's face!! As you can see, they didn't really get the concept of only your hands and feet are supposed to touch!

The order (L to R): Jennie, Bristy, Sherry, Rebecca, Diana. This is group was the second group. They were crazy and loud and fun!

Here are Isaac and Noah, the two buddies that take care of each other. Isaac is in the GAP sweater and Noah has the hat on. They both are very cute and when they see us they run to us smiling!

Danny is fun. He comes up to our room at random times. It is usually while the other kids are resting. This happened to be a Sabbath afternoon before we went to the village Sabbath School. He does enjoy listening to my mp3 player or Lauren's ipod!

 For Art one Sunday we decided to do sidewalk art using calk. This is a flower one of the children did. It looks pretty cool I must say. Many of these kids are very talented in the drawing department!

Charity is a twin. They are young enough that they are still in the baby room. At this time we were trying to get a picture of Charity, but she wasn't smiling, so I picked her up and she clung to me. So many of the kids just need love and they are all so cute, it's easy to love them all!

So while we were out with the kids we discovered why teeter-totters are illegal in America. This is showing the after effects of seeing how many children could fit on, or something like that. Tisha (she's on the ground, you can see the pink of her dress) got squished and fell off. She wasn't hurt, but it did cause a big commotion!

This is some of the children that are in the baby room. I happened to take this picture Thanksgiving morning. When I spent most of the morning with them. You can see Isabella's hand at the bottom. Straight in the middle is Lexi with Faith beside her. The child in blue with her back turned is Coco and the baby in front of her is Karena. I don't know the caretakers name, but all the caretakers in the baby room are very happy and are very good with the babies!

After church, well really any meeting, we get mobbed by children. I think something I'm going to miss most is having a child on my lap during church and prayer meetings. I have tried to vary who is on my lap, but there are a few that are consistant, Danae is one! She sits there quietly, unlike some who just can't sit still!

Another thing I am going to miss is having children hanging on my arms. Being attacked by at least one child the moment we come down the stairs!

Photos!

The ladies in our shari's. These outfits are also known as sari's, but here in Bangladesh the s is pronounce as a sh! In the picture above the far left is Shati (our cook), then Bani (who dressed us!), then Lauren, Nurse Kerri, Chantel, and finally me!

 This is our room, it is a bit messy, but I took it to show our bug nets! The pink bed is mine, the blue Lauren's, and the green is Chantel's. It looks small and crowded in this picture, but it really isn't that bad!









Isaac, definitely a cutey!He's very small and has a rice belly, but he is very cute!

 



Mark is the one that tells me he loves me 100, 100, 100, 99, 1000. He an adorable little boy and one that is definitely on the list of favorites!










 So this is what my hair looked like after it got braided! Bristy was the one that braided my hair. She is the far left and since then has become a favorite of mine. Melony is the middle one, she is who did Lauren's hair, the one who has typhoid. Marissa is the far right, she is a sweetheart. She helped Bristy and Melony do our hair.

This is from our trip to Dhaka. Lauren said she wanted to see a Bengal tiger and after that, we saw this tiger!









This is Danae. She is one that has fallen asleep on me multiple times during church and vespers. This is her extremely happy, she is typically quiet and pretty solemn, but adorable!

Adventist Tradition

       Week of Prayer ended today. The theme for this week was ‘Jesus is coming…are you ready?’ It was an interesting week. A visiting pastor and his wife were the speakers. The meetings were definitely geared towards the adults although the children had to sit through them as well. There were meetings in both the morning and the evening. The morning meetings started at 7:30am and typically seemed to go until about 8:50am although they were only supposed to go until 8:30am. Twenty minutes may not seem like that long for a speaker to go over, but the children have school, so the later they went the more time was taken out of the school day. The meetings were interesting; they very much had a fire and brimstone quality. They were also mainly in Bangla with an English sentence thrown in every once in a while; it made it an interesting experience!

