We started our day out today with school. The children are doing well getting some of their work done each morning. The routine that has worked best for us so far is to eat breakfast all together at the guest house and then begin our school day (which your children will be jealous to hear is only 2 hours long). If we do it at this time we are able to have all four of us on hand to work with the 8 kids. The first day we did school it was just Sara and I and the men took off to explore and serve where possible. That would’ve been fine for us if it weren’t for the fact that each grade level is learning something new and therefore they ALL need help with explanations! We think we have worked a nice routine out now.
After that, Babul Mollick (the Hospital Driver I’ve known since I was a little girl) took us up the road to a little town called Cheringa. Dad kept the kids back at Malumghat because the crowds in this town would be offensive and unbearable for them. It was fun to make that drive and catch up with Babul about his family.
Sara and I wanted to buy some Saris to wear on Sunday. I already have 2 with me but since Sara didn’t have one and wanted one, I decided to buy 2 more. Ha! Buying Saris is a big ordeal. You first go into a little shop and sit down. The men begin to pull out all the Saris that they think are beautiful and they spread them out in front of you. You have to tell them, “No, I don’t like that one…too fancy” or “ugly” or “wrong color” until they finally pull ONE Sari out that you can work with. It is at that point that you begin to make forward progress. Once you establish the color you were looking for, or fabric, or degree of embellishment…they begin to pull out every Sari that looks even remotely similar. In the end, if you haven’t found that perfect Sari, you either get up and walk away only to start all over somewhere else, or you settle for something from sheer exhaustion! While we settled to some degree, I do like the Saris that I ended up picking.
All the while you are shopping for your Saris, a crowd is gathering around you. We aren’t talking a crowd of three or four but of 20-25 people standing in every open spot around you. They watch you go through the entire process and talk about you the whole time, pointing and laughing and staring. It is not for the faint-hearted, for sure. One has to have thick skin in this culture! One man pulled Mike outside for smoke. Ha ha! When Mike told him that he didn’t smoke he took him down to the local fast food joint and bought him a water and a shingara (a ball of potato and vegetables wrapped in a crust and then deep friend – YUM). Mike decided to get some for all of us to take back to Malumghat for our lunch and ended up in a little bit of a panic as this man took him from shop to shop to shop to find a price that he thought would be appropriate for this Bideshi (foreigner) to pay. He was getting further and further away from the shop, knew no Bangla and his “friend” knew no English. Meanwhile, back at the Sari shop, we were done, waiting on Mike and growing concerned about what had happened to him. (Unless you can get your brain around the masses of people you cannot understand why this would be concerning.) Mike also had the phone so we couldn’t get Babul on the phone to tell him we were finished and to come pick us up. Obviously, it all worked out just fine but we had about 10-15 very uncomfortable minutes waiting on the side of the road for Mike to return so we could call Babul.
In the late afternoon we took some goodie bags up to the children who are sick in the hospital. It was such a blessing to spend time at each bed showing them the crayons and color pages, the glow stick, cars, balloons, etc. That we were giving them. They were so delighted with such simple pleasures. Several of them are tied up in traction so it will be difficult for them to even play with these things. At least now they have something to look forward to when they are able! Our children were able to pray over the patients they were giving their gifts to. What a special blessing for us as parents to watch our kids minister to these Bangladeshi children by enlisting the help of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ. Amen and amen!
I am posting this without pictures right now because it is hard enough to get a connection. Pictures take about 30 minutes each to load and sometimes just as it finally loads the connection is lost! It has been very frustrating to try to do this blog. So I journal on the side in a word document and then when it is my turn to have the internet card (flash stick thingamabob) I try to copy and paste the words, save, then go back and add pictures. Hopefully that will help you understand why the posts are so few and far between and pictures are at a minimum.
More later!
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