       Today was communion and footwashing. This summer I worked at camp where this was the station that I worked at on Sabbath; because of this I think it lost some of its meaning, but I think today helped remind me. After a long sermon that was on Nebuchadnezzar’s statue I think, the children changed and the adults went outside to wash feet. I felt very humbled when an older Bengali lady asked, well motioned, if she could wash my feet. I washed her feet in return and then she gave me a hug and then touched my feet then head which is a sign of respect here I think. We then went our separate ways, me to take pictures of Lauren’s footwashing experience and her…I’m not sure where she went. Here the women and men totally separate, spouses don’t even wash each other’s feet. It reminded me of when I was little and the women were at the front of the church and the men at the back, I think. After everyone was done with footwashing communion started. There were seven people up front, five men and two women. The women turned out to only be there to remove the cloth covering the bread and juice. I have to say, I think that communion bread tastes better in America than here; here it is more white, it’s not bad, but just not quite as tasty. The juice we got was white and we weren’t quite sure what it was, it did not taste like grape juice. We found out later that it was raisin juice, although I have no idea how to make it!

       Today was overall a very good day and a good reminder of why communion and footwashing takes place. What they symbolize and are supposed to remind us of...Jesus' sacrifice and being like Him.

Local Transport

       Today we wanted to go into town really bad. We were all really ready to get off the campus for a bit so we were looking for a way into town, plus there were a few things we needed to get! Our little putt-putt is broken and so we had to see if we could find another way in. We found out Oly, the office assistant here, was going and so we asked if we could catch a ride with her. She agreed and said she would call a rickshaw van. When we all were ready to go we found out that no rickshaw van had been called so we started walking, Oly said we would find one on the way. When she told us this we knew it would be an adventure! We did find one and he took us in. I have to say these Bengalis honestly impress me. They ride bikes everywhere and the rickshaw drivers are especially impressive. They have to have super muscular legs to pedal as long as they do with heavy loads. Our rickshaw driver was no exception, he kept a pretty good pace and four of us in the back could not have been super light; although that was nothing compared to the trip back. Oly had to get food for a dinner she was making for the visiting pastor and his wife tomorrow and we needed some shelves and wanted to look at more shalwar kameezs. We found all we need and plus, so our rickshaw van was very crowded going back. It was cool going in with Oly. Since she needed food we went to food market area, which is an area we never went to before. It was really interesting to see all the rice and spices in the bags ready to be scooped out, measured, and taken away!

Thanksgiving

       Thanksgiving passed by uneventfully. It was normal day until dinner. We still had school and still were required to teach, but it was fun. I spent the morning trying to finish off getting pictures. The only children we really have left are those in the baby room and they are not easy to get good pictures of! When I went out to the playground where they spend most of the morning, either Isabella or Maryella (I think Isabella though I still can’t tell them apart!) came running to me and wanted to be picked up, so I held her while I took pictures of the other children. They went back to their room and since I hadn’t got all the ones I needed I followed them. When I was in there, I kind of had to give up on taking pictures and ended up just sitting down. After I sat, Isabella (again I’m not positive) came and sat on my lap and stayed there until their toys were put away and it was time for them to get ready for lunch. It is really cute to see how the baby room children have changed toward us the longer we’re here. When we first got here they were all scared of us and wouldn’t come near us, now they are more used to us and some will come running up to us, others still hide their faces when we look at them, but none seem to really be afraid of us anymore!

       Our only ‘Thanksgiving’ celebration part of our day was dinner. Shati outdid herself preparing it. We had mashed potatoes, fried gluten, stuffing, and green bean casserole. For dessert we had pumpkin pie. The last time Shati made us pumpkin pie it was more like a squash pie, not much spice or sweet, but this time Kerri helped make it and it was delicious! Almost like home! For dinner Lauren, Chantel, and I decided to dress up in shari’s and decorated the table. It was wonderful!

       I ended the day most wonderfully, but talking to my family! I called them up and got to talk to everyone, it was good to hear everyone’s voices and not just be ‘talking’ via instant messaging! I am so thankful that I am here, that I love these children, that they love me, that I am having a wonderful time, that I got to talk to my family, and that I have wonderful roommates! I do love Bangladesh and all the people here!

Ready for School

       Melony went to the hospital yesterday. We found out that she has typhoid. We were talking about it while we were in our room and none of us could remember exactly what causes typhoid or what the treatment is and such. Then I remembered that I brought my microbiology book. Now some of you may think it odd that I brought a textbook with me as a student missionary, but you have to remember, I was planning on working in a clinic and I am not a fully trained anything. Anyway, reading what my book had to say about typhoid honestly made me excited to go back to school and become a nurse!

       This last school year I was basically just getting generals out of the way, so I wasn’t taking any nursing related classes and was not enjoying many of them. Don’t get me wrong, history is very interesting and so was learning Spanish, but I just didn’t have a passion for any of it. When I was reading my Micro book, I almost didn’t want to stop. I had forgotten how interesting it is to study that sort of thing. I think this is a good sign, especially since I was starting to not be sure if I should continue nursing, but now I am again convinced this is a good path for me. I’m starting to think I might even specialize in pediatrics, but that is not a definite thing yet!!

On Our Own

       Sorry about not posting in awhile; Bob, Kerri, and the Waids left Lauren, Chantel and I to go to Dhaka. They left Tuesday and came back last night. So today was the first day with them back. We were all happy to see eachother and I was especially happy to see Kerri. While she was gone I had the key to the clinic and so I was the one to whom everyone came when they had any kind of sickness or injury, and I do mean any kind! The main thing I had to watch out for was Bart and his stitches. He fell and got his chin cut open, so Kerri had to put three stitches in. This happened the Friday before they left, so while they were gone, I was in charge of changing Bart’s bandages and watching it for infection and such. I knew I could handle this since it was what I had to do for myself when I had my stitches! Since they had left Tuesday morning we were on our own for practically a whole week. Being the only ‘medical’ staff on hand, I was actually kept kind of busy! Whenever anyone got any kind of cut or injury they came to me and wanted something.

       Friday night was actually sort of stressful for me. I was heading to vespers with Lauren, Chantel, and Danny, who had come up to our room after he had eaten and gotten ready. Saborna (the head caretaker) caught me and said we had many sick babies. So I went with her to the baby room where most of the babies were sitting on a mat and some not looking good at all. Saborna told me ‘they all had fever’. Well I honestly don’t know all the ways to tell if babies have fevers, so I went to the clinic and got the thermometer and some fever medicine. I then went back and took the temps of the worst looking children. Now I do know what normal temperature is for humans, but I was not quite sure what was considered high, dangerously high, and just too high for babies. I did remember something Kerri had said when one of the little boys had a fever, so I based the treatment I recommended on that. I gave the ones with fever some medicine and then told them when to give more if it seemed needed. Now all that I did with them was purely guessing, but later that night I was talking to my parents and looking online and it appeared that I was not far off from what is typically recommended for treatment of babies and fevers. Although online did say a lot of ‘if their temperature is above this call the doctor’. Well here in Bangladesh that doesn’t really work. I do think I did pretty well for not knowing anything for what to do! From what I remember when I was a child, if I had a fever or felt ill, I was put in my bed with water, and maybe a damp rag on my forehead, but I really don’t remember taking much medicine, although I do remember child Tylenol/Ibuprofen, that it tasted similar to bubble gum and I didn’t mind taking it! It’s kind of funny; I didn’t remember that until I smelt them as I was getting some out of the bottle.

       After we checked the babies, Saborna took me to a few other children who they said were sick, although none of them seemed to have a bad fever. I gave them vitamin C, since it just appeared they had a cold or something. The people here are very paranoid or something. If they have any type of symptom of even just an everyday cold, they freak out and want medicine. They seem to rely more on doctors and medicine than their own body’s defense mechanisms. The doctors here definitely take advantage of this mindset and prescribe many things and also seem to go straight to surgery for something that may be just fine. Babies being born is an example of this, from the sound of it most children here are born by C-section if they are born in a hospital.

       I must say, after this experience, I am going to be very happy when I am at least starting nursing and have some type of training! Learning about babies and fevers online made me realize again how fun learning is! I don't think I'm going to mind going back to school!

Taking Care of Each Other

       Last night I was telling the boys goodnight and got to observe a rather cute interaction between children. I was sitting there with both Noah and Isaac, both are three I think. Noah started crying I think because someone hit him. He was sitting behind Isaac, so I picked him up and brought him around so I could hold him better. As I was holding him against me Isaac, who was still sitting on my lap started stroking Noah’s head, which is what the caretakers do to comfort the children when they are crying. Noah didn’t stop crying and I ended up setting him down for some reason while he was still whimpering. He stayed by me, and after a bit Isaac said something to him in Bangla and Noah replied. They continued to talk for a little while and Noah didn’t continue to cry. It was so cute to see how these children take care of each other. I’ve seen it with the older taking care of the younger, but tonight was especially cute. Noah and Isaac are the two youngest, not including the babies and so they are the only two playmates they have that are the same age and gender. It was adorable how Isaac tried to comfort Noah. They are best buds!! :)